The Language Barrier Is About to Fall - WSJ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-language-barrier-is-about-to-fall-1454077968

The most interesting innovations will come with the hardware development for the human interface. In 10 years, a small earpiece will whisper what is being said to you in your native language nearly simultaneously as a foreign language is being spoken. The lag time will be the speed of sound.

Nor will the voice in your ear be a computer voice, a la Siri. Because of advances in bioacoustic engineering measuring the frequency, wavelength, sound intensity and other properties of the voice, the software in the cloud connected to the earpiece in your ear will re-create the voice of the speaker, but speaking your native language. When you respond, your language will be translated into the language of your counterpart, either through his or her own earpiece or amplified by a speaker on your phone, watch or whatever the personal device of 2025 is.

Today’s translation tools also tend to move only between two languages. Try to engage in any sort of machine translation exercise involving three languages, and it is an incoherent mess. In the future, the number of languages being spoken won’t matter. You could host a dinner party with eight people at the table speaking eight different languages, and the voice in your ear will always be whispering the one language you want to hear.

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Exciting times. Nuheara has previously stated it hopes to be the device of choice relaying these voices to our brains while cutting through all the noise. “As thousands of developers around the world (start) working on voice recognition apps, we plan to be their partner of choice as an innovative hearing technology platform.”

The possibilities “range from personal digital assistants, to translation on the fly, to AI-driven voice enabled apps.”

“Our aim is to be a platform that will enable people to run their own software – whether that’s voice recognition software, translation software or something else. We’re allowing app developers to be creative. For instance, if you think about translation on the fly, where Chinese speech hits the plug and English comes out on the other side, that’s where we’re moving to,” said Miller.