Pilot earpiece targets language barriers with live conversation translation

From the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Babel fish to Star Trek's universal translator, science fiction has found ways to break down the intergalactic language barriers, but it's something those of us in the real world are still struggling with. New York startup Waverly Labs is now claiming it's ready to make fiction a reality with the Pilot earpiece, which sits in your ear to provide near real-time translations of multilingual conversations.

   

The time and technology seem close to bring another idea from science fiction into reality. The Babel fish from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a living, squirming animal you stuck in your ear to translate any language in the universe for you in real time – a neat plot device that let every alien in the novels understand each other.

Now, a Manhattan-based company called Waverly Labs is working on commercializing an electronic device that does a similar job. The Pilot is an earpiece that listens in to a conversation and communicates with your smartphone to give you a close-to-real time translation.

To do so, it's going to need to rely on several potential weak-link systems; it'll need a clear signal from its in-built microphone, which will need to do a decent job of converting that signal from speech into text in both speakers' languages.

Then it'll need a good, effective translation, presumably from an online translation engine like those run by Google or Microsoft. In particular, it'll need to operate super-quickly and do a good job translating each language in a spoken, chatty form.

Then it'll need to convert the translation from text to speech and send it back to the earbud. And it'll need to be able to do all these tasks concurrently if the other person keeps talking while it's thinking.

The fact is, all these systems are already out there, up and running. None are perfect, in fact most are still glitchy and inaccurate, but each is steadily improving. Waverly Labs has wisely chosen to launch with European Latin and Germanic languages only at first; these are handled far better by online translators than Euro-to-Asian language translations at the moment.

Both Google Translate and Microsoft's Skype Translator are also already attempting real-time conversation translation in mobile and desktop applications. Pilot's key innovation is to put this stuff into a wearable device such that it effectively "whispers" the translation into the listener's ear.

It'll be interesting to see how that works out in practice, with the inevitable delay the translation system is going to add to the conversation, there won't be any way for you to know when the other party has actually received the translation of the last thing you said. So until it's super quick, it might actually be better to do this stuff through a phone that's sitting on a table that both parties can hear.

In fact, that's how Waverly Labs is going to launch the Pilot system. While pre-orders via Indiegogo will start very soon, deliveries aren't expected for another 12 months. But this US summer, the team will launch a mobile app that gives you the translation experience on your smartphone.

Full retail for the Pilot earpiece system will be US$299. That'll get you a pair of earpieces, so you can use both to listen to music, or presumably give one to your foreign friend when it's time to try to communicate through these things.

Is real-time translation technology ready to make the leap into the big time yet? The proof will be in the pudding. But enough of the pieces are moving into place to suggest that the language barrier may finally be broken.

BoomStick creates room-filling audio in your head

Audio enhancement is never going to be an easy sell. You’re basically trying to sell something people don’t know they’re missing. Sure, the audio coming out of your everyday iPhone earbuds is "meh" at best, but for most people it’s good enough.

BoomCloud 360, though, contends it can fill in that aural gap that you didn’t know you were missing for $99.

The company's device is called BoomStick and, despite the big-sounding name, it’s a relatively tiny, palm-sized device with a 3.5mm output port on one end and a 3.5mm input jack on the other.

According to the manufacturers, it can enhance virtually any audio source with a built an advanced digital signal processor (ADSP) that includes psychoacoustic base adjustment, spatial enhancement and high-frequency contouring. They all combine to, BoomCloud 360 claims, reveal latent audio qualities — things that can get masked in a sound mix

Unlike devices that simply boost audio or even fake 3D sound ("I hear helicopters behind me!"), BoomStick seeks to enhance the spatial quality of music, gaming, movies and spoken audio.

Psychoacoustics, or the study of sound perception, has been around for years. BoomCloud 360 CTO Alan Kraemer, who was formerly CTO at SRS, is an audio expert who is deeply knowledgeable in psychoacoustics. He says it presents audio in a fashion more akin to how we hear it in a natural environment.

Kraemer believes that those chasing lossless audio, like Ponos and Tidal "are wrong." The benefits of higher sample rates are questionable, at best, he told me. Kraemer admitted that bit-depth can help audio quality, but "99% of people can’t hear these things."

Can I hear it

BoomStick has been on the market for almost a month, but now it’s starting to sell in Sprint stores for $79. Seems like the right time to deliver my assessment.

Like any good gadget, BoomStick doesn’t ask you to install special software or twist into knots to complete the setup. It’s simply plug and play. The lightweight device comes with its own carrying case so you can keep it with you and use it with any of your portable devices — at least those that play audio.

The jack plugs into your device's audio out port, and then your headphones plug into the other end of the BoomStick. There’s a small power slider on one side and a mini-USB port for charging. BoomCloud 360 execs told me it can last 15 hours on a charge. Since much of the chassis is filled with battery, it could be an ever smaller device if they dropped the duration to just 8 hours — something BoomCloud 360 has considered.

On the face of the device are a few indicator lights (power, battery and sound) and one large button that turns the audio algorithm on and off. Even with the power off, BoomStick serves as an audio pass-through device and when you turn it on, it doesn’t alter the audio until you hit that big button.

Hit the button

Now here’s where it gets tricky. Yes, when I hit that button virtually every listening device I tried – Apple iPhone ear buds, Beats Audio Solo 2 headphones and Sony Professional Dynamic Stereo Headphones – showed an audible difference.

In general, sound in music, games and video got more spatial presence. The ambient sound, like wind rustling trees and saxophones playing behind Frank Sinatra on New York, New York, moved a little forward. There was also a little sound and bass boost, so the overall sound got louder and there was a little more thump.

Audio quality enhancement on both the Beats and Sony headphones was certainly more pleasant. There’s a warmer sound coming from both those headsets, especially on the Sony’s, which do not seem to add any kind of unwanted signal processing.

The tone on the Apple ear buds could get a bit sharp so that, when I turned on BoomStick, some of the background noises moved into competition with the forward sounds.

While music and games definitely benefited from BoomStick’s audio enhancement, I think the device is a kind of godsend for movie Foley artists.

In film production, they're the ones who create all the sound effects, everything from footsteps to wind to rain drops. BoomStick seems to pluck those sounds out of obscurity and thrust them forward, without overwhelming the voices and soundtrack. This was particularly effective in The Day After Tomorrow: The effect was like watching a big screen movie with digital surround sound, even though I was just using Apple earbuds.

Is BoomStick worth $79 to $99? After all, you can always spend that money on a better pair of headphones. Based on my experience, however, even the sound coming from a pair of headphones costing hundreds of dollars can get a boost from BoomStick.

Opera’s Power Saving Mode Offers Twice the Laptop Battery Life as Chrome

Opera is currently on a roll. As the date of its buyout through a Chinese consortium come closer, it is trying what it can to get as many users on board as possible. The latest such feature is the new Power saving mode, available currently only on the developer version of Opera but could make its way to the users soon.

The feature is targeted specially towards users who are usually on the move and want to get the most out of their battery life. Opera claims that its browser with the power saving mode on can result in a battery life which is twice that of contemporary browsers such as Firefox and Chrome.

Opera has done a few things to make this possible. When in the mode, the activity on background tab hinders, frame rate reduces, animations are paused, while unused plug-ins are paused. JavaScript use is scheduled more prudently, while more work is loaded at hardware acceleration.

To verify these findings, Opera tested its claims on two different laptops from Lenovo and Dell, and found that while the ones without the setting ran out of juice in under two hours, the ones running the power saving mode reached almost three.

The option can be accessed whenever your laptop is disconnected from its charger. The browser will alert you once your battery reaches 20 percent to turn on the mode.

Opera has been adding features to its portfolio quite rigorously. It first became the initial mainstream browser to feature a built-in ad-blocker (which is both faster and less of a resource-hog than AdBlock) then it brought the same feature on mobile. It also brought a built-in VPN to its users, meaning this power saver is just a link in this chain of developments.

LG Action CAM LTE Streams Content LIVE on YOUTUBE

The GoPro might just have its biggest competitor to date. While it seems weird that a company like LG (which is not even the first name that pops up when you think of imaging) could ever manage to beat long-time leader of action cameras, it is trying to do so in the cleverest ways possible.

Its latest Action CAM LTE is an action camera which can directly stream the content that it’s recording to YouTube, without even the need of a phone or anything else. It does so via 3G and LTE connectivity and its appeal is now getting slightly clearer. It’ll be possible to get the recordings on the phone, too.

The camera is pretty fine in the other departments too. It has a 12.3 megapixel camera on the front with a 150-degree wide-angle lens. It can shoot up to 4K Ultra HD videos at 30 fps, 1080p at 60 fps or slow-motion 720p at 120 fps.

You even have GPS, an accelerometer and a gyroscope for connectivity. When 3G or LTE aren’t enough, you have Wi-Fi, Type-C and Bluetooth for further sharing with other phones and laptops. It can also take microSD cards of up to 2 TB capacity and has 2 GB RAM.

Its IP67-certification makes it withstand up to up to an hour in water, as well as offering dust-resistance. An optional mount and waterproof case will be made available for more exotic adventures, while its 1,400 mAh battery leads to a recording time of up to four hours.

Pricing details are not known by now, but they should be available when it goes for sale next month.

The HyperLoop Dream just one step closer to Reality

It was over in 1.9 seconds.

A skeletal metal sled accelerated down a track at 2.5 times the force of gravity, hit 116 miles per hour, and crashed into a sand pit, sending a cloud of dust dramatically into the air.

It was the first public test of Hyperloop One's acceleration technology, an early step toward building a new kind of high-speed transportation system.

"I would really like to note that all of that happened on purpose!" said a giddy Brogan BamBrogan, Hyperloop One's cofounder, after the test was over.

First proposed by Elon Musk in 2013, the Hyperloop envisions sending passengers on levitating pods through partially pressurized tubes at more than 700 miles per hour. Musk open-sourced the idea and now a number of startups are competing to make the technology their own.

Hyperloop One was cofounded in 2014 by BamBrogan, a former SpaceX propulsion engineer, and venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar. The company recently raised $80 million in funding and has more than 150 employees. It changed its name from Hyperloop Technologies this week to avoid confusion with the next closest competitor, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

Based in Los Angeles, the company started building its test track on a patch of desert 30 minutes north of the Las Vegas Strip just six months ago. On Wednesday, it bussed in reporters, employees, partners and family members to watch the blink-and-you-missed-it test run from a grandstand.

Down the hill, a control room of engineers counted down the launch. All employees cleared the track area, which was alive with 7,000 volts of electricity.

The 1,000-yard open-air track is just the first part of a larger test track that Hyperloop One is building here. Sections of giant empty tubes sit nearby, each 3.3 meters in diameter and branded with the Hyperloop One logo.

They'll be used to build a 1.5 kilometer enclosed track. Then the company will start testing technology that will allow the sleds to levitate. Because the sleds will glide, passengers will feel only feel the initial acceleration, similar to the start of an airplane ride.

The company is moving fast.

"All of this is to get us into a position to run this full scale, full system test later this year," said Pishevar.

Hyperloop One's ambitious plan is to start moving cargo by 2019, and carrying passengers by 2021. It recently announced partnerships with a number of well-known transportation companies around the world and is looking into locations for its first commercial track.

Wednesday's test run didn't break any speed records or even look particularly dazzling up close, but for the Hyperloop One employees who have been working 12 hour shifts around the clock for months, it was a momentous occasion.

"This is rad, and it's going to get a lot radder from here," said BamBrogan.