The 2023 International Journalism Festival will feature a novelty. For the first time, an AI-generated real-time translation service will be provided for all sessions in all venues.
This is W-AIspeech, created by the International Journalism Festival in collaboration with WILDOO.AI. There will be no more queues to collect or return simultaneous translation headphones, thus significantly reducing turnaround times between sessions.
It will now be possible to follow any festival session even if you do not share the language of the speakers. All you need is your mobile phone and your earphones.
W-AIspeech only requires connection to a dedicated wifi hotspot, present in each venue. By connecting to the hotspot translation#ijf23 with your mobile phone, you will have access to a web page where the translation will be available in text and audio format (you can therefore choose in which format to follow the translation). The translations will be from Italian to English, and from English to Italian.
Another advantage offered by W-AIspeech is that it will be possible to conserve the text or audio of the session, which can then be consulted at a later time, or even inserted into video.
In some cases it may be necessary to wait a few seconds before the translation begins. And naturally the translation may occasionally not be very precise (this also can happen with “human” translation). It will however provide the meaning of what has been said. One other point: the algorithm may need a sufficiently complete sentence, or a pause between one sentence and the next, to correctly process the original meaning and thus translate it into the target language. Variable time lags between speech and translation are therefore to be expected.
Photo credit: Auditorium San Francesco al Prato #ijf22 by Ylenia Pepe