Thursday, November 05, 2009 TOKYO: Most eyewear improves vision or cuts through solar glare, but a new gadget from Japan may soon sharpen linguistic skills and cut down language barriers instead, inventors said Thursday.High-tech company NEC has come up with a device that it says will allow users to communicate with people of different languages.Shaped like a pair of eye-glasses, but without the lenses, the computer-assisted Tele Scouter would use an imaging device to project almost real-time translations directly onto the user's retina.The text -- provided instantly through voice recognition and translation programmes -- would effectively provide movie-like 'subtitles' during a conversation between two people wearing the glasses."You can keep the conversation flowing," NEC market development official Takayuki Omino said at a Tokyo exposition where the device was on display."This could also be used for talks involving confidential information," negating the need for a human translator, said Omino.Each user's spoken words would be picked up by a microphone, translated, and be instantly available for the counterpart in both visual text and as audio delivered through headphones.Users can still see their conversation partner's face because the text is projected onto only part of the retina -- the first time such technology is used in a commercial product, according to NEC.The company plans to launch the Tele Scouter in Japan in November next year, although initially without the translation mode.NEC says the device can have other uses aside from translation.For example, it could be useful for salespeople if it is linked with a camera, face-recognition software and a store's client database by instantly providing them with a customer's purchase history."It's best if you know the customer personally for individual sales pitches, but that can be difficult at big stores," Omino said. "This device can be a weapon for salespeople on the floor."The model for sales staff and for translations is to be launched in 2011, Omino said.A set intended for companies with 30 eyewear units would sell at 7.5 million yen (83,300 dollars), plus the cost of any customised software application.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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