Google Translate turns a year old, gets new 'Conversation Mode'

One of the coolest little projects Google's been working on over the past year has been its translation features. And the Google Translate app just turned 1 and got a pretty major update with a bunch of UI improvements -- and one very cool experimental feature.

Conversation Mode is "optimized to allow you to communicate fluidly with a nearby person in another language." Basically you and whomever you're speaking to talk into the phone, and it translates both sides of the conversation in near-real time. It's only for Spanish and English right now, and is still in its infancy. But this is very, very cool, and is likely to save our butts in a month in Spain. Check out the dearly demo from the IFA conference after the break. [Google]

Phil Nickinson