With the aim of overcoming the language barrier, NICT has been addressing the research and development of machine-based multilingual speech translation technology and challenging the goal of “Achievement of speech communication technologies to overcome the language barrier”, one of the “Projects of accelerating contribution to society” driven by the Japanese government. NICT started the field experiments of a multilingual speech-to-speech translation technology, by releasing the free-service, multilingual speech translation applications, ‘VoiceTra for iPhone’ in August 2010, and ‘VoiceTra for Android’ in April 2011. These applications have won the great popularity among users, reaching the record hit of more than 500, 000 downloads since their releases.
It is under such circumstances that we have been advancing the study on the usage of systems for multiple users’ conversations via their individual terminals, as well as for peer-to-peer communication via a single terminal.