On visit to Seattle, Iceland’s president has a message for Amazon and Microsoft – GeekWire

Never forget about about the much less prevalent languages when developing electronic gadgets and program.

That was the concept to community tech giants Microsoft and Amazon from the president of Iceland on his go to to Seattle this week.

“No language ought to be still left behind,” President Guðni Jóhannesson instructed attendees at the Nordic Innovation Summit on Thursday. The occasion was held at the Nationwide Nordic Museum in Seattle’s Ballard community.

Jóhannesson claimed he does not have a dilemma with English — his wife is Canadian-born Eliza Reid — but that it’s crucial to protect languages that are spoken by smaller sized populations. The nation of Iceland is roughly 366,000 individuals.

Jóhannesson shared his issues in the course of a panel with Nikko Strom, a distinguished scientist with Amazon, and Arul Menezes, a distinguished engineer with Microsoft.

Amazon’s Alexa speaks 17 languages, Strom claimed. Icelandic is not a single of them.

The enterprise is adding languages, but it will take time and there are some privacy troubles with language datasets, Strom said. Amazon is employing new strategies to speed up the tempo. Rather of heading one particular language at a time, it is now making use of device finding out and AI “where one language can understand from an additional language,” he stated.

“We want everyone to be in a position to use Alexa,” Strom explained. “That’s our purpose.”

Jóhannesson stated his state has created large databases capturing the Icelandic language that it is content to share with technologies companies for inclusion with components and software.

The Microsoft Translator application is conversant in 111 languages, Menezes reported. That does contain Icelandic, but not Sámi, which encompasses several languages spoken in Northern Europe.

Menezes agreed with the significance of which include a variety of languages in engineering merchandise. He noted that Microsoft has its AI for Cultural Heritage initiative, which is operating to preserve endangered languages.

“Language is the foundation for tradition and modern society,” he claimed.

Jóhannesson also raised the difficulty of tech access for individuals with disabilities. Voice activated units can be lifestyle shifting for a person with physical constraints. Speech-to-textual content tools assist individuals for who are audio impaired, while audio gamers aid the blind.

“We want to are living in a culture where nobody is remaining at the rear of,” Jóhannesson reported, “and technological innovation need to be a pressure for very good.”

Throughout a keynote speak previous the panel, the president illustrated tech’s language constraints by conversing with Siri, Apple’s virtual particular assistant.

“Hey Siri, do you communicate Icelandic?” he asked. Her reaction: “Hmm. I do not have an solution for that. Is there anything else I can enable with?”