Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be fluent in every single language in the world?  We’d all have a better understanding of one another, and things wouldn’t get lost in translation.

Well, there’s a new gadget in the works that could make soon make foreign language dictionaries a thing of the past.

Japanese manufacturer NEC has developed a pair of glasses that can automatically translate spoken words and phrases.  These glasses will picks up a foreign language in a conversation, and feed the audio to a translating computer worn on the user’s waist.  Once it translates the audio into your language, it will display the words in text through a retinal display.  This gives the wearer a transcript of the conversation in their own language.

It’s supposed to be a very lightweight and compact system, letting the user wear it comfortably for long periods of time.  And the retinal display will show the text only in the wearer’s peripheral vision.  That way, if they’re having a face-to-face conversation, the display won’t obstruct their vision with the person they’re talking to.

I can see these glasses becoming especially useful for people who rely on phones to do international, or at least multi-lingual business.  Telemarketers, call centres, that sort of thing.  Or perhaps a receptionist at a hotel, who handles bookings from people all over the world.

It might sound super-futuristic, but this gadget is supposed to go on sale to businesses in about a year.  A system that can support up to 30 users will run about nine million bucks - really expensive.  But it could end up being a decent investment, depending on your business.

The hardest part of designing these glasses is obviously the translation system.  So, I’d expect the translation capabilities will be limited at first, but as we all know, once technology gains momentum, there’s no telling how far it’ll go.