When you travel to a place where you don’t speak the language, there are now tools and devices you can use to help you communicate with the locals who may also not speak your language. You can use your smartphone and various apps or services that can help you in the translation. For some people though, this may not be such a comfortable situation for them and can even be a barrier towards communicating with people. This concept for a device starts out with a “joke” but can become something actually useful.
Designer: Taewan Kim
This concept started out with the metaphor or pun “Let’s taco ’bout it” and it evolved into something that actually uses the idea of the taco, or at least the shape of it. The translation device is shaped like a taco and will be used by both the speaker and the listener. It’s actually like one of those two-way cup devices that you may have used when you were young (or at least those of a certain age) but now using digital technology. The basic idea is to make communicating more fun and functional.
The entire device really looks like a piece of taco but when it’s time to be used, you “cut” it into half and give the other part to the person you want to talk with. You press the button on your half of the device and speak into it and the other half of the device is the speaker where the translated voice comes out. It will also probably work the other way around so the person you’re talking to can also have their voices translated back to you.
The Taco device concept is pretty simple but if it works, it should be enough. It is an interesting way to talk to other people rather than just use Google Translate on your smartphone. There doesn’t seem to be any other function that the device can do but in terms of design, it is pretty cute and interesting.
