Creepy video is a terrible way to show off startup’s new speech translation gadget

An update follows the original story.

Remember Logbar, the Japanese startup I defended last year after reviewers called its Kickstarted wearable, Ring, the “worst product ever made?” Well it’s gone and dug itself a hole with a new speech translation gadget called Ili, unveiled yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The product itself seems interesting enough, especially for travelers. Ili is worn around the neck and looks somewhat like the previous generation Apple TV remote in both size and shape. Users simply press and hold a large button on the middle of the device, speak a phrase into it, and release. The gadget, which doesn’t require an internet connection, then produces an audible translation in your selected language. It currently supports English, Japanese, and Chinese.

Logbar is aiming to launch Ili in summer 2016, and the startup plans to add a number of additional languages down the road – French, Thai, Korean, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic, according to a press release. It says the device uses a proprietary operating system and language processing software, and adds that its microphone can pick up your voice accurately in a noisy bar or cafe.

Ili’s potential is huge, especially in the context of Tokyo hosting the summer Olympics in 2020. Ordering food at a restaurant, asking for directions to the nearest station, requesting a size at a clothing store, and more all seem suddenly feasible with zero Nihongo skills. Surely, the promotional video would show off some of these everyday, practical use cases, right?

Wrong.

Instead, the startup’s video shows a Caucasian lad on a street corner in the Tokyo’s busy Shibuya entertainment district who tells us very enthusiastically, “I’m gonna try to kiss girls I’ve never met before using this translation device, Ili!”

Cringe-worthy awfulness ensues, some young women run away in terror, and finally one plants a big kiss on Charisma Man’s lips. I’m reluctantly embedding the video below so you can witness it for yourself.

Go to any bookstore and you can find a pocket phrasebook for picking up members of the opposite sex. Sony even made a translation device for the PSP called Talkman and marketed it in a similarly offensive way (though Sony’s commercial seems a bit more tongue-in-cheek, and obviously features actors). See below:

People will use whatever means necessary to hook up, but I just can’t wrap my head around Logbar’s decision to target this use case over everything else. The video, quite frankly, is sexual harassment.

It’s also unclear if the device actually works or is a limited-function mockup. Daily Dot wrote that Logbar staff were showing it off but not using it, while Business Insider said they were only shown a “short, prepared demo.” Languages are filled with complex grammar, irregularities, and nuance, and English to Japanese (and vice versa) is notoriously tricky for existing tech to handle.