A new translation product has been launched today, enabling theatre goers to read the play in eight different languages. The AirScript devices, which have a battery life of six hours, can translate the play realtime, into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese or Chinese, with captions received over wifi. Costing £6 to hire per performance, London's Shaftesbury Theatre is the first to offer the service, for their current prooduction 'Hairspray'. They contain little software, and as such, there is a manual operator working the translators line by line every night; a job he describes as 'like playing two and a half hours of Guitar Hero'. It is hoped that this new product will help increase tourism in London's West End.
Wow that is so clever!!! Such a good idea for tourists as well - hopefully it will work. But I don't really understand how the manual operator 'works' the translators line by line..? Is it like a live translation thing or something?
ReplyDeleteHe just has to make sure that the translation is 'posted' in sync with the actual speaking - sounds like a bit a boring job to be honest! Probably be useful for many English people when it comes to something like Shakespeare :-)
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