CES 2017: Translating earbuds bring Star Trek tech to real world

Remember how every alien encountered by the Enterprise crew could speak perfect English? Long-time Star Trek fans will be quick to explain that the space explorers of the future are served by a real-time universal translation system that instantly turns cosmic gibberish into intelligible speech.

A young man from Manchester has independently produced one little pair of earbuds that apparently brings us closer to this future. If you are a one-man operation and not a multi-billion tech company it’s much harder to capture the world’s attention. BBC reports that Danny Manu, the guy who came up with the Clik earbuds, took a cheap flight (that was delayed by eight hours) to CES 2017, and chose AirBnB for accommodation due to limited funds. Moreover, he wasn’t able to actually show his product in Las Vegas due to production delays, so he uses a different set of headphones to demonstrate how his system works.

The project has been crowdfunded. An Indiegogo page says Manu raised $230,000 in total, with backers originally pledging about $127,000 on Kickstarter.

The MyManu wireless earbuds bring your texts, calls and other notification directly into your ears and translate foreign languages, so if someone says ‘Bonjour’ you should hear ‘Hello’. Among other things, they sport wireless charging and come with a sleek case that can also charge your phone.

The product can be pre-ordered on Indiegogo from $199.

According to BBC, Manu says the pair are the world’s first truly wireless earbuds with live translation. However, they aren’t the only crowdfunded wireless earbuds claiming to bring Star Trek-like translation into your ears for the first time. A company called Waverly Labs raised over $3.45 million on Indiegogo to produce a pair of earbuds touted as “the world’s first translating earpiece.” The Pilot Translation Kit is due to ship in May 2017 and can be pre-ordered now for $199.