Pixel Buds and the dark side of easy translation services
When I first read about Pixel Buds, I was very skeptical about its performance as a communication and translation device. I thought that in any more or less noisy environment the single microphone in each earbud cannot provide a voice signal with good SNR. It is very different from Apple AirPods that have two microphones in each earpiece thus allowing efficient end-fire beamforming toward user’s mouth. As a voice enhancement technology provider, I know that with a single microphone positioned near user’s ear and without end-fire beamforming, voice communication becomes very difficult. I thought it would render the translation services useless. Then I tried Google translate... I don’t have Pixel Buds, but I tried to put my phone (single microphone) close to my ear. Well, it worked in a relatively noisy place. I was very impressed with the recognition result and it changed my mind regarding usability of Pixel Buds for translation services. I recalled my time at Tokyo central train station at 6am going to Narita airport. I (almost) missed my plane as nobody could understand English and show me the way to the right platform. Fortunately, I learned a few key phrases in Japanese before my trip so I managed. With Google Translate I would not have had any worries. I was very, very excited about the possibilities that automatic translation gives us. And then an old friend of mine shared this article with me...
Pixel Buds will alienate us from ourselves, by Ben Wolford
After reading it, I changed my mind again, at least partially. May be it is not so bad to miss a plane occasionally, but to have a good reason to study a few words in a new language before departing to a new country.
BTW, I tried AirPods in noise, their beamforming works pretty well. Anyway, subjective testing is always only subjective. We are planning to make and publish an objective performance analysis and comparison with our dual microphone beamforming technology soon.
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