A New York startup wants to take computer-assisted language translation to the next level. The company’s earpiece technology could allow two users to converse face to face, without a human translator and without any understanding of each other’s mother tongue.

Computers have already become adept at translating text from one language into another. With an app such as Google Translate, a smartphone or tablet can function as an interpreter for two people speaking different languages.

Waverly Labs’ new Pilot system consists of two Bluetooth earpieces that connect wirelessly with a smartphone. Place one in your ear and give the other to the person you want to speak with. Bring up the language to be translated in the Pilot system’s smartphone app, and it will translate your conversation in real time. Unlike the Google Translate app, Pilot doesn’t require using the smartphone’s microphone and speaker since each earpiece contains its own.

Language packages available for the device include English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Eventually other languages will be available for download for an additional fee, according to tech website CNET.

Waverly Labs launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding page in late May and raised $2 million in three weeks. Investors can pay $199 to preorder the system, consisting of two earpieces, the mobile app, and a portable charger. The company says it will start deliveries in May 2017.

High roller

A new bus transit concept could perform the function of a subway—but at a fraction of the cost.

The Beijing firm Transit Explore Bus demonstrated a fully functioning scale model of its elevated transit bus last month at the China Beijing International High-Tech Expo. The bus rides on rails spanning two lanes of traffic and is elevated so it can straddle cars up to 6.6 feet high.

Traveling up to 37 mph and carrying 1,400 passengers, the proposed bus could replace as many as 40 conventional buses, saving tons of fuel and reducing carbon emissions, according to Xinhua News Agency. A full-scale version is under construction in Changzhou, with testing to begin in July or August. —M.C.

Fresh off the shelf

Library patrons looking at books frequently place them back on the shelves in the wrong location. That creates headaches for librarians, who must regularly check for misplaced books.

Now robots may be able take over this tedious task. Researchers at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have developed a wheeled robot that can navigate library aisles during the night, scanning shelves for out-of-place books and compiling a report for human librarians to use the next day.

Libraries increasingly incorporate radio frequency identification (RFID) technology as a means to facilitate the checkout and check-in of books. The “autonomous robotic shelf-scanning platform” (AuRoSS) uses a reader to scan the RFID tags on every book on the shelf to determine which books are in the wrong place.

The robot self-navigates along the shelves using laser and ultrasonic sensors that guide it with a level of precision down to the centimeter, keeping the RFID scanner at just the correct distance from the book spines for an accurate reading.

According to A*STAR, during tests in Singapore libraries, the AuRoSS robot achieved up to 99 percent accuracy even with curved shelves. —M.C.