When devices like With Waverly Labs’ Ambassador Interpreter and Pocketalk Plus voice translator appearing on the scene, the world took some of the biggest steps yet toward universal translation technology, all thanks to devices that could listen to two people talking and translate. audio in real time, in both directions. .
Those products emerged just four years ago, and the world of real-time language translation has made incredible strides since then. We can already consider devices like these as quaint and useful, but limited. In the case of the Pocketalk, the portable device only worked for two years; After that, you had to buy a new SIM card for $50 every year. Baby steps.
You can thank advances in artificial intelligence for the breakthrough: real-time language translation has been a major testing ground for the technology, and I was able to witness how far we’ve come in testing the latest in real-time translation hardware . the Basque Translator E1.
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The design of the Vasco E1 is similar to that of the Waverly Interpreter, taking the form of two over-the-ear headphones that are designed to be shared between you and another person, one who speaks a different language. Each earbud comes with a magnetic case, which snap together (also magnetically) like a triangular sandwich. Only one of the cases has a USB-C charging port, so when the two cases are connected, they both charge. All Vasco headphones are designed to fit over the right ear. Battery life is 3 hours per earbud, with 10 days of standby available. The case also has its own battery, good for “multiple charges” according to Vasco.
Photography: Christopher Null
The idea behind the Vasco Translator E1 is that you put on one headset, your friend puts on another, and you start speaking in the language that suits you best, while the E1 translates your friend’s voice into your lingua franca. Up to 10 E1 translators can be paired, making group chats in multiple languages possible. A total of 51 languages (by my calculation) are available in the app, although that includes several regional variations of English, such as the UK, US, India and Australia. Each earbud has a physical volume control, and unlike some translation systems, no subscriptions are required.
Vasco has done important work to make the translation process as simple as possible, mainly with its Vasco Connect mobile application. To get started, you pair each earbud with the app on your phone (a simple process): give it a name, a color for its little LED (useful for keeping the earbuds straight), and a default language that’s output through its speaker. All of this can be changed as needed.
In Headphones mode, you tap the side of your headset, something like trip to the starsPicard does a “tap to talk” on his badge, which presses a button on the E1 that rests against your ear. This puts your headset into talk mode, at which point you can say your peace. When a pause is detected, the translation is sent within seconds to the other earbuds you’ve paired, in the language that earbud has assigned in the app. The other party can then touch the side of your head to do the same thing, in reverse. So it’s touching, talking, listening; touch, speak, listen. And so on.