Taxi Translation

[Mulboyne]

Kippo: Kyoto starts cell-phone interpretation service in taxis
The Kyoto Prefectural Government, in conjunction with JTB Corp., has started experiments of cellular phone interpretation services for foreign tourists using taxis. The service is aimed at enabling foreign tourists riding taxis to receive free-of-charge interpretation support for their conversation with the taxi driver by using the cellular phone installed in the taxis. The service will be provided in three foreign languages - English, Chinese and Korean...more...

[GomiGirl]

Dammit - I tendored for this last year and missed out. It was a HUGE initiative by Kyoto city to improve tourist services via keitais in Kyoto. We had a huge tendor filled with Mapping services, language services, translation services etc etc all via keitais.

The tendor was won by JTB and Dentsu so I didn't feel so bad.

This seems to be the first "cab off the rank" in the program. It should go really well for them.

[omae mona]

Typical conversation before translation service:

Passenger: Please take me to Kinkakuji.
Taxi driver: [unintelligible Japanese]

After translation service available:

Passenger: Please take me to Kinkakuji.
Taxi driver (via keitai): Never fuckin' heard of it.

[Mulboyne]

Gomigirl, did you see this short paper from NRI?

Creating the 20 Trillion-Yen K-tai Industry