Our ongoing ‘5 Questions’ series will give you a better insight into the thoughts and ideas of the people at KantanMT. This week we are happy to introduce you to Poulomi Choudhury, who talks about Neural Machine Translation in KantanFleet™, her favourite technology and why she would prefer to be a ‘loony’ character from Rowling’s rich world of imagination.
1. What’s your role at KantanMT?
I am a content developer and marketing strategist in the Marketing Department at KantanMT, but like everyone else in the team, I wear several hats. We at KantanMT are a busy bunch and we really like the challenge of having new things to do every day in a fun environment.
2. What according to you, is the most marketable technology right now?
Well, personally I have a whole list of cutting-edge technologies that I am a big fan of, for example the Philips Design Probe projects that attempt to “understand future socio-cultural and technological shifts with a view to developing nearer-term scenarios” is a personal favourite.
However, when it comes to more “marketable technology,” I would say most wearable techs today have a very high degree of marketability and can benefit society in a very big way. But one piece of technology that I think could have applications in many fields, is tech tattoos. There’s a product called DuoSkin created in partnership with Microsoft Research that turns temporary tattoos into connected interfaces.
Technology like this could have multiple applications in health, medicine and even commerce. The user could monitor their blood pressure, glucose levels and an alert could be sent to the family doctor when something goes wrong. Right now, the tattoos don’t really look great, but with additional research, wearable tech tattoos could become the next big thing in bridging the gap between art, technology and culture. At the end of the day, wearable tech is not only about making lives simpler, but it could even save lives someday.
Plus, I would love to get a Tech Tattoo sometime – it’s all very Gibson-eque!
3. What according to you, is the least appreciated piece of technology?
Oh, I dunno, everything from the past that we have begun to take for granted today? Electricity, radios, portable headphones, polaroid cameras, lock and key, the computer mouse, mirrors… I could go on.
But on a serious note, though I don’t think this is the least appreciated piece of technology, but it is definitely under-rated in popular media – Spray On Skin Technology. It allows doctors to graft new skin on severely burnt patients when there’s little to no healthy skin left on the patient for donor grafting. I believe this has the potential to change lives.
4. What interests you the most in the world of automated translation?
I think automated translation technology is science fiction come true! In fact, Richard Books wrote a brilliant blog post on translation machines in science fiction, and I find it intriguing how automated translation is helping to make positive changes in the world by making the world a smaller place. It is easier and faster to communicate with people, make purchasing decisions, access information from any corner of the world.
I would like to see automated translation become more accessible – how about a wearable technology, like an eyepiece that can translate speech, road-signs, and even magazines in real time?
However, I think what we are doing at KantanMT is very cutting-edge. We have already begun rolling-out our Neural Machine Translation (NMT) KantanFleet™ engines, and I can only see MT going forward from here. After all, as we predicted, 2017 is the year of Machine Translation 2.0!
You can read more about our Neural MT engines here.
You can also download our white paper on the top 7 MT trends in 2017 here.
5. If you could be any fictional character, who/ what would you be, and why?
Well, I would love to be in Jane Eyre’s shoes (from the eponymous novel by Charlotte Brontë) for a few days, but she had a tough life, so maybe not for too long – see, I am an escapist.
So, I would be happier being Luna Lovegood from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. She is distinctly dotty, yet smart and has very strong beliefs. She is a powerful character in a very understated way, and while she is odd, she is often the voice of reason in the series and has a knack “of speaking unconformable truths.”
Think you are smarter than Ravenclaw’s Luna? Answer this riddle: What came first, the Phoenix or the flame?
A: A circle has no beginning.
About Poulomi Choudhury
Poulomi C
houdhury is a content and marketing strategist at KantanMT. Her primary interest lies in literature, language and cultural investigation, and the intersectionality and application of these themes in the contemporary business world. She holds an M.Phil. in Popular Literature from Trinity College Dublin and speaks English, Bengali and Hindi.