Looking to translate a word or a sentence from one language to another? If you’re at your computer or on your phone, you can do that with no issue and in an instant. In real life? That might not necessarily be as efficient, but thanks to Panasonic, they have developed the Megaphoneyaku which is basically a megaphone that translates for you.
The device will be tested out at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport. How it works is the person holding the megaphone will speak into it (presumably Japanese). The megaphone will then take a couple of seconds before the message is rebroadcasted into English, Chinese, and Korean at a higher volume, thus allowing non-Japanese speakers to hear it.
We’re not sure how extensive its translation abilities are, but we reckon it should be good enough for basic announcements, just probably don’t expect to hold long and complex conversations with it. The device was developed by Panasonic and was actually inspired by the floods back in 2014 when airport staff found that they were having a hard time trying to communicate with foreign travelers.
It is a pretty cool idea but like we said, how extensive its translation abilities are is unclear. It is also limited to just the three languages for now, but perhaps more might be added in the future.