The world is getting smaller, not literally of course, but with the rise of the Internet and the impact that this has had on business, we are required to be in touch with speakers of other languages and to travel, more than we ever have been before.
This of course brings its own problems like how to communicate effectively with people who don’t speak the same language. However, the world is also getting clever.
Now a high tech firm have come up with an innovative gadget that will help aid translation in a way that hasn’t been done before.
NEC has developed glasses or spectacles to be more precise as they don’t have lenses, which can be used to display subtitles directly onto a user’s retina.
Users will still be able to view the face of the person they’re talking to as the text will only be beamed to part of the retina. The first time such technology has been used in a commercial product says NEC.
The Tele Scouter, as it has been called, was originally developed for use by people in sales dealing with enquiries from customers as the sales staff could have information about a customer’s buying history beamed directly to them during a conversation.
“It’s best if you know the customer personally for individual sales pitches, but that can be difficult at big stores” NEC spokesman Takayuki Omino said at a Tokyo trade show where the device was revealed.
“This device can be a weapon for salespeople on the floor.”
However, NEC says it can also be used for translating a conversation. Basically the mike on the headset would pick up the conversation, run it through translation and voice recognition software and beam it back to the headset so that the user gets the subtitles in real time as well as the audio.
“You can keep the conversation flowing” said Omino.
According to Omino this would be useful in talks involving confidential information as there would be no need for an interpreter.
The Tele Scouter is due to be launched next year in Japan but the first versions won’t have the translation feature, that won’t come until the year after in 2011.
Unfortunately it won’t be affordable for most folk, at least until the price comes down, as you’re looking at a cost of 7.5 million Yen and that’s without the software.
Sounds great in theory but if both people in the conversation need the specs that makes it far less practical.
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