Multinational computer technology corporation IBM currently has a prototype software that will give birth to future speech-to-speech translation engines. Dubbed as MASTOR, Multilingual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Technology aims to provide users speech translations in  real time.

Here's how the software works: With the help of MASTOR, the words spoken in a foreign language by someone on one end of the receiver will be translated into English so that the person on the other end will be able to understand him, and vice versa. IBM Innovation and Technology Executive VP Nicholas Donofrio explains,

We have been working on speech technology for nearly 35 years now. As opposed to our earlier efforts where we were solely focused on perfect translation, this time around we focused on its use in other parlance where perfection does not matter. A technology was born that can offer translation service in real time.

MASTOR was actually tested with the armed forces during the Iraq war. And we guess you are still wondering what the heck this article has to do with MMO games. Donoforio further mentioned,

The technology has uses in massively multiplayer online games. Imagine you are playing World of Warcraft with players from different countries. How can you converse in a common language? Well with MASTOR, you could be playing from Korea, China or Italy, all at the same time and everybody could understand each other.

Like we've mentioned at the beginning of this article, MASTOR is still a prototype software so don't expect a commercial version any time soon. It's just good to know that an innovation like this will soon be heading our way. IBM also plans to use MASTOR in medical facilities, law enforcement, banking, and travel.