I recently downloaded the latest native @Google Translate iPhone App (not to be confused with the mobile Google web app) and it is mind blowing! You can speak and translate to text and voice (75 languages). It arrives two years too late for my study abroad in Paris but just in time for my upcoming trip.
Even though an international data plan is required to access the app abroad, it is probably the best spent $45 by anyone looking to have a real-time translator on their trip!
This has to be one of the most under celebrated killer application of the year. We have downplayed its arrival because we feel that we have had this technology accessible from our desktops for some years now. However, it is the mobility of this product that makes it so powerful.
This application is the desired outcome following (and fully dependent on) thousands of important but low profile incremental achievements in the areas of speech recognition, mobile data networks, cloud computing, processing power, open source code, crowdsourcing... and the list goes on.
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