Technology brings the world together, but unfortunately or luckily, it has not yet united the world under a common language for everyone, and it’s not always possible to communicate directly between people of different nationalities using a common foreign language such as English. In cases like this, what you need is a translator, but if you do not have the chance to find one, technology can come and rescue us, thanks to the translating glasses whose project has just been presented by NEC for the Japanese market.

TeleScouter glasses feature a small camera and a microphone, connected via Bluetooth to an equally small waist computer, The microphone picks up the voice and sends it to the waist computer, which in turn transmits the sound towards a remote server connected via Internet which converts the sounds into text, translates it and then sends the readable text back to the computer.

At this point, the translated text is sent from the waist computer to the small camera mounted on the glasses’ frame, and displayed directly on the user’s retina, without stressing the eyes and allowing him to keep eye contact with his counterpart, without being distracted by reading the text displayed on the lens.

By doing this, along with reducing fatigue on the eyes, glasses allow its user to have a more natural conversation flow. At the moment this system is still in concept phase, and glasses will initially be used only to transmit one-way information. A possible application idea might come from the construction field, where it could be possible to send instructions and information directly on glasses worn by personnel working on a large area.
The beginning of operations of the full translation system is scheduled by the end of 2010.