The question now is whether the United States government pushes back and forces Google to give back its new toy.

Waze is yet another one of those blockbuster deals for a technology company with little or no revenue that makes you jealous. Five-year-old Waze has just 110 employees, so Google appears to be paying almost $10 million per employee. As for profits, Waze’s chief executive, Noam Bardin, has said, “This is Silicon Valley. We don’t talk about those things here.” Right.

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Cheap translations, but not replacement for humans. / Associated Press

An Israeli startup says it has come up with a way to overcome language barriers when conducting international business: an automated service that provides quick translations between English and seven other languages with nothing more than a telephone.

Lexifone allows people to get translations without paying hundreds of dollars for human interpreters. The service translates spoken conversations in real time, which Lexifone says is an improvement over free, Web-based services that are typically limited to typing in text.

Itay Sagie, the company’s vice president of sales and the son of its founder, said Lexifone lets small businesses “pick up the phone and call Russia or China.”

Preliminary tests by The Associated Press show, however, that while the service has promise, Lexifone doesn’t offer a major leap forward in translation technology. Star Trek’s universal translator will have to wait.

People have been able to test out Lexifone since October. The service formally launched in the United States this week, and Lexifone plans to devote nearly $5 million to market it.

Although a phone-based service similar to Lexifone has been offered since November by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest cellphone carrier, that service works only with Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Lexifone translates between English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Russian and Mandarin. The service costs 15 to 40 cents a minute.

Lexifone works by having computers listen in on conversations. When Mary says something in Spanish, for instance, Lexifone runs that through four separate translation programs to analyze what’s being said and determine the best translation. Bob, who already has heard the remarks from Mary in Spanish, then hears the English, Italian or Mandarin translation from the service in a computer-generated voice. The process is reversed when Bob replies on the phone line.

Unlike Lexifone, Web-based translation services such as Google Translate use statistics to analyze patterns. When looking at a phrase or other large text, they simply use their huge reams of data to guess the patterns that are statistically the most likely to be correct. Lexifone says it tries to analyze the meaning of speech.

But how will conversations via Lexifone be received in Moscow or Beijing? Tests conducted by AP reporters in Mexico, France, Israel, China and the U.S. show that Lexifone is still far from delivering the quick and seamless translations it advertises. Using the service proved frustrating, both in the quality of translations and the length of time it took to complete phone calls.

Setting up Lexifone is easy: Users sign up for an account on the Lexifone website and then buy minutes of translation airtime. When it’s time to make a call, simply dial one of several local access numbers, similar to using a calling card. Then follow a short series of directions to connect. Customers with Android phones can simplify the process by dialing directly through the Lexifone app.

But once calls begin, the system slows to a crawl. Callers have to wait for prompts both before and after speaking, which makes even short translations drag out to several times their length. The system is also prone to interrupting with reminders about commands or services that users don’t necessarily need.

Sagie said Lexifone logs how many calls customers make and automatically speeds up the reminders as they gain experience.

The translations themselves are spotty. Across conversations in French, Spanish and Mandarin, Lexifone was mostly able to understand topics and provide either the gist of the sentences or key words, if not always in the proper order. It was at its best when translating a dry, businesslike dialogue about trade. Even then, details such as numbers often came out garbled.

In colloquial speech, even with simple sentences, the service often seemed helpless. When a colleague in China asked in Mandarin, “What’s the issue?” the system waited several seconds before producing the translation in English: “Australian pig,” it said. The results were not noticeably better than using a free service such as Google Translate.

The AP testers thought Lexifone would be useful for emergencies or simple conversations, but not everyday use. If they were trying to get important information, they said, they wouldn’t trust the translations they were hearing.

Such problems are not limited to Lexifone.

All computer translation services have trouble with accuracy in normal speech, said Jon Ritzdorf, an expert on computer-assisted translation. Ritzdorf, who said he was not familiar specifically with Lexifone, teaches at several universities and works for translation firm Moravia Worldwide. Moravia provides human translators and helps refine machine translations for companies and individuals.

The unpredictable rhythms of speaking are tough for computers to understand, and there are several steps required to translate a sentence. The words spoken in one language must be converted into text by Lexifone’s computers in order to be run through the translation system. They must be converted again to be spoken in the new language. That adds another layer of complexity to the process.

“We’re dealing with a number of technologies having to be rolled into one, all of which have not fully matured,” Ritzdorf said.

Ritzdorf said that while there are useful applications available for computer translation, the more important the information is, the less likely it is that machine translations will suffice.

Sagie readily acknowledged the limitations of the system. Even as he markets Lexifone as a tool for small businesses that can’t afford human translators, he admitted that some uses are better handled by human interpreters.

“I wouldn’t negotiate a $5 million deal with this,” he said.

Lexifone believes the service will improve as more users sign up, giving the company a larger pool of data to help refine its translations. The company uses human linguists to analyze calls and feed better translations into the system.

And while Lexifone is currently geared for general speech, Sagie plans to partner with businesses to build specialized translations for their industries. He envisioned Lexifone someday helping hospital staffs communicate with foreign patients, for instance.

But while improvement is likely, Ritzdorf cautioned that there will always be a limit to the accuracy that computer translations can provide.

“Will it ever be perfect?” he said. “I don’t think it will be. At least not in my lifetime.”

AP writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Mexico City, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Flora Li in Beijing and Martha Mendoza in San Jose, California, contributed to this report.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 

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The much leaked talks about Google finally swooping in and buying Waze have come true, and it has been announced: the search giant is buying the Israeli mapping and traffic app and service, according to an official blog post. Updated: The price is $1 billion in cash, plus $100 million in performance payouts in cash and possibly stock to the Waze staff, AllThingsD reports.

To help you outsmart traffic, today we’re excited to announce we’ve closed the acquisition of Waze. This fast-growing community of traffic-obsessed drivers is working together to find the best routes from home to work, every day.

The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities.

Which decoded means couple of things: one, Google didn’t want it to end in Facebook’s hands, as has been reported before. Second, for its own purposes, it wants the already excellent free navigation capabilities of Google Maps app to become a lot better, in a lot more cost effective, user-sourced way.

No price was disclosed, but as earlier reports said, it is in the $1.3 billion range, above the $1 billion Facebook was willing to offer.

As for why did Waze sell, from its own blog post about the sale:

Why not stay completely independent? We asked ourselves: “Will Waze still be a fun project to participate in, and a fun place to work, as a stand-alone public company?” Choosing the path of an IPO often shifts attention to bankers, lawyers and the happiness of Wall Street, and we decided we’d rather spend our time with you, the Waze community.

In case you don’t know what Waze is and how it collects traffic info, here’s a short video that explains it:

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Travelers plug into free Wi-Fi at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Shenghung Lin / Flickr

Taiwan became one of the first countries in the world to offer free wifi on a mass scale to its citizens, and now it is extending that to any foreign tourist, also for free, in a move that will gain it a lot of goodwill.

The Taiwan government-backed free “iTaiwan” wireless network launched in 2011, and now has about 4,400 hotspots in major tourist spots, transportation hubs, cultural establishments and government offices all over the island country. Citizens needed just their local phone number to register and then use the semi-fast 1 MBPS service.

Now, for foreign vistors, who generally have trouble getting a local SIM in the country (two forms of identity, etc), the process of tapping these wi-fi networks has been made a lot easier starting this month: visitors can open an iTaiwan account at a Taiwan Tourism Bureau counter/center, show their passport as ID and that’s it: they can login using their account, on their digital devices.

In addition, iTaiwan has established roaming agreements with four local governments so that tourists also have access in Taipei City, New Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan.

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Apple is set to unveil its new iOS 7 mobile operating system and what it has in store for iPhone and iPad users today at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Anyone who uses their iPhone to navigate their way around will be curious to see if there’s any news about the map product — even if they gave up on Apple Maps as soon as Google Maps re-appeared on iOS last December.

We knew two things about Apple’s replacement of Google Maps in favor of its own mobile mapping system in last year’s iOS 6 update: one, that Apple needed to do it if it wanted mobile data of its own and, two, that the end result was terrible.

When Apple debuted its new maps, we had some high hopes about their interactive features, like Yelp integration and turn-by-turn directions, which had not previously been present on iOS except for some paid third-party apps (Google Maps for Android already did this). But these hopes turned to frustration when the maps sent us the wrong place or when the subway line nearest to our destination failed to appear. So when Scott Forstall, the Apple exec who wouldn’t apologize over maps was fired, we thought it was a good idea. And when Google Maps returned to iOS, we were happy.

But nobody likes one service to dominate (especially if that someone is going to buy the invasive map service Waze, as rumored), so we’re rooting for Apple to add a bit of competition to the field. With that, here are the three things Apple absolutely has to get right in any map update.

Understand where you are when you’re searching for an address.

Apple Maps fails at this most basic task any time you look up a street address without a city/state/ZIP combo. Click on a highlighted “115 W 30th St” link a friend’s email or a website, and Apple Maps will ask you about that street address in multiple cities that are nowhere near you. How about you just show me the closest on, Apple, and give me a chance to change it if that’s not the one I need?

Don’t be wrong so often.

Years ago a co-worker of mine sent a hate-filled rant to MapQuest for sending him to the wrong neighborhood in Philadelphia when he was trying to track down his towed car. I feel that way every time Apple Maps sends me miles away from where I want to go, and that’s all the time. Well, it was, until I began using Google Maps as often as possible.

Get public transit.

I’m pretty sure Google Maps is at the point where it can tell me if there’s a seat on the subway I’m about to hop on, yet Apple Maps can’t tell me what trains are at what station or where any of the entrances are. There are plenty of apps and websites that have real-time subway information in major markets, from Embark to HopStop. Apple needs to either acquire a product like this, or build it on their own — pronto.

Don’t get distracted by too many features.

Sure, real-time traffic information is nice, and so are those 3D flyovers we were impressed with so much when iOS 6 came out. But operating a touch-screen while driving needs to be simple, so focus on the basic A-to-B cases first since doing those well will satisfy the majority of users most of the time. Those of us who need real-time traffic data are going to continue to trust AM radio more than a system that may or may not be tracking us everywhere we go (while draining our batteries), at least for a couple more years.

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Ra’anana-based Waze has almost 50 million users. This is a big number for an Israeli company, which probably helped it achieve the hoped-for exit.

Reports about a possible sale of Waze are not new. Last year there were reports Apple wanted to buy Waze and in late August 2012, it was reported that Facebook was in talks to acquire the company. According to some reports, Facebook representatives arrived in Israel to meet Waze executives, but no deal was reached in the negotiations, apparently because of the price tag.

Another reason was that Waze insisted that its Israeli employees should continue working in Israel, which Facebook did not accept. Google has already made two acquisitions in Israel, and it has an office here, in contrast to Facebook, which closed most of the companies it acquired, including Israeli start-ups. Both previous Israeli acquisitions by Google were modest. Google acquired personalized Website gadget developer Labpixies for $25 million and interactive video-clip developer Quiksee for $10 million. Both acquisitions were in 2010.

In the past few months, there have been numerous reports that Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) was interested in acquiring Waze. However, in an interview with “AllThingsD” at the D11 conference in late May, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple had not bid for Waze. He also stressed that use of Apple’s map app was important, which was why the company was investing heavily in the product. “We screwed up,” he admitted. “It’s greatly improved, but not there yet. We have more to do.”

Waze has developed one of the most popular navigation apps on the market. It offers apps for smartphones, tablets, and vehicle systems for navigating roads in Israel and in other countries. The information is about traffic congestion, police presence, road accidents, speed cameras, and road hazards collected by crowdsourcing from Waze’s social network.

Waze was founded in 2009 and in October 2012, it announced a $30 million financing round from Horizons Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and iFund. The company has raised $67 million to date from Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), and the investors in its 2012 financing round.

The deal will turn some Waze founders into multimillionaires. CTO Ehud Shabtai will earn $78 million, president Uri Levine will earn $38 million, VP R&D Amir Shinar and his brother Gili will earn $65 million.

Waze told “Globes” “no comment,” and Google said, “We don’t relate to rumors and speculation.”

(c)2013 the Globes (Tel Aviv, Israel). Distributed by MCT Information Services.

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But that’s not all you can do by tapping your fingers….Registering for a cash-free payment system called PayTouch enables guests to buy anything they like…you input your credit card information and your fingerprints into a registration kiosk, and PayTouch links your prints to your card. Voilà, you’re able to buy food, drinks…not only throughout the resort but also at local bars, restaurants and shops.

Facebook kiosks at Ushuaia Ibiza:

Paytouch at Ushuaia Ibiza, paying through fingerprints:

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Airbus is best known for aircraft like its A380 superjumbo and the next-generation A350 jetliner, but the company has cooked up something else to delight the traveller: a prototype ‘smart’ bag complete with a companion iPhone app and ‘Find My Bag’ function to track lost luggage.

Christened ‘Bag2Go’, the concept has been developed in partnership with mobile carrier T-Mobile and German luggage maker Rimowa.

See how Airbus Bag2Go works on Vimeo

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In a word, yes. Judging from the popularity of Aloft Hotels‘ smart check-in program, people seriously value convenience over a face-to-face welcome. And the numbers speak for themselves: last month, the program reached 10,000 users, even though only a limited number of Aloft hotels are equipped to use it.

From the company:

Currently available at:
Aloft Harlem
Aloft Lexington
Aloft Dallas Downtown
Aloft New York Brooklyn
Aloft Cupertino

Coming soon:
Aloft San Francisco Airport
Aloft Miami – Brickell
Aloft Miami Doral
Aloft Tucson University
Aloft Tulsa

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A new airline, Surf Air, offers “all you can fly” subscriptions for under $2,000 per month, rather than charging by the trip…it just attained the last of the approvals…from FAA to begin flying its first route between Burbank and San Carlos, CA – linking Hollywood and Silicon Valley, starting June 12.

It also attained $7 million in Series B funding…led by Base Ventures and Velos Partners, joined by its earlier backers, New Enterprise Associates and Anthem Venture Partners. The company has raised a total of $11 million in venture capital to date.

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