February 2021 Ambassador Update

Hi everyone,

Here comes our monthly product update for Ambassador Interpreter, including new features, UI/UX changes, and a roadmap of things to come! There are A LOT of new features and improvements, so please update your iOS and Android apps, and update your devices with the newest firmware. See the details below:

Ambassador Interpreter Updates

For iOS / Apple phones and tablets, please update your app to version 1.2.2.

For Android phones and tablets, please update your app to version 1.3.1.

Also, please update the firmware on your Ambassador Interpreter devices to v19.09.

Feature Improvements:

(all feature released)

During the setup process, the owner creates a “Host” profile with their name, language, and gender voice. This simplifies the process when pairing the first earpiece because it will automatically populate this Host’s information so they will not need to enter that information every time they connect to set their default language, etc. However, we have found through user testing that it is creating more complications than necessary for many users and we have now removed this feature.

On the topic of device profiles, we added a feature where the settings for every earpiece will be automatically saved in your smartphone / tablet and will populate every time you pair them.

We have changed the standby time so the devices will not shut off until after 10 minutes of inactivity. This was the cause of the units unpairing from the smartphone / tablet and NOT a bluetooth connection issue. You will need to update your Ambassador devices with the new firmware.

Regarding firmware updates, you’ll see a red notification badge and version tracking information now that we are releasing firmware updates. You will see this from the Menu (top left corner) and next to the Firmware Update title.

The new video tutorials and walkthroughs have been produced and implemented inside the app, so users will have a greater understanding of the product’s features. You can find them from the Menu (top left corner), under the title Video Tutorials section.

We finally released our first major firmware update, which include these improvements:

• Improved Bluetooth handling and connection, including in-app functionality
• Greater battery life and performance, including faster charging
• Changes in battery indication levels and low battery feedback (orange LED and audio prompts when low battery)
• Extended battery time from 5 minutes to 10 minutes before the Ambassador turns off

We’ve added a big list of missing dialects and genders to the voice models:

• English: Great Britain (male / female); Australian (male / female); Canadian (male / female); Indian (male / female); Irish (male / female)
• Spanish: American (male / female); Mexican (male / female); Latin American (male / female)
• French: Canadian (male / female)
• Arabic: Egyptian (male / female)
• Portuguese: Brazilian (male / female)
• Korean (added male voice)
• Hebrew (added female voice)
• Thai (added female voice)
• Vietnamese (added female voice)
• Greek (added female voice)

We also made major improvements to some of the speech synthesis models, so you hear more naturally sounding voices! By using neural text-to-speech, these voices should be nearly indistinguishable from human speech:

• Hindi: (male / female)
• Chinese: Mandarin (male / female); Cantonese: (male / female)
• Hebrew: (male / female)
• Thai: (male / female)
• Vietnamese: (male / female)
• Arabic: (male)
• Greek: (male / female)
• French: Canadian (male)

Lastly, we updated the Portuguese translation model to distinguish between different dialects of Portuguese (Portugal vs Brazil).

Bug Fixes:

(all fixes released)

• The function called “Crosstalk Filtering” was removed and replaced with an automatic function which will clean up the speech before translating it in the cloud.
  

• We added and fixed the capability to change device settings, such as name, language, and gender, from within the configuration screens in Converse , Listen, and Lecture modes, without having to exit the entire session.
  

• The support email function in the app, so you can more easily contact technical support directly from the app, was fixed and improved. It can be found in the Menu (top left corner) under the title Support.
  

• Bug fixes were released for voice translations when more than two voices were queued for translation in Converse mode, as well as improvements when interacting with the transcripts to repeat the translations.
  

• We fixed some crashes that were happening in the Profile, Homepage, and Listen mode pages in Android.

Upcoming / Next Month:

(the following features and improvements will be released in the next few weeks)

• As stated previously, we removed the “continuous translation” feature in Converse mode temporarily because it was causing bandwidth issues and would kill the service. For the time being users will need to use the Click-to-Talk button when speaking in Converse mode between guests. We’re still refining this and we will add continuous translation back once we prepare the software patch.
  

• Our next big firmware update is coming very soon, and will feature our improved noise cancellation algorithm to increase accuracy in voice capturing and less voice contamination from people talking loudly nearby. It should dramatically improve the translation accuracy for most users.

Future Product Roadmap‍

We’re still working on some advanced features, like saved transcripts, and virtual environments for remote conferencing. Also our version of digital translations for TV, film, radio, etc, will go into beta testing soon. We’ll keep everyone updated on the progress.

Thanks everyone for all of your questions and feedback, and we’ll be sure to include your ideas and needs into future updates. As always, you can reach us directly at support@waverlylabs.com.

Cheers,

Waverly Labs Team