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While this specific feature, at least for now, is Pixel exclusive, Google Translate itself still is completely free, and usable even without an account by anyon

While this specific feature, at least for now, is Pixel exclusive, Google Translate itself still is completely free, and usable even without an account by anyone anywhere. It's hard to see the financial incentive to provide unlimited translations to anyone in the world for free. These giant tech companies definitely a lot of shady and ambiguous stuff, but I still think we should commend them when they put resources in these other techs that aren't necessarily money makers, but provide a net plus for humanity. It's clear that these projects are being funded by money made in other parts of Google, such as their ad business. It's similar to how BuzzFeed is mostly a trashy website, but once in a while they will come up with well researched thorough articles. It's clear that their shitty front page is a fund for them to achieve greater things.

rconti 9y ago
I find the free Google Translate, on iOS, to be one of my absolute favorite tools when traveling. The camera OCR translate feature is almost like magic.
- euyyn 9y ago
  I used it on my Pixel in a recent trip to Japan and it was a life saver. From translating signs and bus schedules, to communicating with a waiter that didn't speak English about an issue with my credit card.
rconti 9y ago
https://store.google.com/product/google_pixel_buds https://store.google.com/product/google_pixel_buds "For phone to access the Google Assistant: Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher and other requirements" Other requirements: https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7172657?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7172657?co=GENIE...
redial 9y ago
Google Translate is a great product, but not monetizing it directly doesn't mean they do it out of the goodness of their heart. It is in their best interest to have access to as much information as possible no matter the language, and in that context a powerful translator is a priority, there is no way around it, and that is a massive financial incentive. That it also provides a great experience to keep its users loyal to their ecosystem is also a great financial incentive.
- dumbfounder 9y ago
  Also, don't underestimate taking away revenue sources from your competitors. If your competitor competes with you at A, but makes money at B, then taking away that B revenue stream affects their ability to compete with you at A as well.
  - euyyn 9y ago
    I understand the comment, but how does that apply to Google Translate specifically?
    - CamelCaseName 9y ago
      There's Yandex which operates Russia's largest search engine (65% market share) which also runs Yandex Translate [0]. There's also Microsoft Translator [1], and Microsoft owns Bing, though MS Translator is a little different than Google Translate / Yandex Translate. [0] https://translate.yandex.com/ https://translate.yandex.com/ [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/home.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/home.aspx
      - euyyn 9y ago
        Google Translate being free doesn't "take revenue away" from another free service, though. Plus I bet Google's precedes those other two.
dlubarov 9y ago
I worked on this feature and just want to clarify that it isn't Pixel exclusive; it works on any Android phone running M or newer. It is exclusive to the Pixel Buds, though.
- legohead 9y ago
  Is there a reason it's exclusive to Pixel Buds?
  - dlubarov 9y ago
    We did explore using standard protocols in order to support third party headsets. The most natural solution would be to listen for AT+BVRA (voice recognition command), which most headsets generate after some button is held down for a couple seconds. It didn't fit with our desired UX, though. We wanted a hold-while-talking UX, rather than hold for a couple seconds, wait for a beep, then release and start talking. We thought about listening for AVRCP key events to detect when a certain button was pressed and released -- probably play/pause, which seems to be the most prominent button on most headsets. It would have been hacky, though, and we ran into several problems. For one thing, a lot of headsets power off if the play/pause button is held down for several seconds. We also had concerns about audio quality with third party headsets, especially those which didn't support modern versions of SCO (which introduced new codecs with 16khz support and other improvements), or with poor antennas leading to high packet loss (SCO is a lossy protocol, so we still get some speech and attempt to translate it, but accuracy suffers). We were concerned that all accuracy problems would make Google Translate look bad, even if the headset was to blame.
    - legohead 9y ago
      Interesting, thanks for the reply. What about an app that you interact with rather than something physical on the headphones? Considering the phone is required, anyway...
      - dlubarov 9y ago
vacri 9y ago
Google translate is... iffy. Here's an example from this morning, where I asked a colleague about how the mooncakes were at last night's mid-Autumn festival: were the mooncakes good last night? -> google translate -> 月饼好吗昨晚好吗？月饼好吗昨晚好吗？ -> google translate -> Would you like me last night? I ended up forming my own question, which was slightly wrong - my colleague asked 你是要说好吃吗? ("did you mean to say 'tasty'?") which I threw into el goog for a laugh, and got in return: "Are you going to be delicious?" So either google translate is a bit iffy (still amazing, but iffy) or mooncakes are some sort of aphrodisiac and I'm not understanding that :) > It's hard to see the financial incentive to provide unlimited translations to anyone in the world for free. More communication = more trade, more market penetration = more money floating around. It's not a direct incentive, but it's there.

rconti 9y ago

I find the free Google Translate, on iOS, to be one of my absolute favorite tools when traveling. The camera OCR translate feature is almost like magic.

euyyn 9y ago
I used it on my Pixel in a recent trip to Japan and it was a life saver. From translating signs and bus schedules, to communicating with a waiter that didn't speak English about an issue with my credit card.

rconti 9y ago

https://store.google.com/product/google_pixel_buds https://store.google.com/product/google_pixel_buds "For phone to access the Google Assistant: Android 6.0 Marshmallow or higher and other requirements" Other requirements: https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7172657?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/7172657?co=GENIE...

redial 9y ago

Google Translate is a great product, but not monetizing it directly doesn't mean they do it out of the goodness of their heart. It is in their best interest to have access to as much information as possible no matter the language, and in that context a powerful translator is a priority, there is no way around it, and that is a massive financial incentive. That it also provides a great experience to keep its users loyal to their ecosystem is also a great financial incentive.

dumbfounder 9y ago
Also, don't underestimate taking away revenue sources from your competitors. If your competitor competes with you at A, but makes money at B, then taking away that B revenue stream affects their ability to compete with you at A as well.
- euyyn 9y ago
  I understand the comment, but how does that apply to Google Translate specifically?
  - CamelCaseName 9y ago
    There's Yandex which operates Russia's largest search engine (65% market share) which also runs Yandex Translate [0]. There's also Microsoft Translator [1], and Microsoft owns Bing, though MS Translator is a little different than Google Translate / Yandex Translate. [0] https://translate.yandex.com/ https://translate.yandex.com/ [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/home.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/translator/home.aspx
    - euyyn 9y ago
      Google Translate being free doesn't "take revenue away" from another free service, though. Plus I bet Google's precedes those other two.

dlubarov 9y ago

I worked on this feature and just want to clarify that it isn't Pixel exclusive; it works on any Android phone running M or newer. It is exclusive to the Pixel Buds, though.

legohead 9y ago
Is there a reason it's exclusive to Pixel Buds?
- dlubarov 9y ago
  We did explore using standard protocols in order to support third party headsets. The most natural solution would be to listen for AT+BVRA (voice recognition command), which most headsets generate after some button is held down for a couple seconds. It didn't fit with our desired UX, though. We wanted a hold-while-talking UX, rather than hold for a couple seconds, wait for a beep, then release and start talking. We thought about listening for AVRCP key events to detect when a certain button was pressed and released -- probably play/pause, which seems to be the most prominent button on most headsets. It would have been hacky, though, and we ran into several problems. For one thing, a lot of headsets power off if the play/pause button is held down for several seconds. We also had concerns about audio quality with third party headsets, especially those which didn't support modern versions of SCO (which introduced new codecs with 16khz support and other improvements), or with poor antennas leading to high packet loss (SCO is a lossy protocol, so we still get some speech and attempt to translate it, but accuracy suffers). We were concerned that all accuracy problems would make Google Translate look bad, even if the headset was to blame.
  - legohead 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the reply. What about an app that you interact with rather than something physical on the headphones? Considering the phone is required, anyway...
    - dlubarov 9y ago

vacri 9y ago

Google translate is... iffy. Here's an example from this morning, where I asked a colleague about how the mooncakes were at last night's mid-Autumn festival: were the mooncakes good last night? -> google translate -> 月饼好吗昨晚好吗？月饼好吗昨晚好吗？ -> google translate -> Would you like me last night? I ended up forming my own question, which was slightly wrong - my colleague asked 你是要说好吃吗? ("did you mean to say 'tasty'?") which I threw into el goog for a laugh, and got in return: "Are you going to be delicious?" So either google translate is a bit iffy (still amazing, but iffy) or mooncakes are some sort of aphrodisiac and I'm not understanding that :) > It's hard to see the financial incentive to provide unlimited translations to anyone in the world for free. More communication = more trade, more market penetration = more money floating around. It's not a direct incentive, but it's there.