Image by Flickmor via Flickr

In a world in which technology grows ever more complex, advanced and overall impressive, many of us strive to own the best gadgets and gizmos on the market. One of the 'must have' items which always seem to be growing in price as well as technological complexity is the modern day smartphone. Often sporting a built in camera of up to 12 megapixels and a range of entertaining and practical applications, the modern day mobile phone has an almost limitless amount of uses. It doesn't seem so long ago that our cell phones were incapable of carrying a signal without a chunky and unsightly antenna protruding from the top; now, they are capable of more than we ever could have imagined.

One of the most impressive applications to date is surely the real - time translation apps; these are something you really have to see to believe! When presented with a piece of text in a language other than your own, you need only select the appropriate languages in the app menu and hold your phone still above the text. What happens next will likely have you in deep thought for a minute or two. Via the phones camera the text is scanned, translated and displayed on your screen in real-time; the text style, color and size remain exactly the same. The applications make the translation appear absolutely seamless, as if you were simply pointing your camera at the text and seeing it as it were; it is only once you move the phone away that you realize just how realistic the display really is.

Let's say for example you’re at a restaurant with a prospective partner, and you've chosen to dine at a particularly fancy Italian restaurant. You enjoy a glass of wine, make witty small talk about your tie (because your mum cuts your hair, and you want to draw attention away from it) and then turn your attention to the menu. Surprise! None of it is in English and you forgot all the Italian you learned from the first two Godfather movies. You could try and subtly hover the phone over the menu and translate sections until you find your favorite dish, but that would be a waste of a conversational goldmine. Showcase the app, let them try it for themselves; seeing the translation app in action is truly impressive when put into action.

Another fantastic and practical translation app is the vocal translator. This application records a sentence in one language and translates it to another; it can also give an appropriate response to help you practice! For example, set the foreign language to Spanish, hold record and ask "are you thirsty?” The application will translate the sentence into Spanish and sound "¿Tienes sed?” then can go on to reply "Sí, tengo sed", "Yes, I am thirsty". This application can be wonderfully useful; it can be used as a practice tool for those wishing to learn another language or even a translation tool when abroad and in desperate need of communication with a foreigner.

These translation applications are remarkable, and have to be seen to be believed; it takes only a few moments to think of the moments in our past in which these handy apps could have saved us a lot of time and confusion. Viva la aplicación!