In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time • Hacker News Board

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#91

Post by fuzzywalrus » Wed, May 18, 2016, 10:43 PM UTC

russelluresti wrote: post #83

Kurtz79 wrote: post #45

Sorry to sound so negative, but it seems something halfway between an April Fool and some Kickstarter "scam" (possibly in good conscience, but still). Both voice recognition and translation are HARD problems, for which even companies with tons of resources and talent like Apple and Google were able to provide only sketchy and partial solutions. No to mention issues like battery life, connectivity (hard to believe thi…

I'm also skeptical. This is a problem where it's fairly easy to get 80% there but nearly impossible to get 100% there. Most speech recognition apps have trouble with thick accents. From there, imagine stumbling speech or people who change their thoughts in the middle of a sentence. Then there's the lag between input and output - you often can't translate a phrase or sentence until you know the whole thing and then yo…

Exactly, considering the way language works with different language sentence conjugation, even simple things like adjectives in most romance languages have relative to the noun and article, a translation to a language like English in realtime would sound like someone with a head injury. A phrase like "Did you see you see the big red truck? It was driving very fast would be: ¿Viste el gran camión rojo? Conducía muy rápido.

In real time this would be in English: See the big truck red? Driving very fast.

That's just scratching the surface with the most basic communication. There's simply no way this product can work with any real accuracy.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#92

Post by scotty79 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 7:45 AM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #80

scotty79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With baby everyting can go badly. I wasn't thinking about shutting out baby cry to get some sleep (sleeping with headphones?) but rather making it little less intrusive when it screems in your face and you are sufficiently aware that it does already. Also I was thinking about capping the volume of baby cry to some level (80dB?) not reducing it propotionately. Besides, I'm not sure how the number of babies harmed beca…

> I wasn't thinking about shutting out baby cry to get some sleep (sleeping with headphones?) This is not the intended use, but people will figure out on their own and do it anyways... Then, one day, a baby will die horribly or something, a solicitor will contact the parents... and profit!!! (or in your case, bankrupcy)

If you wanted to shut out your baby crying while you sleep you wouldn't use rigid earphones with partial baby cry noise cancellation. You's just buy flexible comfy earplugs for few cents and you can do it today.

You are right that lawyers scare the crap out of innovators though.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#93

Post by scotty79 » Thu, May 19, 2016, 7:51 AM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #81

advertising wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought it'd be great to have a mask/muzzle that turns a babies cry into laughing or something else more pleasant while seated next to them on the plane.

I find it creepier and creepier by the day when people keep insisting that they want to be uploaded into the Matrix.

It's just about tricking senses to make your living more pleasant. Same way you do with comfy chair or woven clothes or warming up air around you beyond what's needed for survival of taking warm bath or wearing sunglasses, or tinted glasses. Better tech just gives you more comfort.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#94

Post by laumars » Thu, May 19, 2016, 10:44 AM UTC

macco wrote: post #89

Kurtz79 wrote: post #45

Sorry to sound so negative, but it seems something halfway between an April Fool and some Kickstarter "scam" (possibly in good conscience, but still). Both voice recognition and translation are HARD problems, for which even companies with tons of resources and talent like Apple and Google were able to provide only sketchy and partial solutions. No to mention issues like battery life, connectivity (hard to believe thi…

Realtime is not possible (right now). You allways have to wait for the voice recognition and then you translate. In real life, when you listen to a person, you do it simultaneous and, even more important, you anticipate what the other person will say. Right now machines can't do that - they even don't come near that.

The promo video wasn't true real time either though. They just has the translate services running after each speech had concluded. So I think by "real time" they just mean "automatically".

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#95

Post by thedaemon » Thu, May 19, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #50

dcw303 wrote: post #40

I have a bad enough time getting Siri to understand my Aussie accent. Throw in something as inaccurate as Google Translate and you'll have... A pile of garbage really. I desperately need something to translate Japanese into my ear, and I'm probably just good enough to relay my point back without the other party needing an eng->jp version, so I would be a prime customer for this gadget. But the technological accuracy…

I'm from Scotland, and on the rare occassions time I need to phone a US voice activated phone line (e.g. Expedia.com's), I have to put on a ridiculous American accent for the system to understand me. This is a hard problem.

As a Southern American, I have to put on a Northern or Western American accent. Don't feel so bad.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#96

Post by ecolak » Thu, May 19, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

Nothing new here. As the article mentions, it's the Babelfish from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've wanted to build one myself since I read the book, but the fundamental problem of machines translating languages is still a very hard problem. This thing won't work.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#97

Post by syngrog66 » Fri, May 20, 2016, 8:04 AM UTC

About a year ago someone tried hiring me to do this. At least to do research and report back with recommendations.

On one hand I think we've never been closer to being able to create this kind of product. On the other its still rife with complexity and edge cases. Reality is messy.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#98

Post by johanneskanybal » Fri, May 20, 2016, 12:50 PM UTC

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #43

smilbandit wrote: post #41

"The creator says he came up with the idea when he met a French girl." and just like that he came up with the whole concept of real time language translation, something the world has never even considered before /snark

Annoyingly worded, but probably means "attained the drive for pursuing the idea" instead. If it was a more common realisation that it is not the idea but the drive that is rare then we would have a lot fewer hot air inventors.

Well that's what makes it funny it's not even that it's just general advancements in this area makes this a very natural thing to pursue.

Re: In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

#99

Post by crpatino » Tue, May 24, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #93

crpatino wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it creepier and creepier by the day when people keep insisting that they want to be uploaded into the Matrix.

It's just about tricking senses to make your living more pleasant. Same way you do with comfy chair or woven clothes or warming up air around you beyond what's needed for survival of taking warm bath or wearing sunglasses, or tinted glasses. Better tech just gives you more comfort.

I would argue that buying an ergonomic chair goes way beyond tricking your senses. There are actual mechanical forces that support your body weight in ways more conscious of your anatomic needs; e.g. the chair is simply better, no trickery needed.

Wearing sunglasses could be seen as either way. You are definitively dimming the raw luminous stimuli that reaches your eyes, but you could argue that your are not dullying your senses but just filtering a part of the spectrum with low signal-to-noise ratio, so your senses are enhanced as a result. Technology can be seen as an extension of human capacity. That's what tools are all about.

This thing in the ear, it does not give you beyond human capacities, neither helps you recover regular capacities you lost by whatever circumpstances. This just let you pay for the privilege of not having to develop your capacities to begin with.