Translation

Hot on the heels of Facebook's Ray-Ban Stories comes a pair of concept smart glasses from Chinese tech firm Xiaomi that don't just push notifications from a smartphone, but also sport some nifty independent functionality.

Human Inc has launched a pair of wireless headphones that are mounted directly to the ears, no headband required.

As any new parent will quickly confirm, the sound of a crying baby can communicate a multitude of things, from "I'm hungry", to "I'm in pain". A team at UCLA has now developed an innovative app that can identify when a baby is crying and help decode what they're trying to communicate.

​Software that can translate languages in real time would be huge news for travel, business and society as a whole. Now Google has arrived on the scene with its first set of wireless earbuds, which are claimed to translate 40 languages in real time.

Australian start-up, Lingmo International, has brought us one step closer to real-time universal translation. The Translate One2One is set to be the first commercially available translation earpiece that doesn't rely on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity.

These headphones may look like somebody spray-painted sea-shells and asked you to tune into the sounds of the ocean, but if they perform as planned they'll be useful not just for wireless listening, but as portable speakers and language translators, too.

A New York startup claims it's ready to make the fictitious Babel fish a reality; the Pilot earpiece from Waverly Labs sits in your ear and is designed to provide near real-time translations of multilingual conversations.

If you were geared up about that Skype Translator preview that Microsoft announced a year ago, but weren't able to get into the closed preview, today is your lucky day.

Not so long ago, the idea of a universal language translation device making the jump from science fiction to reality seemed preposterous. Google Translate, however, is fast becoming that device. Its most recent update includes seamless conversation and foreign text translation.

MotionSavvy has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for its Uni technology. The solution is a combo that helps deaf and hard of hearing people to communicate with non-deaf people who don't understand sign language in real time.

Microsoft has moved to break down language barriers and make talking to our international friends even more convenient. The company has unveiled Skype Translator, an application for its chat software that translates speech between different languages in (almost) real time.

The internet has connected the world in ways previously unimaginable. Coupled with ever more seamless translation tools, it provides the ability to communicate across borders. Now, a new instant messaging tool is looking to make communication for speakers of different languages even easier.