In many parts of the world, people have taken on the face mask in their everyday lives – whether it is virus pandemics or air pollution that should be kept at a distance.
But when everyone wears masks, it becomes undeniably difficult to hear what people are saying. Adding language bias and confusion is total, especially when social distancing stipulates that we should not lean closer to hear better.
Enter Donut Robotics , a Japanese small robotics company that has previously produced the smart little robot Cinnamon . In corona times, however, they have put the powder on developing a whole new type of protective mask.
C-Mask works like a regular face mask, but has a fairly unique feature built in. Namely, by bluetooth pairing the mask with your smartphone, it can translate and transcribe phrases in no less than nine different languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, French, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish and Vietnamese. The result can be displayed on the screen, played back or sent as a message. It is also envisaged that the mask can be used for video conferencing and distance treatment.
The future may show how simple this becomes in practice, but undoubtedly you are something very interesting on the tracks.
In the spring, the donut gang has crowd-funded to develop the mask, and the interest is great: the first investment goal was reached in just three minutes. The idea is that C-Mask can be ordered during the fall of 2020 for only 40 USD each.
