A former Australian plumber's 9-language translation earpiece has started shipping

Australian startup Lingmo International has started delivering its earpiece that can translate nine languages in real-time.

In June, a prototype of the TranslateOne2One device was unveiled at a United Nations event in Switzerland, with the capability to translate — or more accurately, interpret — English (US and UK), Japanese, French, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

The feedback from that exposure saw the company to postpone its original target of mid-July for commercial deliveries, in order to cram in additional features — like adding Arabic as the 9th language and Google Maps onto the device.

“We thought it was better just to hold off a little bit, work on these extra features that people actual want so they get the best out of the device,” Lingmo founder Danny May told Business Insider.

But while the startup, based on the Central Coast just north of Sydney, delayed the launch of its device, a rather large rival — Google — this month revealed its own headphones capable of real-time translation, Google Pixel Buds. In fact, the software feature is part of Google Assistant, so theoretically most new top-end Android smartphones now have this capability. Read more

Tony Yoo - Business Insider Australia - 30 Oct 2017