Remember the babelfish? It’s an amazing creature, known from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that sits in your ear and is able to interpret any language.

In the books it is, of course, a joke as no such thing exists. Or existed, we should say, because now the babelfish is here for real.

Its name is the Ambassador and if it can indeed deliver what is being promised it’s an amazing thing that will change everything we know about how to get around in foreign countries.

Instant conversations with anyone, and more

This amazing new device promises to be able to interpret any spoken language and read back a translation to you in real time.

The way it works is you carry two units (or more) and simply hand one out to each participant of a conversation. Then you can all talk to each other, in your own respective languages, and still be understood by everyone else.

But that’s not all. Of course, you’ll be able to use it for listening to lectures in foreign languages, but even more amazingly, you’ll be able to translate your own talks and lectures, to any language, and stream the translation via your smartphone.

Changes everything

The Ambassador still only exists as an Indiegogo-campaign, but it’s due to be shipped to the public in November 2019. The price tag for the basic kit is a moderate €135 which makes it affordable to most of today’s frequent travellers, who would be the initial users of a gadget like this.

But travellers are only the beginning. With current migration streams moving across the world many countries are seeing a rise in interpreter and translator costs.

A gadget like the Ambassador could change everything that we know about language problems in the world and in the end it could be used literally everywhere.

Border crossings, hospitals, schools, immigration authorities are just some examples of where it could make a ton of difference and save large amounts of money.

Human interpreters could soon be a thing of the past.