Once again, Google makes science fiction real

Those clever folks at Google have done it again, and this time in such an over the top way, that my head is swimming at how surreal the invention is. Check this out.

Google has released an app for smartphones running the Google Android operating system. Big deal, you might say. Google has had a translation page thingy for years now.

Fair enough. But this is on a phone.

Big deal again, you might say. They probably just connect to the monstrous servers back home and spit translated text back to the phone.

Fair enough again. But this app translates voice. As in, I speak into it in English, and it translates what I've said and SPEAKS it back out of my phone in French. And then I switch directions, and the snooty French waiter at the brasserie speaks French into my phone and the phone translates it and SPEAKS English back to me.

Does this remind anyone else of THIS device?























No? Does it remind you of this then?




























Still no? Are you going to make me go find a C-3PO graphic?

You know, you would think that I would become jaded about technology, but the longer I play on the internet, the more it amazes me.