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WIRED
12-07-2025
- WIRED
The Timekettle T1 Is an Adept Global Translator That'll Work Even Offline
This service is skinned another way in the Chat app, which presents a two-way conversation system, with your language on one side and your partner's language on the other, upside-down. There's no button-pressing in this setup: Each speaker simply talks into a microphone on either side of the handheld, and a translation is both played and displayed in text on their side of the screen. It's the same concept as the one-click translation, but more hands-free. The other major feature is a photo-based translation app, which works exactly as you think it should by snapping a picture of text in a foreign language. The unit supports 40 languages, many with multiple dialects, and boasts support for '93+ accents.' Any of those languages can be translated into any other if you're online, either via Wi-Fi or connected via a cellular network. But the killer feature of the T1 is that you can download offline language packs, which lean on the unit's AI-powered CPU to translate text when you're not connected. The device supports 31 offline language pairs, but note that's not the same as 31 languages. Korean-to-Thai translation is supported, as is Korean-to-Russian, but you can't translate Thai to Russian unless you're online. For English, only 10 language pairs are supported, and each combination you wish to use must be downloaded to the device in advance, when you do have a connection. Photograph: Chris Null Translations are fast—if not quite completed in the 0.2 seconds that Timekettle claims—and accuracy was as good as any standard translator I tested it against. It was a more intuitive way to translate audio than using Google Translate (et al.) on a smartphone, though the Google method seems to be well understood globally these days, mitigating that advantage. I didn't notice any real difference in quality or speed between online and offline translations across a range of language tests, and many of my text-based translations turned in identical results (perhaps suspiciously so) to what I got with Google Translate. Voiced translations aren't perfect, as they never are with these devices, but they roughly met the 90 percent accuracy that Timekettle promises. Make sure to run an operating system update (you won't be prompted to do so; the option is buried in the 'Settings' menu) to make the handoff between offline and online modes more seamless. Screen Woes The only major downside of the device is the screen, which has a sad 540 x 1080-pixel resolution, making it difficult to capture much with the 8-megapixel camera to translate at one time. While I can easily photograph a full screen of text with my cell phone for translation, the T1 was able to parse out only a few lines at a time due to its limited resolution. When I zoomed out, the results were usually wildly inaccurate or wholly illegible. Getting closer to the text was ultimately required to get a proper translation with the T1's camera. Photograph: Chris Mull
Android Authority
02-07-2025
- Android Authority
Google Chat is trying out an Expressive new look
Ryan Haines / Android Authority TL;DR Google's in the middle of Material 3 Expressive refreshes for many of its Android apps. After first seeing a new look for Chat within Gmail, we're now spotting similar tweaks in development for the stand-alone Chat app. Right now we're still noticing some small differences between the Chat app's revised interface and what's happening to Chat in Gmail. Google's new Material 3 Expressive design language is currently being adapted across the company's whole range of apps, and we've been having a great time trying to spot all the little changes as Google devs get started implementing them. Earlier this week we shared with you our latest M3E finds for Android's Gmail app, but those didn't stop at just email; we also saw some interface changes in the works for Chat. As probably shouldn't surprise you, that's not exclusively happening to Chat in Gmail, and we're now taking a look at some very similar adjustments happening to the stand-alone Chat app. You're reading an Authority Insights story. Discover Authority Insights for more exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage you won't find anywhere else. These reports reflect developments at the time of writing. Some features or details uncovered in leaks may change before official release. Before we start looking at what's new, since some of these changes are a little on the subtle side, let's check out a few screens showing off Chat as it has existed up to now: But upon getting Google's recent update for Chat, we've discovered some interface tweaks that seem to follow Google's new Material 3 Expressive guidelines. The most obvious there is an increased reliance on background colors to set up contrast and make the app's UI elements really stand out. And while this is very, very similar to what we just checked out with Chat in Gmail, you'll notice that here we don't see any thin lines dividing up individual entries in a list, while those dividers do appear to be a part of the Gmail redesign. Right now, these changes don't seem to be widely deployed, and even with a slightly newer build of Chat we don't yet find them on all devices. But even if the delivery's a little piecemeal, this kind of Expressive redesign feels like a force of nature at this point, and we'll continue to see it exert its influence across app UI design over the months to come. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
