We humans have known for a long time that dolphins communicate with each other through their clicks and whistles, many of which are beyond the range of sound that the human ear can hear. They are amazingly intelligent, have names for each other, and respond when called. But knowing that they communicate and actually understanding what they are saying are two different things.

Denise Herzig, director of the Wild Dolphin Project, has been working on a dolphin translator that would turn porpoises’ squeals into intelligible human language. Herzig and her team started by teaching a dolphin pod – the same one Herzig had been tracking for 25 years – a special whistle that meant sargassum, or seaweed. This whistle was easily distinguishable from those normally used by the dolphins. While Herzig was wearing a prototype of the translator device, one of the dolphins used the learned whistle – and the prototype translator device in Herzig’s ear translated for her: “sargassum.” The dolphin had repeated the “word” the researchers taught it.

As exciting as this development may seem, Herzig and her team are reluctant to celebrate just yet. The translated whistle was a one-time occurrence that hasn’t yet been repeated. However, work is continuing on the quest to communicate with animals – or at least to understand what they say to us. Meaningful communications with the animal kingdom may be decades off, or it may never happen at all. But one dolphin’s playful whistle gives us hope that one day we’ll be able to talk to them and they’ll be able to answer.

The post Talk With the Animals: Device Translates Dolphin’s Whistle first appeared on Gajitz.

People from all over the world will be travelling to Tokyo in 2020 for the Olympics. Needless to say, those tourists will need to decode food menus, a tricky task in Japanese. Not knowing how to read the language could result in some major mix-ups (which could actually lead to discovering some new foods, but we’ll assume that’s not your goal here). These glasses will hopefully be ready in time for the games.

The glasses achieve what Japanese telecoms firm NTT Docomo calls “character recognition technology.” Using augmented reality, the desired language is projected over the original language on the menu. It can also be used on other documents besides menus, so you can finally kick start your spy career…right after lunch.

The post Decoder Glasses Translate Foreign Languages in Real Time first appeared on Gajitz.

The world is a much smaller place than it was just 50 years ago, and many more of us have the opportunity to travel to new and interesting parts of the globe. With that privilege comes a bit of difficulty, however, as travelers have to know the language of the land they want to visit. The Ivy Guide is a small translator that can help people learning a new language to understand the words they are reading.

The Ivy Guide comes in two pieces. One piece fits over a pen or pencil, much like one of those comfy soft pen grips. The pliable interior allows for different sizes and types of writing utensils to be used. When the user is reading and comes across an unknown word, he underlines it with the pen and the Ivy Guide instantly projects a translation directly onto the page.

The other part of the device is a USB dongle. The pen grip piece fits neatly into the USB piece for data transfer to and from a computer. In theory, this would be the way users would download new words or possibly whole new languages to the Ivy Guide.

With so many students choosing to study outside of their home countries, a device like the Ivy Guide could serve to make the learning experience so much easier and less intimidating. The device is still in the concept stage at the moment, so it will be interesting to see just how far this idea can go.

The post High-Tech Pen Translator Makes Learning Languages Easier first appeared on Gajitz.

There has never been a better time to learn a new language, in part because the technology available to help us learn is truly remarkable. These Google Glass-type smart glasses translate from any of 37 languages in real time, converting spoken words into text subtitles that appear right before the wearer’s eyes. The translation is very nearly in real time, though there is a bit of a delay between the words being spoken and the translation appearing.

Incredibly, the translation glasses are a DIY project put together by William Powell, an expert DIYer and modder. He used a pair of Vuzix Star 1200 glasses, two Raspberry Pis, a Jawbone headset and a smartphone for the setup – all products that can be picked up by the regular DIY enthusiast.

Maybe most people would use the glasses as a clutch, a reason to avoid actually learning the foreign language being spoken to them. But when you are learning a new language and do not yet have complete confidence in your conversational skills, a device like this could be a huge help.

The post Subtitle Glasses System Translates Foreign Conversations first appeared on Gajitz.

Even though our phones and their almost-unlimited functions are nothing short of amazing, we’ve grown rather jaded and hard to impress. But every once in a while there’s a new app that absolutely blows our minds. Word Lens uses the iPhone’s camera to translate between English and Spanish in an almost freakishly futuristic display of augmented reality.

Just point your iPhone at a sign or other printed material and the app magically translates whatever’s there in real time. The app even goes so far as to replace the words in the original image with the translated words in the same colors and font. The result is a totally wondrous toy that you’ll never want to put down…or, you know, a useful tool for when you’re traveling.

The Word Lens app itself is free, but if you want to do any translating you’ll have to pay $5 each for the Spanish-English and English-Spanish translation packs. But once you’ve bought the translation packs you can magically transform text even when you’re offline (not in a wi-fi hotspot or within a cell phone service area), making this one ridiculously awesome purchase that you’ll use

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