Instant Translation Technology

Have you ever wished you could translate something you’re reading immediately as you are reading it without having to type or copy and paste a phrase into Google Translate?

Now you can, by simply pointing your phone at the page and using the Google Translate app.  The app can translate over 103 languages, and most recently added Japanese translation to the list.

The full 103 languages are available for text translation. You can translate about half of the languages offline (no internet needed), you can use your camera for instant text translation or upload photos for translations. With the handwriting feature you can draw characters instead of typing, and with 32 languages you are able to have instant two-way speech translation.

The app is available for iOS and Android, and is free to use.

If you are unconcerned with text translations, and conversational translations are what you need help with, Waverly Labs’ Pilot Earpiece is going to be a game changer. These in-ear devices come in pairs so you can speak to anyone regardless of whether or not they have their own. You will hear what the other speaker is saying in your own language, and they will hear what you are saying in theirs. The devices are available for pre-order now for $249 USD. They are expected to ship in the summer of 2017.

Another wearable option is the ili translator. With instant offline spoken translations, a helpful library of travel phrases and an easy to understand interface, ili is being offered exclusively for businesses in the US starting in June 2017, with general consumer products becoming available later in 2017.

World travel just got a whole lot easier!

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Earbuds that Can Translate Foreign Languages in Real-time

A new startup called Waverly Labs, an innovative consumer electronics company created in 2014, claims a “smart” earpiece will reportedly be the world’s first gadget to translate between two users speaking different languages in real-time. The creators say it’s “intended for the Traveller, International Professional and Digital Nomad.”

The earpiece, dubbed the Pilot, is shaped similar to regular earbuds, but comes without any wires or cables. Pretty handy if you find yourself lost in a city without WiFi connection, or frantically trying to figure out which subway to take.

Using the latest technologies in speech recognition, machine translation and the advances of wearable technology, our smart earpiece allows wearers to speak different languages but still clearly understand each other. Simply put, when one person speaks, the other hears it in their language. Science fiction has called it many things, but we call it Pilot.”

The Pilot has so far raised over 3 million dollars via Indiegogo (launched May 15^th, 2016, funded June 25^th, 2016) and is estimated to ship worldwide May 2017. For now, the product comes with English, Spanish, French, and Italian, but other languages are on the way, including Arabic, Hindi, East Asian, and Slavic. Here are a few other cool features included:

• The Pilot is designed to hug the curves of the ear without being obtrusive, snug yet fashionable, and comes in three colors: red, black and white.

• The Pilot comes with a secondary earpiece for wireless streaming music, or to hare with the person you are speaking with.

• It’s accompanying smartphone app toggles between languages and uploads them to the earpiece when in use offline and overseas. For basic translation, the app can also be sued as a phrasebook.

• In conference mode, multiple people can wear the earpiece and join in on the same conversation, even if they’re all speaking different languages.

• In addition, the smartphone’s speakerphone can be used as a loudspeaker to transmit what you’re saying to everyone in the room.

The full package includes the Pilot and secondary earpiece (2 earpieces total), 1 portable charger, 3 different sized eartips for the perfect fit, and an accompanying app. The app is where the languages are downloaded for the earpiece.

The first generation of the device only works when speaking to another person who also has a Pilot earbud, but the company says that future versions will be able to translate from any surrounding spoken source.

The full retail price for the Pilot is expected to be $299, but the early bird special on Indiegogo starts at $199. The purchase will come with two earpieces in each pack, and additional languages will be available via downloadable language packs.

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