Traveling is awesome, but when you are out exploring the place on your own, you lose track of everything and suddenly realize that there is not one person around who could understand your language and help you out. A dictionary or even Google translate won’t be of much help when that happens, but a new device just went on sale that delivers translations to your ears almost instantly, as you speak.
The device Translate One2One is like a real world Babel fish from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Well, this is no leach-like fish, it is an ordinary looking earpiece powered by IBM’s supercomputer Watson, that translates anything in a matter of three to five seconds and plays it back to you.
Both the people in the conversation need to be wearing the earpiece, and the device currently works with English, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Potuguese, German, and Chinese. Lingmo International, the company behind the gadget, says that it is smart enough to avoid the common translation blocks and it “overcomes many of the contextual challenges associated with common languages, as well as understanding the nuances of local slang and dialects.”
The best part about the device is that it does not need to connect to your phone so you can use it in remote locations, without draining your phone battery, and even when your phone is inaccessible or has died. Th founder of Lingmo, Danny May said, “As the first device on the market for language translation using AI that does not rely on connectivity to operate, it offers significant potential for its unique application across airlines, foreign government relations and even not-for-profits working in remote areas.”
Each unit of Translate One2One costs $179, and the shipping begins in July.
Lingmo device is not the only one that has been developed for the purpose, but it certainly is the first one to go on sale. Waverly Labs has created a similar gadget, Pilot Translating Earpiece that will begin selling by the end of this year.