An electronic Microsoft logo is seen at the Microsoft store in New York City, July 28, 2015.

An electronic Microsoft logo is seen at the Microsoft store in New York City, July 28, 2015. Reuters/Mike Sega

Microsoft has been pushing boundaries the last few years. The Redmond, Washington-based company is no longer lagging behind rival Apple when it comes to innovation and it certainly shows with its new devices and enhancements. The tech giant’s latest exploit, the Microsoft Translator, is definitely a useful and welcome addition to the app-driven world.

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Following the launch of the Skype Translator for mobile and landline calls, Microsoft has unveiled the world's first personal universal translator. The Microsoft Translator does its work in real-time and can translate in-person exchanges with up to 100 speakers using a computer, tablet or a mobile phone. The Microsoft Skype Translator and the Google Translate app, meanwhile, can only accommodate a two-person conversation.

The Microsoft Translator allows users to speak in their native tongues and still be able to understand each other. It’s convenient and permits communication in numerous languages across various devices, which makes it a great travel tool. Not only can the Microsoft Translator app run on Apple iPhones and other Android handsets, it’s also compatible with Apple Watches and Android Wear watches.

Watch: The new Microsoft Translator

The Microsoft Translator can translate spoken conversations in nine languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. It can translate written text in up to 50 languages. The translator learns how to interpret words based on real-world speech, not pre-programmed commands. This basically means that the Microsoft Translator is steadily going to get better the more people use it.

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“The machine translation technology itself is powered by algorithms running in the cloud, using deep neural network-based translations, which offer more fluid, human-sounding translations than the predecessor technology known as statistical machine translation,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

The Microsoft Translator live preview feature is currently available in the Microsoft Translator apps for Amazon Fire, Android, iOS and Windows. It also has its own dedicated website.