[Imported from Sierto 1.0]

Douglas Adams used the term Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to describe a small fish that slithered into your ear and enabled you to hear other languages, even dreaded Vogon poetry. Altavista later used the name for their translation service on the web. The latter isn't even up to par with bad human translators yet, though. Wired reports on the development of a gadget that translates speech with just a two second delay. The device is being tested by the Office of Naval Research. The device is about a year away from being able to be used by soldiers on the field. [Kuro5hin.org]