Seibu Railway started testing a new translation device at Seibu-Shinjuku Station on Monday as part of efforts to be more welcoming to foreign tourists and those with difficulty communicating.
Developed by printing company Toppan, the Voice Biz UCDisplay is a transparent window-like device that can create real-time translations that appear as text bubbles when two people converse on either side of the screen. It is currently placed next to the express ticket office at the station.
This futuristic device allows users to converse while remaining face-to-face, which means small nuances of body language and facial expressions can be still be conveyed — things that are often lost when conversing through translation apps.
It also provides a Japanese-to-Japanese option, as well as a keyboard feature that may be useful to those with hearing or speaking disabilities.
“Toppan initially provided a translation app called VoiceBiz,” said Tomoaki Nosaka, the manager of the social innovation center at Toppan. “But we realized that by implementing our translation engine on a transparent display, we can make it into a universal design that could help communication with both foreigners and people with hearing or speaking disabilities.”
The device has been tested in four different locations in preparation for initial sales by fall of this year. It can currently translate between Japanese and 11 other languages.
Nosaka says that popular locations looking to adopt the device are primarily public transportation hubs such as rail stations and airports, but there is potential in other places as well.
“Our device works best (installed in) windows,” said Nosaka. “We have been contacted more recently about using it at medical institutions and municipality offices.”
Recognized for its universal design, Toppan is also working with the city of Tokyo in preparation for the 2025 Deaflympics that is set to be held in the capital.
Another unique feature of the device is that it uses a domestically created translation engine that prioritized translating from Japanese into other languages, as opposed to foreign devices that translate Japanese to English first before translating it to the language of choice. The result is a higher-quality translation, according to Nosaka.
“We did a test run at Seibu Ikebukuro station a little while ago and decided we wanted to try it at Seibu-Shinjuku Station, since it's often used by a lot of foreign tourists,” said Sota Morikawa, the public relations official at Seibu Railway.
The test run is scheduled until the end of September. Seibu Railway hopes to “officially adopt it by fall of 2023” and would “consider expanding it to other stations depending on the results of the test runs.”
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