The Panasonic "Megahonyaku" magical megaphone automatically translates a user's voice into multiple languages.
Japanese multinational electronics corporation Panasonic Corporation has launched a megaphone called The Megahonyaku. It is not just an ordinary megaphone because it can translate the user's voices into multiple languages. It listens for Japanese input and plays back phrases in English, Chinese, and Korean.
The Megahonyaku magical megaphone is designed to cope with an increase in foreign visitors in Japan. As of now, it has only around 300 set of phrases. However, it gets more phrases everytime that it is connected to the internet. These phrases should are enough to relay information and raise caution such as "The train has been delayed" or "Watch your step."
Getting the Megahonyaku magical megaphone to work is also very simple to do. All the user has to ensure is just speak to it. Panasonic's megaphone recognizes and translates words at the same time, making it extremely handy and useful even though it does not have full-fledged support for all languages.
The translated sentence or phrase from the Megahonyaku magical megaphone is then played out in English, Chinese, and Korean through the speaker. This is expected to help out people who travel to Japan and do not speak or know the language. Its voice recognition can function regardless of background noise.
Panasonic is planning to start offering the Megahonyaku magical megaphone on Dec. 20 for about $183 a month on a three-year contract basis with future updates and maintenance. It is targeting corporate customers with a goal of getting about 10,000 unit contracts or more in the fiscal year 2018.
The Megahonyaku magical megaphone is expected to be launched in other countries with more support in the future. Over 30 organizations have started using this translation service on a trial basis.