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In-Ear Device That Translates Foreign Languages in Real Time

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

#61

Post by impy »

visarga wrote: post #57
impy wrote: post #37

I'm skeptical we'll be seeing this device. I guess it'll mainly depend if they'd get funded and even then I only see this as a short lived gimmick. The machine translation software just isn't good enough. It's unmissable to me, but for real time translation, it's simply not there yet. Since they have to license the speech recognition and machine translation technologies, in the end they'll just be competing with blue…

Agree. What does the earplug device offer that regular bluetooth headsets don't. The actual translation is happening in the phone or cloud anyway.

Well, the regular bluetooth headsets wont do the job just yet, you want the microphone to be directional forward facing to keep it simple, preferably adaptable but that's more complex. The regular bluetooth headsets are aimed at picking up your own voice. So you'd want something more hearing aid like.

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

#62

Post by rasz_pl »

Its a scam

We have brilliant entrepreneur coming up with revolutionary idea no one had before(lol), sleek renders and good looking models, price point already set, all that and ... absolutely ZERO tech behind it.

lets set so double the killer delete select all

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

#63

Post by ma2rten »

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…

Maybe they are using Google translate and Google speach api?

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

#64

Post by laumars »

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 can understand your cynicism but I think this kind of product is possible. Maybe not perfect, but that the our consumer technology is already mostly there albeit not unified just yet. I'll explain by addressing some of your concerns:

> "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."

I've recently been buying a lot of packages from Japan and found Google's camera translate to be surprisingly good. Bordering on sci-fi awesome.

As for voice recognition, that's something that's been consumer technology for a while. Smart TVs, mobile phones, home automation assistants, etc. It's pretty common technology now. Granted the results aren't 100%, they are still generally quite accurate - with the obvious caveats: depending on a person's accent and background noise.

> "No to mention issues like battery life"

That's a pretty minor point these days on devices with no LCD displays.

> connectivity (hard to believe this device would be able to work without a permanent connection to cloud servers doing the heavy lifting, like Siri does)

They do say it depends on a smartphone app, so my assumption was it works in a similar way to the Pebble watch. ie it's essentially just a bluetooth speaker where the phone will push the data to it.

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

#66

Post by dean »

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

Yeah, this is what I came here to say as well. And while we're at it, I got this great idea that we should cure cancer. The idea came to me when I saw someone sick with cancer. Next stop: patent office.

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

#67

Post by CodeSheikh »

Too good to be true. Seems like they are just trying to get some media traction to convince some VC for some funding or creating a footprint for themselves in the tech fraternity.

Yes I will be a cynical hypocrite when it hits the market with seamless performance and after I will purchase it.

Real life scenario:

French chick: Bonjour. es tu perdu?

Scrawny-geek: (All blushing and shit...Is she interested in me? put on "groundbreaking" Pilot earbuds)

FC: excusez moi mister!!

SG: gives hand gesture to wait

10 seconds time lapse

analog audio signals are converted to digital and then data buffer is sent to the smartphone via BT. Phone pre-process the raw data and sends it to Watson-Siri-Echo-Now-esque ultra system composed of signal processor then NLP then translator and it sends it back to the phone and phone does some more voodoo on it and sends it back to the Pilot via BT and plays it to its user.

SG: Oh. I am sorry mademoiselle. I am just trying to find direction to the bathroom.

FC: lost and confused expressions appear as if she did not understand one word of English

SG: punching the air in frustration..wish this device could play the translation back to me in French

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

#69

Post by stan_rogers »

xutopia wrote: post #56
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 live in Montreal and my biggest gripe with Siri is her not being bilingual! There are so many street names or place names here that are French and when I want to send a message to a francophone friend I can only use handsfree mode in English.

Imagine that in Northern Ontario/Val d'Or French, which still has a vowel system that's almost dead in the south now. The grammar's not as different now as it was when I was a kid (that's more than a half-century ago) but that's not quite "standard Canadian French" either, let alone continental French.
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