Ok, so I would have translated that whole title into Klingon, but my language skills suck so bad that I’m pretty sure a targ could write Klingon better than I. Anyway…how cool is it that we’re one step closer to a real universal translator? And this step…is a doozy.

Microsoft recently showed off new technology that, not only translates your spoken word into another language in real time, but also makes the voice of the translated version sound very much like the actual speaker’s voice.

We here at Subspace Communique are always excited when we hear about new technology that is inspired by, similar to, or even heading in the direction of Star Trek gadgets that made all of our favorite characters’ lives easier onscreen. Personally, we can’t wait for the day when transporters make plane travel no longer necessary, but until then we’ll be excited about this new bit of tech from Google that is teaching computers to see. Google “Goggles” is a piece of software that works with a cell phone’s camera to identify objects in photographs.

With Goggles, the user snaps a picture, which is transmitted across cellular networks to Google's servers. Google's computers then tell the phone what they recognized in the photo. This process can take only a second or two -- and sometimes even less.