Main image via roshenmaghhan / Twitter

It can be annoying sometimes when you’re hanging out with a group of friends or family that speak a different language or dialect and you’re just left clueless all the time! But this guy decided to solve the problem himself!

This Malaysian guy, Roshen Maghhan was facing the same issue at his work place and decided to invent his OWN real-time translator!

He tweeted that he was working at a software development company about six months ago and his colleagues would often have casual meetings at work, but he would always end up feeling clueless because most of them conversed in Mandarin.

About 6 months ago(?) I worked at this software development company, & every morning, we'd have a casual meeting about the work, but half the time, during the meeting, most of them would converse in Mandarin, & so I'd always be pretty clueless half the time

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

And while his colleagues had no intention of leaving him out of their conversations, they would always go back to conversing in Mandarin shortly after he asked them to converse in English!

Despite the amount of times I've I asked them to converse in English, they WOULD acknowledge it, but eventually start conversing in Mandarin again after a while, & I believe its unintentional, bcs they're very nice

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

So he recalled about how an earbud tech called Google Pixel Buds was able to translate languages in real-time but unfortunately it costs close to RM800! So he decided to BUILD the thing himself!

But the thing about the pixel buds, is that they're EXTREMELY expensive. So then just like everything else I've built, I decided, if I can't afford it....I'll build the damn thing myself pic.twitter.com/VTGkrUsBCb

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

He gathered all the things he needed:  Google Pixel Buds' hardware information, Google Translate API (RM0.53), ResponsiveVoice API (voice synthesiser), and earphones with a microphone!

Alright, so first, we've got to reverse engineer this product to see how it works, you can check out the hardware info from the FCC's website, this is what I usually do if I wanna hack hardware devices.

Link to the FCC website : https://t.co/HIHzi50FfU pic.twitter.com/xMF9y7xD0e

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

I wanna make sure it's able to work on every platform ( Android, IOS, Desktop ) therefore, it'll be web-based

Also, I wanna make sure its able to work with any earphone wired or wireless, as long as it has a microphone. So here's the earphones I'll be using ( Left pic ) pic.twitter.com/Gbaz4XvRRs

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

And he ended up with a real-time translator that is able to translate on the go and can even label different voices as different users so you don’t get confused on who said what.

I dont wanna bore you guys, I'll just jump in to the end product.

For voice synthesis, i used ResponsiveVoice API, and throughout this entire demo now, every synthesized audio you hear, will come out from my earphones pic.twitter.com/HmJpRFcKMD

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

So now it can translate in any language, in real time. So it fulfills the same goal as the google pixel.

( The reason the audio is soft, is bcs its coming from the earphones )

But then I thought to myself....why stop here, when I can make it way better..... pic.twitter.com/rVfTSzIZsK

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

And to make it better, he even made the translator able to highlight certain words that is considered as a topic and even gives you a minute summary on the topic when you click on it!

This way, you can just put your device on the table, & it'll immediately create a transcript of the entire conversation going on in your vicinity and IN real time.

The voice recognition & diarization algorithms are my own, even google's diarization is still in beta 😂

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

So this way, if you're uninformed on a certain topic that's currently going on in the convo, you can just click on it, and it'll immediately tell you a 1 minute summary (or less) of the entire topic!

— roshen maghhan part 2 (@roshenmaghhan) July 9, 2019

Many netizens praised him for his skills and some even asked him to do a PhD and patent his idea!

rather than complaining about the situation, great how you do something to get yourself out from the situation 👏

— zuyyin (@zuyyinjuhari) July 10, 2019

@GoogleMsia pls notice his hardworks. What a professional and hardworking fella!

— jaHAHNam (@Nabihan) July 10, 2019

OMG SIR YOU ARE BRILLIANT!!!! THIS THREAD IS EVERYTHING!

— abbie 🥴✨ (@fabbie_abbie) July 9, 2019

this is insanely impressive plus great accessibility work for people who are hard of hearing or have auditory processing issues!!!

— lesbian dad (@bigdoggenergy) July 10, 2019

I'm actually SO amazed with this! you made it sound simple enough but lord knows its not HAHA whew thank you for sharing this!!!!

— samhita!!!! (@samhitaaaa) July 10, 2019

We are certainly impressed by his invention! Do you have difficulty understanding your friends or colleagues too? Maybe this would help!

Info via roshenmaghhan / Twitter