Translation

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.

British computer programmer Will Powell has created a prototype real-time translation system that displays subtitles for the interlocutor's speech in a language of choice.

The Ukraine’s quadSquad has taken out the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup with the EnableTalk gloves that translate sign language into speech in real time.

Lonely Planet has released a family of translator apps that allow users to obtain written and - thanks to speech recognition technology - spoken translations offline.

Purdue University has developed an app that translates the names of menu items for travelers, and provides information on the dishes.

Penpower Technology has released an iPhone app which uses the device's camera and Google's translating prowess to offer instant word translation and definition.