Language. It’s what brings us together and sadly what can create great divides between us. On ‘Star Trek’, their “Universal Translator” was an immediate solution to “breaking the ice” with new species and cultures. If you could understand their language and they could understand yours, there was at least a chance that cultural barriers could be crossed and a basic understanding reached.
A Google spokesperson said the company has launched a new version of Google Translate for Android that includes a “conversation feature” that can translate in something almost like real time.
The new Google Translate application can translate between 53 different languages. After choosing one of the 53 languages, a user can speak (or type) a block of text into the application, which will then be translated.
The “conversation mode” option is currently only available for English and Spanish, but will add more languages later. What’s different with the “conversation mode” is that after translating, the application recites the translated text and then retains the translation in “speech bubbles” that appear one after the next on top of each other. This allows for two people to have a conversation without knowing each other’s language.
While still very rudimentary, the future potential for this type of application is
vast.
