This was "always supposed to be a World Cup indelibly marked by technology," according to Rory Smith of the N.Y. TIMES. FIFA’s decision to appoint a team of video assistant referees to "review controversial incidents during matches" was hailed as football's "next great leap forward, the moment it would join almost every other sport," including cricket and the NFL, in the 21st century. The last few weeks in Russia, however, "have highlighted a much more significant technological shift, a real-world innovation that has far-reaching ramifications for all of us." The defining image of this World Cup "is fans from all over the planet, hosts and visitors alike, holding their cellphones out to each other to conduct conversations in languages they have never learned" and would never claim to speak. This has been the "Google Translate World Cup." Across Russia for the last month, fans and journalists "have used translation apps for everything:" asking for directions, chatting with taxi drivers, getting "slightly nerve-racking haircuts," checking into hotels, making friends, "even flirting." The app’s camera function -- which can scan and translate text -- "has allowed visiting fans to decode menus, decipher signs and read the names of subway stations, even if the Cyrillic alphabet remains a mystery to them." Brazilian Rodrigo Ferreira said, "It really helps. It’s good for everything. We try to speak in English, too, but it’s been useful in bars, in restaurants, for meeting women." That "does not come as a surprise to Julie Cattiau, a product manager at Google Translate." She said, "Brazil is our biggest market, but Russia would be in the top few." The company was expecting an increase in use during the World Cup, but the "surge" has been "impressive: the amount of translation on the mobile app has been double what it might ordinarily be," Cattiau said (N.Y. TIMES, 7/13).
