Google unveils Pixel Buds, instant translation feature

Alongside the new Pixel 2 smartphones Google unveiled on Wednesday night, the company also launched a set of Bluetooth earbuds called the Pixel Buds with one standout feature: instant translation between 40 different languages using a Pixel smartphone, The Guardian reports.

In a live demo on stage, the Pixel Buds were shown translating short phrases back and forth between English and Swedish using Google Translate running on a Pixel 2 smartphone.

“It’s like you’ve got your own personal translator with you everywhere you go. Say you’re in Little Italy, and you want to order your pasta like a pro. All you have to do is hold down on the right earbud and say, ‘Help me speak Italian’,” wrote Adam Champy, Google’s product manager for the Pixel Buds, on the company’s blog.

While the demonstration was impressive, this isn’t the first time Google has rolled out the ability to do near real-time translation back and forth between different languages, and it isn’t the first firm to put that capability into a set of earbuds.

The Google Translate app on Android and Apple’s iPhone can already perform the same trick. After activating the live mic it will listen for your sentence in English and translate and speak the same sentence in your choice of 40 languages. It will then listen out for the reply and perform the same trick into English. Some elements rely on a good data connection, but with the abolition of roaming charges within Europe at least it doesn’t cost the earth while on holiday from the UK.