In Short: computerised polyglots to serve Beijing Olympics

A foreigner might find it easier to learn about Beijing even if he doesn't speak Chinese during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. For example, if he wants to taste Chinese food and yet doesn't know where he should go, he may use his roaming cell phone to dial a number.
Seconds later, he will get ample information in English from a computerised polyglot. Pan Jielin, who works on employing speech recognition technologies in Olympics-related service, told Xinhua that Beijing would be the first city in the world to extensively offer the multi-lingual computerised information service.
Beijing tourism authorities estimate the city to host at least 550,000 foreign and 2.2 million domestic visitors during the Olympic Games. "We now only have Chinese and English services, but will expand to other languages including French, German and Spanish," said Pan, associate director of Thinkit Speech Laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Acoustics.