
Google’s Airpods competitor do real-time language translation - rbanffy
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/04/googles-airpods-competitor-do-real-time-language-translation/
======
grzm
Discussion on Ars Technica article from 3 hours ago (125 comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15402483](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15402483)

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727374
"They’re wired behind the neck but they’re every bit a competitor to Apple’s
AirPods"

Umm, no. The killer feature of AirPods is the form factor and not having an
annoying cable connecting the buds. As other posters have noted, Amazon is
full of cabled headphones. Language translation is certainly cool, but for
most people that's not an everyday need.

~~~
mullingitover
> The killer feature of AirPods is the form factor and not having an annoying
> cable connecting the buds

Ehh, the ability to lose those things really easily is not what I'd call a
killer feature. The cabled bluetooth headphones are easy to keep draped over
your neck when not in use. Someone actually sells a $10 string that connects
the Earpods so they too can have this convenient feature [0].

[0] [http://promo.spigen.com/product/iphone-7-iphone-7-plus-
airpo...](http://promo.spigen.com/product/iphone-7-iphone-7-plus-airpods-
strap-copy/)

~~~
dclusin
Everyone always says this but I feel like it's a non-starter. I haven't ever
misplaced my earbuds and I've owned them for several months. House & car keys
have a similar form factor and don't have a cable, yet most people don't seem
to have problems keeping track of those.

~~~
Jesus_Jones
Maybe you don't lose your car keys, but there are dozens of products that
purport to help you find your lose keys, by attaching various detectors and
buzzers to them. I personally never lose my keys unless my wife moves them
while I'm looking the other way - I swear that's what's happening.

~~~
bdcravens
Worth noting that AirPods can be found via Find My iPhone - it'll report last
place they were paired and send remote noise to assist in finding

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__sha3d2
> I chatted with a member of the Pixel Buds team following the demonstration
> and she confirmed that the demo was done entirely over the internet, without
> downloading the languages directly to the device.

This guy is real excited to have all of his conversations stored in the cloud

~~~
tucif
I also think the situations where I'd find useful this kind of translations
are when I'm not in my home country which most likely means my data plan does
not work or is very expensive, which makes it less useful than it sounds at
first.

~~~
huehehue
Project Fi does not charge extra for international data use, and it works in
135+ countries.

Many people may not have Fi, which I get, but I get the feeling Google's ideal
use case is these headphones paired with a Pixel 2 running on Fi.

~~~
jsjohnst
Same thing applies for anyone using T-Mobile (which is the reason why GoogleFI
offers this too). I'm not sure EDGE speeds would be great for this use case
though!

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pkamb
Listening to podcasts in mono via a single earbud is my favorite use of the
AirPods. So glad they're not wired behind the neck like these Pixel Buds.

~~~
rconti
I've got a great pair of wired-together IEMs (Jaybird X3) but have been
considering buying AirPods just so I can listen to podcasts single-ear on my
bike ride to work.

Balancing that out is my desire to not get run over, and to save $160.

So what I'm saying is, I'm pretty sure I'll end up with AirPods soon.

~~~
m3rc
I occasionally bike with one earbud in with just normal wired earbuds and tuck
the other one into my shirt. What am I missing out on with wireless earbuds?

~~~
mercer
Honestly wireless earbuds, specifically the AirPods, have probably been the
best purchase I've made in a while and probably my favorite Apple product
since my MacBook Air (2013).

The problem is that all the reasons why I feel this way would not have meant
much to me while I was still using wired headphones. It feels a bit like
retina displays, or my first experience with a sleep mode that actually works
(my first, white MacBook): the advantages don't seem all that obvious or
amazing right until you're forced to go back to the 'old way'.

I would suggest you first make sure they fit your ears though. I was always
confused about people complaining about the EarPods/AirPods falling out of
their ears because that never happens to me or most people that I know. Then I
actually met one of those mythical people and it became immediately obvious to
me how unusable these things are for them (without foam or perhaps some
superglue).

~~~
rconti
Just found out that the existing AirPod case doesn't support inductive
charging.. I guess I'm waiting till it ships with the inductive case so I
don't have to buy another.

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mgiannopoulos
Can someone explain? Since everything is done on the cloud what is so special
about these buds? Why can't you do the same with a regular headset (which also
has a microphone) and Google Assistant running on any Android or iOS device?

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tanilama
It is possible NOT everything is done on cloud. It is normal that parts of the
model reside on the device itself, for efficiency concerns.

~~~
guptaneil
From the article, Google already confirmed everything happens in the cloud.
The only thing these headphones add is first-party integration with the Google
Translate app so that you can launch the app directly from the headphones.

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hackerews
Posting from the other thread here too...

The "translate conversations in real-time" part seems to have nothing to do
with the Google Pixel Buds - it's already live in the Google Translate app.

In fact, you can try it right now. Open the Google Translate app on android,
put on a pair of headphones with a mic, and tap the audio translation. As you
hear spoken word in another language, it'll translate in realtime back to your
non-google headphones.

*note - The trick is you need to press the button so it enables translation across both languages, as that seems to be the only way to keep translation on even after the first phrase.

~~~
dlubarov
Google engineer here. Did you see the demo?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc28VzAFBHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc28VzAFBHw)

Yes, the Google Translate app has a conversation mode which doesn't require a
headset at all. I wouldn't recommend trying to use it with an unsupported
headset, though. You won't be able to do push-to-talk, and the audio routing
won't work as intended. (The intended UX is that one side of the conversation
is routed to the phone, the other to Pixel Buds.)

I wrote about why we decided not to support third party headsets here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15404918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15404918)

~~~
hackerews
That's cool. I still think the primary issue is the marketing makes it sound
like the ear buds are bringing new tech to make this experience possible, when
they're really bringing:

a) UX for "hold while talking"

b) Known quality of the headset

From the outside, it looks a bit shady, and a bit un-Googlelike just to
compete with Apple.

I imagine a more Google-like approach would've been to release Translate as a
local model (eg like
[https://developers.google.com/vision/](https://developers.google.com/vision/)).
It's easy to imagine the community would quickly figure out a way to solve a)
and make the experience work for most headsets.

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thetinguy
I can't wait until I start getting ads for things I talked about.

~~~
lazyjones
> ads for things I talked about.

Perhaps you'll be getting those "live" as in:

Your friend says: _Let 's go get a drink_ (in some other language)

You hear: _let 's go get a <drink by advertiser>_

...

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Osmium
This looks fantastic. Love my Airpods, but the 'tap for Siri' feature so
rarely works for me, let alone language translation. Language translation is
clearly an area Google is really pioneering too.

Shame about the cable though. The one (surprising) benefit of no cable is that
the cable doesn't tug on the earphones, making them less likely to come out.

~~~
Waterluvian
My immediate thought is that the cable will greatly diminish the chance of
losing one or both. Never thought about the tugging.

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chrisseaton
Yes, the lack of the cable in my experience means that they are more secure in
your ears, not less, as everyone laughed that they would be.

~~~
charlesdm
They _look_ more silly, though! But I love my Airpods.

~~~
Osmium
Give it 10 years and anyone walking around with cables running from their head
is going to look plenty silly. If ever there was a look that defined the
2010s...

I think there’s an elegance to basically keeping the existing design and just
chopping the cables off, even if it is showy. Certainly beats the alternative
“black amorphous blob” design of some of the others.

~~~
Jesus_Jones
Uh, the 1980s are calling for you. That was the decade of the sony walkman,
and headphones. Everyone had one. Or a no-name version, like I had.

I have bluetooth headphones and I just get tired of the battery going out.
Besides being cool and not looking dated, is there any conceivable reason why
removing the headphone jack saves money, makes them last longer on battery,
makes it thinner or anything else?

~~~
Osmium
Sorry, I was barely around for the 80s ;) I am old enough to have had a knock-
off portable CD player though...

> makes it thinner or anything else?

I think it's volume inside the device more than thinness, but I agree I don't
think it's a fundamental design constraint. I'm sure they could find the room.

I think it's just that (now/soon) Bluetooth headphones are finally good
enough. I have the Airpods, and I have almost no issue with batteries (they
recharge while they're in the case, it's only a problem if I listen
continuously for a whole evening, but even then they fast recharge in
minutes), and they have great range. I'd tried Bluetooth headphones in the
past and it was the pairing process that really turned me off, that's a non-
issue now too. I would go as far as to say that the Airpods are the best/most
game-changing product Apple has put out in maybe a decade. They just need to
get a little cheaper, and included as standard (at least for the new top-of-
line devices).

For people in the audio industry it sucks, but there are adapters. I don't
resent them taking it out any more than I do an ethernet port in my MacBook
(ethernet is much better than WiFi, but WiFi is 'good enough' now, and I have
an adapter at my desk for when I need it).

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irrational
Does this require an internet connection? The vast majority of the times I've
needed something like this in my life it has either been in very rural places
where there is no internet service or in a foreign country where I do not want
to pay the exorbitant roaming data fees.

~~~
gervase
I can't speak for these, but I assume they are based on Google Translate,
which does offline translation on-device when configured to do so. It needs to
download a pre-trained kernel for each language, but once done, it can handle
it offline.

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gxs
Price is $159, same as air pods. Presentation mirrors an apple keynote.
Marketing on page mirrors apple's websites.

I understand competition is a normal part of doing business, but blatant
copying really rubs the wrong way.

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byeshvant
I think you have to still use your phone give it to the person who you are
talking with.A phone is the one actually sending the translated voice to the
earphone. I don't see what is so different in here.

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foota
Can you cut the cable between them? Or is it more than just a tether?

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alejandromaka
bragi pro headphones have allowed to do this for a while. also theyre truly
wireless :) [https://www.cntraveler.com/story/bragi-dash-pro-earbuds-
can-...](https://www.cntraveler.com/story/bragi-dash-pro-earbuds-can-
translate-languages-in-real-time)

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usaphp
I really think they could have come up with a better name. This whole
presentation just felt awkward with headphones jack removal, AirPods clone,
portrait mode for photos, Live Photo’s clone, AR demos...and on top of that
these pixel buds with camera that will be forgotten and abandoned just like
most of the stuff google does

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ElKoji
I’m failing to see what these headphones do with translation, all they seem to
do is launch Google Translate app on conversational mode by saying Help me
speak... so technically they don’t really do anything you can’t already do
right now, they certainly don’t help with fast network connection required

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rjromero
Seriously... Pixel Buds? Is that catchier than Babelfish?

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nunez
Sorry, but they’re not truly wireless, so they don’t compete at all

Also, Android uses SBC for Bluetooth streaming by default; until they fix that
(by using AAC), BT audio will sound like shit

~~~
bdonlan
AAC is supported on Android Oreo.

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negamax
How easy/tough it will be for Apple to allow this?

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irrational
Do they have any way to not allow this? How could they stop it?

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georgeglue1
The original comment might not be from a native english speaker. Presumably,
they mean 'How difficult is it for Apple to clone this feature?'

It is likely incredible hard to do well by themselves from now, but there's a
chance they could pay Google for an API.

~~~
negamax
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Will be more conscious when writing next time

