A TIME-SAVING DEVICE

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 52, 13 July 1928, Page 15

A TIME-SAVING DEVICE

Y means of a truly amazing adaptation of human inventiveness to the needs of hundreds of representatives at a great cosmopolitan gathering, delegates at the International Labour Conference, which will open at Geneva in two or three weeks’ time, will be able to hear the speeches, each in his own tongue, at the very moment of delivery. How this is to be accomplished cannot ke described here in detail; but we gather that there wiil be an interpreter for each ef the nationalities represented, that he will translate simultaneously with the -speaker’s utterance-a less difiieult feat, apparently, than one would think-each interpreter using a microphone specially adapted to the tone of his voice; and that amplifiers and distributing circuits will convey the words to Hsteners at the different tables who, with headpieces adjusted, wilt be able to watch the orator while hearing his words in a familiar language. Experiments and rehearsals have been carried on for some time, and when this method is universally adopted for all international gatherings, the proceedings will not only be "speeded up," but attendance at such meetings will be far more pleasureable than formerly. To be obliged to listen to a long address in an unknown tongue, and then to hear it laboriously delivered again in 4a language which many of those present wmaay be supposed to know, but which ay equally be "Greek" to some liseners, is a wearisome ordeal for all concerned. a —