Over the past three years Japan has seen a rapid increase in the number of foreign tourists coming to the country, figures from Japan Tourism Marketing show that close to 2 million visitors arrived in the country in July 2015 alone. There’s a substantial language barrier for most visitors some of which choose to rely upon translators, but it’s quite likely that your next translator in Japan might be a robot, particularly if you visit next year.
Japanese tech firm FueTrek has teamed up with Kinki Nippon Tourist to offer small robots, wearable devices and tablets that will be able to translate multiple languages between foreigners and locals.
Such devices would serve many purposes, individual travelers won’t have as much of a hard time communicating with the locals whereas small business owners and even hotels will take advantage of such translators if their staff isn’t quite fluent with foreign languages.
It’s not like there aren’t any services out there right now that provide real-time translation services, Google Translate instantly comes to mind, but a purpose built machine precisely for translating conversations between foreigners and locals is undoubtedly going to make things much easier.
I’m sure some locals will appreciate foreigners trying to start a conversation by using a phrasebook to but you’ve got to admit, this solution is going to save time for everybody.