TL; DR
- Google’s Pixel 6 phones have a cool live translator feature.
- This way, you can get real-time translations for videos.
- The feature works offline thanks to the Pixel 6 family’s TPU machine learning chip.
Google yesterday revealed a host of details about the Pixel 6 series, with the phones being the first to use Google’s in-house Tensor chipset. The processor comes with a Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) for faster machine learning, and there are several use cases for this silicon.
The latter publication notes that the Pixel 6 series has the ability to “generate live translated subtitles when viewing or listening to content in another language”. Meanwhile, the former point of sale saw a demo showing that the new phones could translate a video from French to English in real time without an internet connection.
More coverage: Why the Pixel 6’s Tensor Processor is actually a big deal (and why not)
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen offline translation capabilities on a smartphone as Google Translate and other services allow you to download language packs for translating text without an internet connection. But offline voice translations are more of a challenge for smartphones, not to mention the Live Translate functionality that emphasizes lightning-fast inference.
However, Live Translate can be a useful feature for a number of reasons. For one thing, it could make previously untranslated video content accessible to far more users. We also cover a lot of smartphone launches here at Android authority, so such technology could be great for the next Xiaomi or Realme launch just in India.
These aren’t the only features the TPU chip enables either, as Google has highlighted features like offline voice entry / dictation, better HDR video processing, and the ability to reduce blurring in recordings. We’ll no doubt learn more about the Pixel 6 duo’s (and more) machine learning capabilities when the phones hit the market in the coming weeks.
