Google's new wireless earbuds are the next step toward the universal translator in Star Trek. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and this is tech Stuff Daily. On October four, Google unveiled some new products at a special event, including the second generation of the Pixel Android phones and the Google Pixel Buds, a pair of wireless earbuds with some nifty extra features. First, some Android fans focused on something the new Pixel phones
expressly lack, which is a headphone jack. Neither the Pixel Too nor its larger cousin, the Pixel to XL have a three and a half millimeter headphone jack. Instead, you'll need to either use a special dongle connected through the phone's USB C port, or you'll need to pair a wireless headset to the phone if you want to use headphones or earbuds. It's a move that's similar to one
Apple made back in two sixteen. The iPhone seven also launched without a headphone AC and while some Android users such as myself might have been a bit smug about the whole thing, it appears Apple is forging a new path into the future, one in which all your headphone accessories will either require an adapter or you'll need to upgrade to new equipment. Google's explanation for the move is
all about the display on the phones. According to Mario Quitas, a product chief at Google, the reason for the shift was that Google wanted to move toward handsets that will have the display go all the way right up to the edges of the phone, getting rid of the bezel as much as possible. This has not stopped some disgruntled Android users from pointing out that the basic Pixel too still has a bezel on all sides, while the Pixel two x l's top and bottom edges also have a
border on them. Perhaps the more cynical Android fans feel that this is a move designed to sell more accessories. You can use a special dongle connected to the phone to plug in that three and a half millimeter headphone set into it, but it also means you can't charge the device at the same time, since the charging cable normally plug into the USBC port on the phone. If you want to listen while charging, you'll need a wireless
headset that connects via Bluetooth. It seems like a natural conclusion that this move was made in order to sell those types of headsets, and indeed Google has a pair of its own that retails for a cool one hundred fifty nine dollars per set. However, Google's earbuds aren't just passive listening devices. They serve as an interface for your
phone and have some cool functions as well. According to the website The Verge, you can use swipe gestures and the right earbud to control the volume directly, and you can press the earbud to activate Google Assistant, the personal voice assistant Google developed for the Android platform and Google Home devices. You can interact with the assistant by speaking
directly to it. The assistant has natural language recognition built into the system that means you can ask for the same information in many different ways and the assistant will, in theory, understand what you mean. For example, you could say what will the weather be like tomorrow? Or will it rain on Wednesday? Or what's tomorrow's forecast, and the assistant will retrieve the information for you and speak to you over the earbuds. One of the more intriguing features
Google showed off was the translate feature. Google Translate has existed for a while and can automatically detect a language based on text and translate it into other languages. Google Assistant goes a step further. You can ask the assistant to help you speak another language, and it will act as a translator between you and someone speaking that language. For example, if I wanted to chat with someone who only spoke Spanish, I could use my phone to facilitate
this conversation. I'd activate Google Assistant and tell it to help me speak Spanish. When my Spanish friend says something, the phone will pick up the audio translated into English and send that translation over the earbuds. I could then press on the right earbud to activate the assistant and speak back in English. The phone would then translate this into Spanish, speaking it out to the person I'm chatting with. It's not quite the Universal Translator from Star Trek, but
it's pretty darn close. These translators have been part of science fiction for a while, whether in space operas like Star Trek or comedies like Hitcheker's Guide to the Galaxy. It makes sense because you need some way to address the problem of communicating with alien species that would have no contact with Earth languages. The Google Pixel buds won't help you if you encounter Venusians on holiday, but since we still have a heck of a time understanding each
other down here on Earth. They could come in awfully handy, But is it worth the one fifty nine dollars? I suppose that depends upon the individual user and how they might rely upon the technology. The translate feature is just one aspect of the earbuds. Google Assistant has many different potential uses, but not all of them are necessarily interesting to the average person, and one fifty nine dollars is
a pretty steep price for wireless headsets. If you're like me and have a habit of misplacing your earbuds, you may think twice before plopping down the cold, hard cash. That's it for to day. To learn more about natural language processing, voice recognition, personal assistance, and more, subscribe to tech Stuff we published twice a week and do deep dives into all sorts of technologies. Join us, Join us. That's all for today. I'll see you again soon.