New York based startup, Waverly Labs is working to make fiction a reality with the Pilot earpiece, which sits in your ear to provide near real-time translations of multilingual conversations. This device is called Pilot — a headpiece, which uses “translation technology”, fits into the ear and has a built-in app which toggles between languages.
Pilot is available in three colours — red, black and white — comes with an extra earpiece (two pairs in total: one for you and a friend), one portable charger, and an accompanying app.
Founder Andrew Ochoa explained he got the idea “after meeting a French girl”.
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.
The company is planning to release European-based languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian) first, with East Asian, Hindi, Semitic, Arabic, Slavic and African languages on the cards later on. They’ve launched a crowd-funding campaign to make Pilot available with an expected retail price of $US299.
More information: Waverly Labs