JAJAH Babel is a speech-to-speech translation service. Currently, it only translates English-to-Chinese (Mandarin) and Chinese-to-English. Perfect timing for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games, but I wish JAJAH also launched with English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English. My wife and I hire the Maids Home Services on occasion to help clean up our house and inevitably my wife or I ask them to clean a specific area and they don't understand what we're saying since they only speak Spanish. Apparently, my 3 years of high school Spanish went in one ear and out the other. They often have to get the forewoman to translate, but sometimes even she doesn't speak English. Very frustrating to live in America and not all businesses speak English. We've tried multiple cleaning services, but apparently speaking Spanish-only seems to be a requirement in the housekeeping industry.
Anyway, JAJAH Babel could come in handy for just such an occasion.It was developed in conjunction with IBM and additional languages are coming. You can read about JAJAH Babel and obtain country-specific Babel numbers here: http://www.jajahbabel.com/
If you are in the U.S. and want to try it out, just call 1-718-513-2969. I tried it and it asked me to confirm what I said using its TTS engine. After confirmed what I said was accurate it played back the Chinese translation - also using TTS. Can't say how well the TTS for Chinese is since I don't speak it, but the English TTS was pretty good.
Currently JAJAH Babel is available in the U.S., China, UK and Australia.
The other new service is JAJAH Concierge - http://www.jajahconcierge.comVery relevant for consumers that need to make calls hands free, JAJAH Concierge voice activates JAJAH services so there is no need to scroll through address books or dial long phone numbers. This free service gives JAJAH customers a local number, which can be used to initiate phone calls, send a text message or establish conference calls, all with voice commands at JAJAH's low rates and without lifting a finger. This new service does not cost anything additional and leverages MOBIVOX voice application.
