Translation is elusive, sometimes decisive and some other times offensive, at all. To do away with this an Indian has joined hands with his three classmates of National University of Singapore and gone ahead in inventing software that can translate any language, any given popular language, in six seconds. Sanjeev Sharma, a twenty-three-year old lad with his two Chinese and one Singaporean buddies is busy in Brazil, competing for the Microsoft Imagine Cup—an international competition program for students in the software-designing category—which they won as an invite for delivering the xTalk application (read: Cross Talk), along with a cash price of $25000.

xTalk supported with existing technology, allows different system dealings with speech and voice to come together. This indicates the adaptability of the xTalk, as higher and advanced such translation software gets. This software leverages on current speech technologies to provide smart, innovative and useful solutions to enable people and businesses worldwide to communicate effectively translating words into several languages in seconds. “This translation can be even faster, right now it is six seconds and in a short time with regular usage the software can be trained to respond almost instantaneously,” says the team.

xTalk can be used in a variety of scenarios involving communication among different language speakers. It can also be used in conversations between two people and has an English dictionary built into the software. Right now, its usage is limited to the Intranet Internet via a laptop, personal computer or PDA equipped with a pocket PC operating system.

The team self-named as GlobeTalkers will be one among the 13 student-engineer teams chosen from the China and the Asia-Pacific regions.Finally, there is someone who has not lost in translation, but gained.