Google Headphones Translate Foreign Languages

In the beginning of October, Google release it’s first pair of wireless headphones. What makes these unique is the feature of language translation from Google Translate. The headphones connect to an Android or Google Pixel, and can understand voice controls. These voice controls are like Siri requests on an Apple phone: place phone calls, play music, or understand a language. Holding down the earbud translates another language into the user’s chosen language.  By squeezing the bud, you can ask the headphones questions, much like Siri.

I think these are very helpful for today, especially since the business world is global, and we are consistently trying to communicate with people who speak different languages

Do you think these headphones are the future?

5 thoughts on “Google Headphones Translate Foreign Languages

  1. I find that this technology will be very useful not only for people who often travel to new countries but also in countries with hundreds of native languages. In such countries, English is not known by many people in such countries, and there is no common medium of communication even for many people living within the same country. Even if a person wishes to buy a product from say, a grocery shop, the guy at the billing may not be speaking the same language, making things hard. Aged people may not be ready to learn English from scratch and they might want to use smart devices too. Implementing such feature can initiate easier flow of communication among people. Definitely, the price will be expensive, making it hard for common people to buy, and there might be some errors interpreting, but I think such areas can definitely expand the business and the sales of this product.

  2. These headphones seem like a great invention for people who love to travel, or have international businesses. Furthermore, it could allow people to move to other countries and get a job there without having to be an expert in the language. Hopefully when these headphones are released, they aren’t prone to mistranslations, otherwise it could end up in certain embarrassments, such as a conversation with a friend, or even disastrous results, such as an important business decision. Also, although they are very convenient, it could make people less enthusiastic or less interested in learning foreign languages as they could just use these headphones with each other. Besides those negative aspects, they will be useful in the future when the world globalizes more, especially as people start to improve the technology of translating.

  3. I think that if this product became available it would be very beneficial to people that travel often or are starting to live in a new country for the first time so that they are not always going to have to look up what something means on their phone. What I wondered about this was how this product would work and if you could actually hold a conversation with them, so I googled it. However, I could not find anything about the process of the Google headphones but I did find information for another translating earpiece called “Pilot”. This device uses a noise cancelling microphone that filters out to get the speech of someone talking, and then uses speech recognition, machine translation, and speech synthesis technologies to come up with a translation that it then sends back to the earpiece. The website also put in there that this all simultaneously without interruption while people are talking. That shows are far technology has come and gives a glimpse into the future and what type of new products we can create using new technology.

    URL: http://www.waverlylabs.com/pilot-translation-kit/

  4. I think this is a innovative design and our life will be easier with this Google Headphone, but I do not think that there will be a large amount of users of this product. This headphone could place phone calls, play music, or understand a language just like Siri on iPhone and the author has already recognize this point. This product is just a branch of function that iPhone could provide. Let’s talk about Siri first. For me, I barely use Siri on my phone. When I am going to call somebody or text to somebody, I would just click Phone button or Message Button instead of talking to Siri. According to a research from Kif Leswing, 98 percent of iPhone users have tried Siri but 70 percent of users said that they use Siri only sometimes or rarely. So I think if Google provides a similar product as Siri, the consequence will be similar with Siri although some time it’s more convenience.
    In addition for language translate, I think it could help people understand some part of a foreign language but the results may not be very precisely. Jenny An did a research compared several results by using google translate. The team tried several kinds of languages include: Spanish, French, Mandarin etc. and get totally different meanings. For a sentence which is: Limousine service sent a jeep to Carlyle Hotel, where she lives. She had to return it. Google translate it to: Transport companies took a sport utility vehicle to the hotel to settle her. She shot the car will go. This is just a small part of the article they translate but the meaning is totally different.
    There are a lot kinds of Internet of Things and people still developing more. But some of those may become legends and some may be not that popular.
    Source:
    Kif Leswing, Jun 2016
    http://www.businessinsider.com/98-of-iphone-users-have-tried-siri-but-most-dont-use-it-regularly-2016-6
    Jenny An, April 2013
    https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/how-accurate-is-google-translate/

  5. I think these headphones would be extremely beneficial to those who often travel to different countries where they are not familiar with the language, in some cases. In the article that I found it said that this new technology will allow users to both listen and speak in a different language. As you had mentioned, the user can hold down the ear bud and ask a question to an assistant similar to Siri and everything they say will be translated on their phone into the desired language. The user can also ask questions at any time about language and can also ask more basic questions such as where the closest coffee shop is or getting directions to a different location. My first issue with these headphones would be the actual translations themselves. Whenever I took Italian classes here, the first rule was that we could not use Google Translate. Aside from the aspect of cheating, Google Translate is not always correct. In languages there are often times many grammatical rules and exceptions to rules which computers do not always pick up on. If these headphones would also be using Google Translate someone in a foreign country might not be fully understood because the grammar would be off. I think that this technology would be very beneficial to people who travel often for business and are not able to learn new languages because it would help them to navigate the foreign area in a pinch. I don’t think that these should be used by everyone all the time. For example, I am going to study abroad in Italy this spring and while these headphones might be helpful at first so I could navigate my way around the city, if I used these headphones the entire time I would be missing out on the culture and the experience of learning a new language. Overall, I think these headphones could be very beneficial but I do not think they should stop people from trying to learn new languages and understand how to navigate in foreign places without this kind of technology.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/10/04/googles-new-headphones-can-translate-foreign-languages-real/

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