New in-ear device could be the beginning of a world without language barriers

Ear buds connected to your phone can translate simple foreign language phrases in real-time
(Image by Extreme Tech)   Details   DMCA

From Gene Roddenberry in Star Trek to Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, anyone who spends much time forecasting the future comes to realize that language has simply got to go. In a connected world, it’s one of the only things remaining that truly separates us — it’s what keeps keeps us from being able to directly consume and understand one another’s film and literature, and what keeps occupying soldiers from being able to effectively make alliances with local peoples. It’s a primitive relic of a bygone age — if we can convert MP4 to AVI, certainly we ought to be able to convert Mandarin to German. Now, a new device called Pilot could make that dream (mostly) a reality.

It's not quite a Babelfish, but it's close enough to prove that a real universal translator is just around the ...