Google Translate (iPhone/iPod Touch, Android. Free) - Type or speak into your phone and let it instantly translate into 15 languages (with mixed success if you don't speak clearly).
www.smh.com.au/travel/traveller-tips/a-light-touch-and-youre-away-20110324-1c7lo.html
It is designed for the holiday maker such as ordering a meal, catching a bus, booking a hotel room, asking directions and a host of other tourist orientated circumstances.
Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a retired Baptist minister says there are a host of other uses as the technology improves and the language base is widened. One such technology update might be the reverse button, that should you be speaking in English to a Spanish speaker, their reply is translated back to you in English.
Mark Tronson says he could imagine an American with the deep south drawl accent making use of it as they visited many other English speaking countries.
He recalls an experience at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics "Hockey Press Box" where one of the US volunteer attendants was a young man from Boston with a strong nasal accent. He found it easier to comprehend the English from the Pakistan hockey commentators accent.
International Missionaries are Urban Missions are two Christian group who could make wonderful use of this technology.
A missionary could carry their handy iphone, switch on speaker, and off they go, speaking hither and thither down the street, and the same applies with rally or an open air church service or even a one to one meeting with the main man or woman.
Like the motor vehicle GPS system operates now, if the missionary was a woman, the language voice would be that of a woman, and vice versa a man.
As the technology improved, so the quietened or raised voice would be duplicated so as to highlight a specific point in the Gospel message.
Many a Christian preacher would make handy use of such technology as the art of preaching requires such tonal applications.
Likewise on urban missions, the technology would be very helpful, specially when helping someone fill out a medical or social service form, or simply trying to understand what an issue might be.
Moreover, the application's language band with additional languages would gradually be applied. There are over 700 different languages in Papua New Guinea. It would take some time, but it could be achieved.
The use of this "app" are endless in missionary and mission day to day activities.
He could imagine the scene of an English speaking missionary meeting a group of people who had never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ – in today's world that could well be an urban situation or in some isolated village.
The missionary speaks a sentence of greeting, and from the "app" comes the translation with the same warm tones and voice variation. The missionary receives a greeting back, and the "app" springs to life back in English.
What a wonderful 'could be technology' application to be discussing in Easter week.