How about having a personal translator always and everywhere you go? How about being able to speak and understand Spanish like a pro in minutes? AI-Powered Babel-fish in-ear translator was no more than a dream which came into reality. Breaking in all linguistic barriers and making it possible for two people to communicate with each other in different native languages. Consider a case where you went to Spain with no knowledge of Spanish and you want to ask for a restaurant nearby, Babel-Fish Earbuds will do this job for you.
Why Babel Fish?
The idea came up into developer’s mind from Douglas Adams’ cult Sci-fi classic fiction “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” which was written over 20 years ago. But many industry giants were working on how to bring this innovation into reality, it featured a yellow leach like Babel-fish that could translate languages for humans. The fish was inserted into human ear and fed with brain-wave energy which translates any language. The idea for developing came up with this fiction, thus the device was named Babel-fish.
What Is The Need?
In this global environment, communication barrier has always been a major issue since it takes a hell lot of time to understand a language other than your native language and getting a third translator for every other language may cost you a fortune. This device lets you hurdle the barriers by giving you a real-time translation and lets you to reach the global boundaries. A person might be facing problems in cross-country trades due to communication incompatibility but that won’t be a problem anymore.
Image Source: dezeen.com
How Does It Work?
Let’s understand the device utility with an example, one person wears the earbud and the other holds a phone in his hand, the first person wearing earbud speaks in his language (English is the default language) and the app on the phone translates the language and plays it on the phone. The same process goes vice-versa where the person holding the phone speaks in his language for example Swedish, the app again translates the conversation and response is played through the earbuds. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are working behind the scene in making the system more intelligent by making a huge database with all possible word fragments to reduce the processing time each similar word pair needs to be translated.
How Is It Different from Traditional Google Translate App?
Firstly, Babel-fish earbuds provides you real-time translation after automatically figuring out which language the person is speaking, this feature makes it a handy approach than the traditional Google Translate App. Where the two-people communicating has to pass the phone to each other. Secondly, though the speech recognition through app was introduced way earlier but the external noise makes it difficult for an app to understand the words precisely. Babel-fish cancels the noise and translates even typical phrases and words with a large support of over 40 languages. It is fast enough to hold the conversation.
Image Source: nerdist.com
Challenges In Adoption Of This Device
Since every technology requires a polishing to reach its optimal stage of adaptability, there are some extensive changes that needs to be done with this device as well.
- Babel-fish earbuds are criticized for its subpar design and it may not fit into your ears comfortably.
- Setting up this device with a phone can be a bit difficult.
- Some elements need data connection, costing must be optimized while roaming in some other country.
- It requires high speed processing at data centers, since the process includes understanding of natural language and then converting it into text and then reverting with a speech output.
- Difference in accents and verbal pitch could confuse the software.
It is a next-gen innovative advancement which will surely hit the consumer market since it comes with huge benefits. A clumsy hardware can always be fixed with time but what matters is bringing the Hitchhiker’s dream of sliding a yellow fish into your ears to get the translation into reality. We will have to see how well they perform with inconsistent WIFI-connections and crosstalk. This actually inspires many developers to develop the fictional characters into reality. The next wave might bring J.A.R.V.I.S (Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System) i.e. Iron Man’s speech enabled computer into reality. That would be something two steps ahead than just translation, rather it would be capable of anticipating the human brain such as feeling and thinking.