(That would be a heads-up display application, rather than AR.)īut imagine if the “translation glasses” were paired with a smartphone. But that visual data would be available in your glasses, hands-free, no matter where you are. It would be just like using a smart display with Google Assistant - a home appliance that delivers visual data, along with the normal audio data, from Google Assistant queries. One obviously powerful use for Google’s “translation glasses” would be to use them with Google Assistant. In the interim, most of it could be done with audio. These are the kinds of applications we’ll be waiting for visual AR to deliver in five years or more. It could be information about a specific product in a store. It could be information about a specific artifact in a museum. This text could be instructions for operating equipment. A noise-generating device or smartphone app could send R2D2-like beeps and whistles, which could be processed in the cloud like an audio QR code which, once interpreted by servers, could return any information to be displayed on the glasses. The noise could even be encoded, like an old-time modem. The glasses could send any noise, and then display any text returned from the remote application. The applications for processing audio and returning actionable or informational contextual information are practically unlimited. In reality, the hardware sends noise to the cloud, and displays whatever text the cloud sends back. They could easily process any audio for any application and return any text or any audio to be consumed by the wearer. There's so much more the glasses could do! Google’s translation glasses are, in fact, AR by essentially taking audio data from the environment and returning to the user a transcript of what’s being said in the language of choice.Īudience members and the tech press reported on the translation function as the exclusive application for these glasses without any analytical or critical exploration, as far as I could tell. The most glaring fact that should have been mentioned in every report is that translation is just an arbitrary choice for processing audio data in the cloud. But it couldn’t normally harvest visual or audio data, then return to the user information about what they were seeing or hearing. Based on location, it could give turn-by-turn directions or location-based reminders. The only contextual or environmental awareness it could deal with was location. Google Glass was not augmented reality - it was a heads-up display. Let me explain what I mean.Īugmented reality happens when a device captures data from the world and, based on its recognition of what that data means, adds information to it that’s available to the user. It is still not as clear or natural-sounding as live speech, but can be a great additional research for language learners everywhere.Unlike Google Glass, the translation-glasses prototype is augmented reality (AR), too. Online forums and blogs, such as 9to5Google and Google Operating System Blog have also commented positively on this new feature. This innovation is a step towards simulating natural speech online, and will help language learners better differentiate words and sounds. The third click plays the translation at a normal speed again, and each additional click would continue to alternate between normal and slow speech. Clicking on the button a second time will play the words at a slower speed. After translating text to another language, clicking on the ‘listen’ button once will play the words at a normal speed. In order to improve its text-to-speech function, Google Translate has recently added a feature to slow down the speech for users to understand the translation more clearly. However, the computer voice often sounds robotic, garbled, and difficult to understand. As the language-learning world becomes more and more digital, language learners are more likely to turn to online tools, such as Google Translate, for pronunciation help. When learning a foreign language, accurate pronunciation of new vocabulary words can be one of the toughest skills to master.
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