Did you know that there's an instant translation war going on? There is, and it's raging hot this week.
Earlier this week, defense giant Raytheon
Google
With the addition of 12 more languages, the permutations of possible interlingual conversations jumped dramatically. Now you can speak Russian and receive French like a European diplomat, or shoot the bull in Mandarin Chinese and get answers back in Japanese -- or Polish, Korean, or Dutch. The possibilities are endless. International relations have never been simpler.
Of course, I won't be satisfied until the tool supports my native Swedish tongue, right before adding Navajo, Klingon, and Sindarin. But the progress is undeniably impressive. I'd imagine many more languages falling in line quickly once the back-end gets sophisticated enough. Translate itself already supports plenty of variety, from Afrikaans to Icelandic and Basque. They're just missing from the conversation mode, and often don't have voice models at all, neither in nor out.
As far as I know, Apple's
Mobile phones are transforming our way of life in myriad different ways. Besides becoming our personal breed of Babelfish, they're also set to replace the credit cards in your wallet. Watch this free video report to learn all about it.