If you ask us, one of the best things about London is its theater scene. Turns out, however, that not every person who appreciates good
theatre speaks the Queen's English -- we know, it's shocking to us as well. To serve those unenlightened souls, a new AirScript wireless translation gadget is being trialed at the Shaftesbury in central Londonium. Designed by Show Translations and built by
Cambridge Consultants, it combines a simple WiFi-enabled device with an LED-backlit screen and a dude in the background who feeds live subtitles over the air. The pleasure of said dude's services will be a steep £6 ($10), which you might scoff at now, but imagine yourself attending a show in Tokyo or Beijing and suddenly the price becomes a lot more justifiable. Eight languages are available so far (American English is presumably still in the works), with translations done by professionals rather than machines, and all that remains now is to see whether this multilingual birdie flies or flounders.
posted November 26th 2009 8:44AM
I think you mean
"(English is presumably still in the works, Brit speak already completed)"
I kid!
"Shaft"esbury. LOL.
£6? that's not much more than a one way ride on the tube.
Hehe. I love the venom us brits have when it comes to the fabled 'American English'. Doesn't exist to us as a concept simply because its completely legible by anyone who speaks 'English'. 'Weegie', 'Scouse', 'Geordie', 'Tcheuchter' and many more all come pretty high up on the list of English (British) 'accents' that could count as a separate language...but they're still English!
Let the language wars begin.
As someone who works in theatre consistently, I wonder about these. It would certainly boost tourist attendance at theatres across the world, but do I want to see LCD screens across a theatre while I'm watching a play?
Isn't it the same issue as cell phones? Having a bright screen in the corner of your eye for 2-3 hours is NOT what I would consider a fun thing. In the end, it's probably not something I would want in a theatre
@Arcticpenguins
I agree completely, our local Theatre has special performances of shows for those with hearing problems, they have screens on either side of the stage with the text on which could be less intrusive. This is similar like you see at Vue cinemas where they project subtitles over the picture in the corner.
The other option would be to put those filters over the screen like you see on ATM machines, which only allow those directly in front of the machine, to see the screen.
@Arcticpenguins
Having been invovled in the development of the AirScript, and having been at last night's premier using it all thru the performance, I confirm that the black screen colour was highly discreet, with absolutely no light spillage whatsoever. I was even lookng around at the audience and, despite knowing that at least 100 people were using them, could barely even see them.
@showendy
If thats the case, them I'm all for this. Thanks for taking the time to clarify that
LED backlight? Surely this application is where OLED screens would absolutely shine. (Or, rather, NOT shine, which is the desired effect...)
Actually, this is an idea that has more than translation use. The Uk has a system called StageText (http://www.stagetext.org/) that is similar to teletext (Closed Caption) on tv where an LED panel is displayed near the theatre stage showing all the words spoken by actors on the stage.
I see this as an extension of that but a bit more discreet.
The problem I see with this system is that in a dialogue heavy production you're going to spend more time with your eyes away from what's happening on stage rather than watching the production. Even when the text is projected near the stage (I have seen foreign language productions that use surtitles above the proscenium arch) you're still missing what's going on.
What you need are glasses with a Heads Up Display that displays the translations in the same field of vision as what you're watching.
How can i not be expected to donkey punch the back of the head that keeps bobbling up and down while looking at the stage and this thing?
Stick a babel fish in your ear and be done with it.
I was at the launch of this yesterday and it actually works really well.
What really works about it is that because you see the last 4-5 lines at the same time on the screen you don't have to be constantly looking at the device, you can look at it when there's a silence and just read a few lines behind if you want.
I thought it's fair to clarify that the device was not developed by Cambridge Consultants. The idea and general product design as well as the funding comes from a company called Show Translations which was started by an Argentine entrepreneur called Alex Vegh, Cambridge was only developing the hardware.
I'll wait until there's an aid to deciphering words like flavour, realise, and mains, because I really can't cope with the vast differences between "American" English and the standard kind. It's just so arduous a task. It makes my brain hurt.
I, too, laugh every time I see options in software and such for "Australian English, U.S. English, Canadian English, or U.K. English". Honestly! They're all 99% identical to one another, and as for that 1%, it's not like we all haven't been exposed to the variations during our lives at some point, and managed to survive them.
"Trialed"? WTF?
In other news, the suspect denialed all charges.