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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

#71

Post by y4mi »

laumars wrote: post #64
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 par…

>> "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.

OCR of short sentences from invoices or similar and fluid speech recognition of often grammatically incorrect sentences are problems of a very different magnitude. OCR is easy in comparison of actually spoken speech recognition -- especially if it is supposed to run in real time

> 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.

and they simply suck for any language than english. its easier to talk to my devices in english than in german. and this is despite my poor pronunciations

>> "No to mention issues like battery life" > That's a pretty minor point these days on devices with no LCD displays.

not at that size. the power cell would have to be tiny

>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.

which would mean that they'd need bluetooth for permanent connectivity. this would drain the battery even more.

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

#72

Post by 6stringmerc »

Considering the variety of French accents - Paris, regional France, Africa, Caribbean, Canadian, South East Asian, and guys like me in Texas and more - I'm rather skeptical this unit will work as seamlessly as the marketing video advertises. Just a thought. C'est mignonne, vraiment.

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

#73

Post by [deleted] »

dean wrote: post #66
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.

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by wvenable »

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…

All the technology to do this already exists. I have speech-to-text on my Pebble watch -- it goes up to a server, is processed, and is returned all relatively quickly. So you combine that with text translation tools that have existed for years and then text-to-speech.

I'm sure it's really just a specialized bluetooth headset, an app, and bunch of cloud services purchased from other vendors.

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

#75

Post by laumars »

y4mi wrote: post #71
laumars wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 par…

>> "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. OCR of short sentences from invoices or similar and fluid speech recogni…

> "OCR of short sentences from invoices or similar and fluid speech recognition of often grammatically incorrect sentences are problems of a very different magnitude. OCR is easy in comparison of actually spoken speech recognition -- especially if it is supposed to run in real time"

OCR isn't comparable to speech recognition. Period. The problem needs to be broken into two parts: 1) speech recognition, 2) translation. I was addressing those parts separately. However you're right that translating natural spoken language, which is full of grammatical errors and other nuances, would be a greater challenge than short passages of official documents.

> "and they simply suck for any language than english. its easier to talk to my devices in english than in german. and this is despite my poor pronunciations"

I'll have to take your word for it. But suffice to say there are several competing speech recognition engines, some better than others. So it might be that your devices use an engine that's poor at recognising German. Although equally you might be using one of the better engines. Hard to say from this high level overview. However the fact that they do work against your pronunciation of English is promising as it at least demonstrates how well these engines can cope with different accents - which is one of the hardest stumbling blocks in building speech recognition.

> "not at that size. the power cell would have to be tiny"

Indeed but we've already seen tiny power cells in watches and other modern gadgets. Given the earpiece only really needs a speaker, bluetooth receiver, some kind of DAC, and a battery; half the device could be the battery.

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting this thing would have a great battery life though. But I still wouldn't be surprised if lasts a few hours - which is still comparable to some smart phones (sadly).

> "which would mean that they'd need bluetooth for permanent connectivity. this would drain the battery even more."

I did say it would need bluetooth. But realistically bluetooth doesn't suck that much power. The speaker would easily be a heavier power draw.

To summarise: there are obviously going to be difficulties - clear technical challenges - in build this kind of device. But I do think the technology is now at a stage were we can at least prototype something. And that was the crux of argument. The earpiece might not be a perfect gadget, but those gadgets who are first to market are seldom perfect.

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

#77

Post by hangonhn »

ma2rten wrote: post #63
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?

Those APIs aren't free and the lag between the translation and network connectivity means it would be very difficult to have a real time conversation.

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

#79

Post by squizzel »

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…

It's not even a good enough scam to be on Kickstarter.

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

#80

Post by crpatino »

scotty79 wrote: post #28
phireal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking baby cry down a notch This could end badly. I think the whole purpose of babies crying is to ensure you do something about it. Not that there's always a solution, but I'd rather be awoken by a loud, irritating cry frequently than not hear them when they might need me.

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)

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