Mixhalo, the live event audio streaming platform, announced this week that it is launching a new translation service. Simply called Mixhalo Translate, the service combines the startup's ultra-low latency in-person streaming with AI-generated speech translation — a combination that makes a lot of sense in a conference setting.
“Interpretation at conferences and live events is done the same way today as it was in 1995,” CEO John Vaas said in a statement. As someone who attended several conferences in Asia not that long ago, I can attest to the fact that modern rigs haven't changed much in the past decade.
On the other hand, AI translation has come a long way in recent years. It's common to see people passing their smartphones around to communicate between languages these days. In fact, AI translation has become so commonplace that we already accept it as a given, as if it weren't a truly world-changing technology.
Announced at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference in 2017, Mixhalo is a “crackpot”[ed] “Code for Delay.” A live concert was its first application, and its launch was fittingly accompanied by an all-star panel: Pharrell, founder and Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger, and future TechCrunch Minute host Anthony Ha.
The idea was to give all audience members equal access to high-quality sound, whether they were in the orchestra pit or the front row. The technology is also used at MLB, NBA, NHL and NASCAR events. In 2021, as venues began to reopen amid the pandemic, Mixhalo introduced Mixhalo Over Cellular and Mixhalo Rodeo, the former of which runs on 5G and the latter of which takes advantage of the venue's Wi-Fi.
Mixhalo doesn't disclose its AI partner for Translate, and this is one of those cases where you need direct experience to properly evaluate, but accuracy ranges depending on the underlying technology. Overall, though, there's room for improvement across the board.
Meeting participants can access the technology through an app on their smartphones, and Mixhalo Translate will manage interpretation and transcription in 50 languages at launch.