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"Our translation machine needs at least two models. One is the bar-style form common on the market now, and one is a pair of simultaneous interpretation earbuds."
In the conference room, Ryan was laying out requirements for the translation-machine design team Hargrove had assembled.
He spoke up front while everyone below took notes.
"For the functions of the bar-style translation machine, I won't make too many demands. Offline translation, photo translation, and the like, just bring the performance in line with the industry's peers."
The so-called bar-style translation machine Ryan spoke of was the most common form on the market now.
This form of translation machine resembled a television remote control, the upper two-thirds a touch display screen, the lower third a few simple function buttons and a speaker, with the power and volume keys on one side of the body.
Their manner of use was basically the same, all of them requiring you to hold down the record key and then speak toward the translation machine, which would automatically translate into the corresponding language.
Most people, when using it, would treat it like a microphone, holding down the button like a reporter and shoving the translation machine up beside whoever was speaking.
To be honest, that was a little silly.
So Ryan had gotten the idea to make a somewhat special pair of simultaneous interpretation earbuds.
There were simultaneous interpretation earbuds on the market at present too, only these earbuds could generally manage nothing but one-to-one translation, meaning both parties each wore one earbud to conduct a translated conversation. Setting aside how sharing an earbud was unhygienic, the translation could hardly be done in real time either, managing only to translate one segment after a segment was spoken, making it a shrunken version of a translation machine.
This was rather far off from the simultaneous interpretation earbuds Ryan envisioned.
In his vision, simultaneous interpretation earbuds should be like the translation earpieces in that little troubled planet film, needing only to be hung on the ear to automatically record the surrounding voice information and translate it into one's native tongue.
And these simultaneous interpretation earbuds could translate multiple people's voices at once, rather than being able to translate only one person's voice at a single time.
"The simultaneous interpretation earbuds should be able to automatically translate the languages recorded around them, and translate them out in real time within the earbuds according to distance and volume."
"In theory, no matter how many people there are, as long as everyone wears simultaneous interpretation earbuds, then even if everyone uses their own native tongue, they can still understand what the other party says."
No sooner had Ryan finished than someone below raised a hand with a question.
"But in that case, without a microphone, and if there aren't enough translation earbuds on hand for everyone to have one, you could only listen and not speak, so wouldn't communication be impossible?"
Ryan glanced at the crowd in the meeting. Some agreed with this view, and some were pondering.
He said, "There's a certain logic to your point, but this flaw can be avoided."
"We only need to add a Bluetooth function to the earbuds, connecting them to a phone, and output the translated speech through the phone's microphone to solve this problem."
Hearing this solution from Ryan, the people below all expressed their approval. This was indeed a way to solve it.
"Secondly, the main application scenario for this product of ours is certain relatively closed, special settings, such as international conferences or international institutions, where many people from different countries will be gathered together."
"This way, each person need only wear this kind of earbud during a conference or while at work, and everyone can quickly understand what the other party says, with no need to speak English and no need to record sound through a translation machine, achieving fast and effective communication."
When everyone heard this idea of Ryan's, they cast sidelong glances despite themselves.
Using this thing at international conferences, that really was a good direction.
Or it could be used on international visits too. When some company went abroad on a visit, it was hard to avoid running into situations of language barriers or communication inconvenience, and at times like these one generally had to rely on interpreters.
But this again involved the problem of communication efficiency. You say a sentence, it's conveyed to one person, that person conveys it to another, the last person says a sentence, and the interpreter conveys that sentence back in turn...
No matter how hard the interpreter tried, efficiency would be affected.
But everyone need only put on simultaneous interpretation earbuds to be free of this trouble.
And in Ryan's vision, if this product was successful enough, it might even shake English's hegemonic position. Prying loose two bricks, at least, would be no problem.
Don't say it's impossible. With Argus's translation precision, entering various specialized fields later would be a task of no difficulty.
When Argus could translate a specialized paper written in English, then with this pair of simultaneous interpretation earbuds added on, English's position was bound to be shaken.
By then, aside from the developers of AI translation, everyone else in the world would no longer need to learn a foreign language, needing only to spend a little money to buy simultaneous interpretation earbuds, saving effort and worry alike. For the English cultural sphere and the English-based academic sphere, this would be an enormous blow.
By that time, Prism could even obtain some secrets unknown to others through the voice data collected by the earbuds...
The design team at the conference table was still at the first level of the realm, pondering how to design and realize the requirements Ryan had raised, with no idea at all that Ryan had already thought his way to the fifth level.
"For the translation machine and the simultaneous interpretation earbuds, we can purchase design solutions and templates, then select the best parts within them to pair and optimize."
"The benefit of this is that the various function modules and processor pairings are all ready-made, and we only need to do some adaptation work, without too high a demand on design time or design requirements," said Jared Nolan, the supervisor of the design team.
Ryan basically agreed with this plan. "The sound-pickup system and playback system of the simultaneous interpretation earbuds, we need to design independently. There shouldn't yet be a template on the market that can meet my requirements."
He thought a bit more. "Oh, right. The appearance design of both products should draw near to the style of Crimson Typhoon and Scrapper."
Holding the image operation rights to the two great mechs in hand, not using them would be a waste.
Jared Nolan understood Ryan's meaning and immediately added what he'd just said into the memo.
"Roughly when can these two designs be completed?" Ryan glanced at the current date. It was already December now.
Jared Nolan's pen tip paused on the memo as he thought. "They can probably be completed and undergo testing before the new year."
Which was to say it would take a bit over a month.
"Good, then let's go by that timeline," Ryan said.
After this meeting ended, Ryan also went to find Castellano, discussing with him the matter of adding other languages to Argus Translate.
Just a single two-language pairing definitely couldn't be put onto a translation machine.
Without a few dozen languages to translate between, would you have the nerve to call yourself a translation machine?
He had no wish for the first translation machine to be released, only to be judged a money-grubbing product.
"The design and training of the translation systems for other languages are already underway. Currently there are 87 languages in progress, encompassing all the world's mainstream languages, and we've also invited professors who study the relevant languages to check our work for us."
"Although the translation level right now can't yet compare with our flagship pairing, put onto the market, it's at least average quality."
Facing Ryan's inquiry, Castellano appeared thoroughly self-assured.
Hearing this, Ryan could rest easy and head back to the base. From this stretch of contact, Castellano was without a doubt very reliable.
That photoacoustic imaging research lab Patricia had mentioned would be moving over in the next few days.
By then, he'd be getting busy.
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