One of the unique stops we had during CES was to talk with a company that promises to deliver a small wearable translator that you can wear around your neck. Something you can hope to find from them in the second half of this year, it is about as small as a iPod Nano and will be able to translate both ways between two different languages.
So the next time you decide to visit Japan, you will be able to find your way around a lot better, or properly order your favorite meal.
At the moment, they will only support English, Japanese and Chinese (I believe, only one Chinese dialect for the moment. However, they do plan on expanding to additional languages down the road. Of course, they are going to have to work a little harder to make sure the Chinese is a little more flexible because no one is going to want to buy multiple versions of the same language. Maybe they can consider a flash option where you can buy only one unit and flash your target language to it each time. Here’s hoping.
There are many opinions flying around since the company didn’t release a video demonstration that audibly shows the device properly functioning. At the show, we weren’t able to demonstrate it on camera either–we assume the room was far too loud for it to work properly or the one on display wasn’t a working model (for show only).
We are hoping to see a working model soon as the company moves closer to releasing it. Maybe we will be able to run a demo of it if we get the chance. I know it would be quite fascinating if it worked well (and quickly). It’s the waiting game for now.
