Traveling has become one of the most important leisure activities around the world. Where once people traveled mostly for work, leisure travel is a thing now. People have this new passion for seeing the whole world, as much as they can.
For all those who travel to foreign countries frequently, the most perplexing moment, even more than the planning phase, is the fact that not everyone speaks a language we understand. Although at major tourist attractions, people can speak English and understand it to a certain degree, therefore, getting around is not a problem. But if you ever want to visit somewhere remote, to see the real life and culture of that country such as China or rural Indonesia, you’ll find that getting around and talking to locals is a huge dilemma.
Same is true for students who travel to other countries for furthering their education ambitions or anyone else traveling to a foreign country for any purpose. Why hire a translator or guide when you can understand every major language in the world and travel with one thing less to worry about. Impossible? Not anymore!
Thanks to the app developers ‘iTranslate’ and the German wireless earbud company Bragi, it is now possible to understand nearly 40 languages around the globe by just wearing a pair of earbuds!
The Dash Pros are actually wireless earphones that can also translate languages for you on the go, in real time, in conjunction with the iTranslate app. They are intelligent earbuds which the company calls the world’s first language translating ear computer.
When you have the Dash Pros in your ears and the iTranslate on your phone, these earbuds simply take in any language and send out the one you can understand directly to your ears. This is made possible through iTranslate’s speech recognition technology and translation software. Bragi provides this technology with the right hardware in the form of the Dash Pros and the two combine to come up with a product we have all been wishing for since times immemorial.
The Dash Pro is not the first of its kind technology or idea but certainly the first to be available in the market. A similar product by Waverly Labs called the Pilot was announced but never hit the shelves. The Dash Pro works in two ways. The AirTranslate mode and the single device mode.
For the first mode, two pairs of the device are required. Two people conversing with each other must both be wearing the earbuds in order to talk to each other. Through Bluetooth connectivity, the earbuds are connected to the users’ smartphones and the two users can talk smoothly to each other in two different languages.
The single user mode is more useful because not everyone you talk to will have a pair of Dash Pros themselves. The same way, your earbuds are connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth and the person you are conversing with can hear the language he or she understands through your smartphone. The earbuds start translating by simply tapping them or by gesture-detection when you move your head. This is an optional feature.
The Dash Pros cost a whopping $329 and the iTranslate app that works in conjunction with it costs $5 per month. Although the earbuds are very expensive, they are also a one of a kind gadget at least the ardent travelers cannot miss out on.
Since it is a new technology, there are certainly some hiccups such as currently the Dash Pros only work with an iOS phone and they only work when you are connected to the internet. But these are not really big problems and will be ironed out with time as the technology matures. According to Bragi, Android usage and the offline working option will be available soon.
The very idea of being able to understand any language in the world is exciting, let alone it being materialized in form and function. Taking communication into perspective, this breakthrough technology bodes very well for the future. It will make conversing with people speaking different languages easier thus bringing humanity closer together. It will also make our lives so much less complicated and more efficient than ever before.