Science fiction inspires entrepreneur to bridge language gap

BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) -- In his famous science fiction book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams created a fantastic animal called the Babel fish.

As its name suggested, the little fish could bridge the language gap between people from different countries or even different planets. Anyone who put the fish in their ear could instantly talk to an alien.

Inspired by the Babel fish, a young Chinese entrepreneur named Leal Tian decided to do something to change the way speakers of different languages communicate with each other.

He found that, despite the boom in speech recognition technology, the usage experience provided by most translation devices could hardly meet the growing demands of international travel and communication.

"It's not a good experience if you have to spend a lot of time waiting for the translator to translate every sentence when you're talking to someone," he said.

He wanted to develop earbuds that could translate foreign languages instantly, just like the Babel fish. The simultaneous-translation function provided by such a device would be an improvement on the consecutive interpretation provided by existing translation technologies.

In order to transform his idea from science fiction into reality, in 2016, Leal founded a tech firm called Timekettle. The following year, the translator earphones concept was launched on a U.S. crowdfunding website for the first time, attracting 200,000 U.S. dollars in project funding.

There followed several years of technical development, the result of which is Timekettle's latest product, the WT2 translator earbuds. With the use of intelligent algorithms, they can translate more than 40 languages.

"All you need to do is give an earphone to your foreign friend, and you can enjoy a free and immersive conversation almost without delay," Leal told Xinhua during an interview in Timekettle's meeting room, which is named after the famous science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

A Timekettle user from a multinational family once told Leal that his relationship with his mother-in-law had improved thanks to the earbuds.

A total of over 100,000 Timekettle translator earbuds have been sold to customers in more than 100 countries and regions, including the United States, Europe and Japan. The company's partners, including iFlytek, Google and Microsoft, are from over 30 countries and regions.

Timekettle owns more than 20 patents at home and abroad, most of which focus on algorithms to improve communication bandwidth and experience.

Tian believes that the market prospects of translation devices lie in helping people communicate more freely. In the future, he hopes to launch translation earphones that allow speakers of different languages to instantly understand each other when they speak very fast or even quarrel.

"With artificial intelligence booming, more and more science-fiction scenarios are coming true," Leal said. "I hope Timekettle will always be an imaginative technology company." Enditem

(Du Yiting also contributed to the story.)