Japanese Mobile Operator NNT Docomo Reveals AR Glasses For Immediate Translation of Foreign Menus


translatorFirst came translation books for the common tourist. Tricky to use, especially when in a rush. Scrambling through pages attempting to find that sentence, question or phrase. How do I say “Could you please tell me where the Museum of Art is?”. Gosh, if I keep standing here expecting this local to wait as I search my way through the tiniest yet longest book in history he is just going to walk away. Then came translation apps (lucky us) were you can speak or type in the foreign words. I could think of ways where this could become just as frustrating and time consuming, saying or typing incorrectly and having to repeat, etc. Then we have better applications where you can hold your phone up to a word and receive real-time translation relayed onto the screen! Aha! Don't forget the incredible Siri or Android companion, speak your language into the phone, pick the language, then the translation is read to you. Now, something better is possible. The ability to translate foreign signs and menus with a head-mounted AR piece very similar to Google Glass, except showing the information on a built-in visor.

translator2They are glasses, actually. Still in prototype mode but were recently showcased by Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo at Ceatic 2013 in Japan. Here the company stated,“Character recognition technology enables instant language translation for users traveling abroad and reading restaurant menus and other documents”. The spectacles contain head-mounted display and connect to cloud, where Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English languages can be translated in front of your eyes. By overlaying the the user's first language onto unfamiliar text, it instantly becomes a translated and understandable menu or sign. The invention becomes especially useful for those who travel beyond the most touristy points of Japan (and other countries) where foreign-language menus and other documents are rarely found. Additionally, if that “oh no” moment hits and you realize you left your tablet elsewhere the glasses do something else useful. When wearing them, a blank, flat surface can be virtually turned into a touchscreen. With the user wearing a finger ring to activate the 'animated tags', it then relays hand movements on the surface back to the glasses, allowing one to manipulate a virtual image within their field of vision. One more task it can do is facial recognition! Don't sweat it if you pull the infamous “I cannot believe I forgot their name! I met them twice!” phenomenon. These glasses use facial recognition to pull up details of a person in view by request; including job information and name, all by using smart phone servers. Anything but slick and trendy looking at this particular stage in development, they have been worded as “Robocop's geeky younger brother's glasses”. But this is due to the stretch of time (seven years or so) they have to keep working on them. In addition, a pair of glasses for this simple purpose may not sell so well, so it is highly doubted they would sell a pair of smart glasses without a much larger ecosystem of applications. Maybe that's what the seven years of waiting will be for. That, and the fact that in this consumer world of fashion, technology and social acceptability, you better make them look trendy. Couldn't hurt in the least.

Topics: Technology News Display Screen Technology Gadgets & Peripherals Inventions & Innovations

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