Lost in Translation No More with Ambassador

There are 6,500 spoken languages. Most Americans speak only one, which can make things difficult if you’re attempting a rescue from a Vietnamese drug farm. Luckily, Waverly Labs is here to save those who slacked off in Spanish class. Throw out Rosetta Stone, people! Put on Ambassador!

Waverly Labs, a Brooklyn-based startup focused on fashionable tech and language translation, will follow up their $5 million success, Pilot, with Ambassador. Compatible with 20 languages and 42 dialects, the device will provide translations by sending over-the-ear audio to a Waverly app for teaching, training, conferences or plain chitchat.

According to Waverly, the device uses “an advanced far-field microphone array combined with speech recognition neural networks to capture speech with astounding levels of clarity. It then seamlessly processes speech with cloud-based machine translation engines to deliver, fast, fluid and highly accurate translations.” Translation: You put it on, select one of the 20 languages you need translated, and start blabbing.

The product has three key features:

1. Listen: Provides personal translations between users within eight feet of the source.

2. Lecture: Broadcasts a speaker in a group setting, capturing his or her dialogue and translating it to their smartphone, which can be played over any speaker system.

3. Converse: Allows two-way communication between users. Simply set the language that needs detected and received and boom – smooth, ordinary tête-à-tête.

Ambassador is worn over-the-ear and can be paired with a smartphone using a Waverly iOS or Android app (multiple Ambassadors can be paired with a single phone). It is sold in pairs and has a battery life of six hours. Currently, it can be pre-ordered on Indiegogo for $109. Post crowdfunding prices will start at $149. Tulevik on siin … (buy Waverly, set to Croatian and translate).