New with the Google Pixel 10 series this year is the ability to do voice translations during phones calls with Live Translate. The Live Translate feature is not actually new, but the ability to do it on phone calls is.
Currently, this feature is only available for a few languages. This includes German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish, which can all be translated into English. Just select the language that the other person speaks, and now when they talk to you, it’ll be translated to English, and when you talk to them, the English will be translated into their language.
Google did a demo of this at the hands-on event that we attended last week, and it was honestly quite impressive. Especially considering how fast it was translating. But it’s not just about speed. Live Translate can also evoke emotion, so if the person is sad, Live Translate can be sad, if the person is happy, Live Translate can be happy, etc.
What was perhaps the most impressive here is that this works with very long sentences. Say the other person is talking for a solid 5 minutes, Live Translate is able to keep up and continue translating, no matter how long they talk.
This is exclusive to the Google Pixel 10, sort of
This Live Translate version is exclusive to the Pixel 10 series, due to the Tensor G5. Google says that it needs the additional processing power of the Tensor G5, along with the LLMs that are built into this chipset. So it won’t be coming to older Pixel devices.
However, both people don’t need a Pixel 10, only one. So if you call someone who has a Galaxy S23 Ultra and want to use this feature on your Pixel 10, it’ll work for both of you. All of the translation is done on the Pixel 10 for both callers. It’s also done locally, and not using the cloud. Which means there’s definitely some LLMs that are being stored on the phone to make this work.
