Google touts Babel Fish-esque in-ear real-time translators. And the usual computer stuff Google today showed off some new Android phones, a laptop, two Home assistants, and a genuine surprise: a set of earbuds that attempt to emulate Douglas Adams’ legendary Babel Fish – a real-time language translator. During the hardware unveiling, an event dubbed Made by Google, in San Francisco a few hours ago, CEO Sundar …
@ jaywin "If they can waterproof the USB-C, I see no reason they can't do it to a headphone jack."
Exactly. Google and Apple (to name two) are massive companies worth billions and with billions in the bank. I can't believe for a second that they couldn't develop, or find someone who could develop, a 3.5mm jack with suitable water resistance if it can be done for the USB-C/Lightning ports. I accept omitting the 3.5mm jack means they have more flexibility on device thickness and have a little more space inside the unit, but, as said by another in this thread, people are more likely to use their 3.5mm ear buds than go swimming with their phone. Also there aren't many people complaining their phone ought to be another mm thinner. This is all about pulling people further into the walled gardens and ensuring they cannot use their existing accessories while in there.
paulf wrote: I accept omitting the 3.5mm jack means they have more flexibility on device thickness and have a little more space inside the unit,
There is always the option of using a 2.5mm jack, which became common when pre-touchscreen phones got really small. All existing headphones will work with an inexpensive adapter that can remain attached to the headphones.
@ druck "There is always the option of using a 2.5mm jack,"
True, but it takes us straight back to the same problem - having to use an adaptor to get standard 3.5mm kit to work with it. Existing headphones should work with a USB-C/Lightning to 3.5mm jack adaptor too. The pain is having to use an adaptor at all.
"If they can waterproof the USB-C, I see no reason they can't do it to a headphone jack."
It's nothing to do with waterproofing, despite El Reg constantly bringing it up. There are already a variety of devices around that manage to be waterproof despite having open 3.5mm sockets. If anything, it's much easier than the USB socket - the Xperia Z1 had a rubber seal for the USB, but the 3.5mm socket was just open (just a shame about the shit build quality that meant the glass panels peeled off the front and back; the sockets were the only parts that actually stayed waterproof).
Getting rid of headphone sockets is done for precisely one reason - cost. It's one less part that needs designing and buying, and takes up space that makes fitting the rest of the internals more difficult. The move is happening now because, presumably, it's finally reached the point where bluetooth speakers are popular enough anyway that the cost savings more than offset any lost sales.
@ Cuddles "Getting rid of headphone sockets is done for precisely one reason - cost."
I don't believe for one second a headphone jack that costs, what, two bucks in parts and assembly costs (lets say 3 bucks if you add in design cost shared across millions of devices) is going to make any tangible difference on a handset costing £800-£1000. Even if they did put up the price by a tenner to compensate it wouldn't matter - people buying flagship phones aren't usually that price conscious, hence "Cupertino Idiot-tax operation".
My wife was seriously thinking of abandoning Apple when they dropped the headphone jack from their flagship devices, but bought a "budget" (ho ho) iphone SE when she discovered they still had a 3.5mm audio jack.
Google, please take note. I'm an Android user, and I want a 3.5mm headphone jack too.
USB-C and bluetooth headphones are the future. Personally I'm going to stick with wired headphones because they always work. I did have a pair of bluetooth headphones but I didn't use them for about 2 months and when I tried to recharge them, they wouldn't so I had to throw them away.
Waterproof is great, but here's the question to ask yourself: how often do I use my phone in the pool, and how often do I use my earphones/earbuds?
When I was like 8 years old (ie damned near 40 bloody years ago!) I had a waterproof radio that had a headphone jack. The jack was sealed, basically a standard one coated in rubbed IIRC. This was in the '80s. Surely firms with the tech knowhow that Google has must have someone who can figure that out. If not, Google, I am currently seeking work and I can design lots of trivially simple ways for you to waterproof stuff!
It really is trivially easy to do.
If you ever drop your non waterproof phone in a urinal you will appreciate the dilemma of a phone that can't survive a thorough wash afterwards.
If I ever drop my phone in the urinal, I will appreciate the joy of buying the cheapest phones I can find, and leave it there! :)
I had a friend who went through a period of dropping phones in toilets, very expensive as the phones didn't survive. Taught him 2 simple tricks to stop that. 1) don't be on the phone (and perhaps don't take it in with you), 2) put it in a closed pocket that has a zip or other fastener. True, with some guys they may want to do some "left handed surfing" on their phone while in the bog, but that's their problem if they loose control of things. If they can't handle things safely they should learn not to play with them in there!
In VietNam almost every cab / taxi has a dash-mounted Android device that translates between English and Tieng Viet. Without the Google translation facility life would be much harder.
Now I will buy a Chinese smartphone with Android N software when the Babel earbuds go on sale.
Thank you, Google. (But I still use DuckDuckGo)
"In VietNam almost every cab / taxi has a dash-mounted Android device that translates between English and Tieng Viet. Without the Google translation facility life would be much harder."
This is an excellent idea and as a use for a native speaker trying to understand / speak foreign languages like you've described, full kudos for whoever first thought of it.
However I get the impression that the standard use scenario envisaged will involve a foreign language speaker using the phone to translate the native language to what ever language they speak, for example an English speaker going to Japan and using the phone to translate Japanese into English. Isn't this going to fall foul of the problem associated with all internet based technologies, it'll cost a fortune in roaming data costs?
I hope it does a better job than the translation between German and English. I was tight for time and thought I'd bung some English text through Translate to save time...
After falling off my seat laughing, I finally translated it by hand.
One of the problems that Translate has is formal English. It seems to work better with American slang than proper English. Terms like "do not" translated into "do this", whereas "don't" translated properly. I put in a bunch of changes at the time and it seems that Translate is now better, but I still wouldn't trust it with anything important or where a misunderstanding could be dangerous.
Having it translate things like "do not open the case, high voltage inside" being translated into "open the case, high voltage inside" are funny at first glance, but dangerous.
Hilarious on the other hand was "do not open the case, no user servicable parts inside", which ended up with the German equivalent of "open the case, no parts inside"!
When did you try this test?
Today Google gives: Öffnen Sie nicht den Fall, keine benutzerfreundlichen Teile im Inneren, which at least keeps the proper negatives, even though the parts switch from being user-serviceable to user-friendly.
So: same conclusion — don't trust — but it's clear that they continue to work on it.
I did post corrections to the sample I gave, although not what you got. It is improving, but these sorts of problems seem all to common, at least in English <-> German. I have worked as a translator for an agency and there are good tools that you can use for translation, like Leo, Linguee etc. but the actual translation sites are all pretty poor.
They might be okay for getting directions or simple sentences, but you shouldn't rely on them for anything important.
Hungarian Inflamatory Phrasebook Sketch
' I quote an example. The Hungarian phrase meaning "Can you direct me to the station?" is translated by the English phrase, "Please fondle my bum."'
It's a Google Product, so obligatory "What could possibly go wrong ? ".
But, seriously, take one step back, and realise that this is just another Stasi Wet Dream bugging device - there has to be a central server everything goes back and is recorded (for ever).
... and who's to say that it's not recording all the time ?
and by the time the appropriate recording has been retrieved, the terrorist with a shopping list (google, take me to the nearest diy store, then the supermarket, and on the way back let's take a tour of that army base) will have been long GONE! OMG, we've got to do something about it! ;)
But, seriously, take one step back, and realise that this is just another Stasi Wet Dream bugging device - there has to be a central server everything goes back and is recorded (for ever).
Never saw it like that! Storing audio takes a lot of space, storing text takes very little. If you can build voice recognition systems that can do a "stand up in court" level of converting speech to text.
Of course, text loses all sorts of information like tone and inflection (and background noises), and people tend to replace those with what they imagine fits.
You still think they are storing audio/text? At this point they can just store the meta data... and presume from that. ;)
(As a note, look at Youtube content ID or the current voice to text, the system does not process images/audio etc the same as a human... well, not until you get to the neuron level.)
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