When you travel, unless you are proficient in the native language, you are at a disadvantage. In this newsletter, we have covered five different translation devices starting back with Issue 2-50 in 2016. So I was a little skeptical of another tech device that is the international traveler’s best friend. But the Indiegogo-funded NEWYES Scan Reader Pen 3 has so many other uses that I couldn’t ignore it.

The device supports 9 UI languages, 55 OCR languages, 112 text translation languages, and 112 voice translation languages. You can scan written material, record your voice or someone else’s voice and translate that voice into any of a 112 languages. If you use the OCR scan, you can either read the text in another language or hear it pronounced orally. This means that not just translators can benefit from the device. Second-language learners can use it to get professional pronunciations of difficult words and use it to help with memorizing coursework. While scanning text, it recognizes up to 3,000 characters per minute and has a 0.3-second translation speed with up to 98% accuracy.

Individuals with dyslexia can use the device to read materials to them so they hear the material. When your child is eager to read independently but always comes across new words, the Scan Reader Pen 3 can help with both the pronunciation and the definition of the word.

The device also has a built-in dictionary. You can even save audio to listen to or view a translation later. Transfer your audio files directly to your Mac or PC via a USB port. It also supports Bluetooth, so you could connect your earbuds and listen in private.
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The company produced a YouTube video showing how the device works. The NEWYES Scan Reader Pen 3 is available for $159 from Amazon.

The White House reported recently that the President had implemented a new framework to safeguard the privacy of personal data transferred between the United States and Europe.

Since a European court invalidated an earlier version in 2020, the new framework significantly closes a gap in data protections on both sides of the Atlantic. The court determined that the U.S. had an excessive amount of power to monitor European data transferred under the previous arrangement.

The court case, known as Schrems II, “created enormous uncertainty about the ability of companies to transfer personal data from the European Union to the United States in a manner consistent with EU law,” then-Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary James Sullivan wrote in a public letter shortly after the decision. The result increased business complexity by requiring U.S. corporations to use several "EU-approved data transmission protocols" on an as-needed basis, according to Sullivan.

The so-called Privacy Shield 2.0 seeks to address European concerns about possible surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies. In March, after the U.S. and EU agreed in principle to the new framework, the White House said in a fact sheet that the United States is “committed to implement new safeguards to ensure that signals intelligence activities are necessary and proportionate in the pursuit of defined national security objectives.”

With the new system, EU citizens will have access to a Data Protection Review Court (DPRC) that is independent of the U.S. government and composed of members from other countries. According to the March fact sheet, the committee "would have complete authority to adjudicate allegations and direct remedial steps as needed."

The civil liberties protection officer in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will also carry out an initial inquiry of complaints before a matter reaches the DPRC. Its judgments are final and enforceable, subject to review by the impartial body.

The executive order instructs the American intelligence community to change its policies and practices to conform to the framework's new privacy protections. It gives the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board instructions to go over these revisions and undertake an annual evaluation of the intelligence community's compliance with binding redress rulings.
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“The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework includes robust commitment to strengthen the privacy and civil liberties safeguards for signals intelligence, which will ensure the privacy of EU personal data,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters Thursday.