As someone who is a native German speaker, I wasn't impressed. The translation to English was much better - because she spoke very clearly, slowly, and with simple grammar.
The translation was no better than, say Google Translate. A mashup of Siri + Google Translate wouldn't have been any worse, and both technologies exist for some years. This is, unfortunately, hardly a breakthrough. Rather a 24h API hackathon project ;)
" A mashup of Siri + Google Translate wouldn't have been any worse, and both technologies exist for some years."
I have seen those already and they don't work nearly as well as this one. I guess the lady was trying really hard to do not screw up the demo and that might actually reduce the wow effect for German speakers.
And one that my friends and I put together as an extension for Google Hangouts back in April, during a 36 hour hackathon in LA. Microsoft was one of the sponsors too.
Actually the Android google translate app already does this.. and probably better. If you tilt the app sideways it will alternate between the two languages and voice input.
I've done German at high school for three years or so. The contrast between how she had to speak German (ridiculously slowly as if trying to teach someone pronunciation) and how the English speaker spoke (pretty much normally) must say something about the confidence in their German speech recognition.
The translation was no better than, say Google Translate. A mashup of Siri + Google Translate wouldn't have been any worse, and both technologies exist for some years. This is, unfortunately, hardly a breakthrough. Rather a 24h API hackathon project ;)