By now probably most of the people already know that Android is an operating system for mobile phones developed by Android Inc which is owned by Google. The Open Handset Alliance and Google collaborated for the development of Android and now for the further maintenance and development, the Android Open Source Project is set up. In the recent times, the sales of smartphones with Android OS have increased and there are a lot of players in the market who are developing the applications for these devices.
Google also has its own huge share of applications for the Android phones and one of the most important applications of Google’s is Google Translate. Google Translate is an effective Translation tool using which one can translate most of the different languages spoken around the world into the language which the user knows. Until recently, Google Translate application for the Android OS did not have real time translation features which have been incorporated now. Apart from the usual usability enhancements in the user interface, the new updated version of Google Translate has a mode called Conversation mode. This Conversation mode works in a way similar to that of an interpreter and it translates whatever has been spoken in real time. The present update supports only English and Spanish languages and the support for various other languages are expected to follow. This new Google Translate is available for devices running on Android 2.1 and higher and is also free in Android Market.
In conversation mode the users have to speak directly into the phone one at a time and the application translates it in the form of text and voice. Event though there is a lot of scope for improvement, but this feature is widely welcomed and it seems like Google has taken the step in the right direction.