Hasta La Gadget!

A few months ago, WordLens, an iPhone app that could translate text just by directing your iPhone’s camera at it, made waves for being one of the first augmented reality apps that could achieve the promise of an actual universal translator. Now, Samsung Mobile says they’re working on something similar, only for spoken language instead of printed text. 

Their version of the translator will have a pair of AMOLED displays on a transparent display, with the side facing the user displaying his or her words in their native language, and the side facing away from the user with the translation in the viewer’s native language. Samsung hopes the translations will work in real-time, and may be the closest thing to a Star Trek-style translator, where one person speaks and the other person hears the words in their own language. 

Sadly, Samsung’s design is still a concept for the moment and there’s no guarantee that the concept will ever turn into a real product, but if it does, you can be sure there’s a market for it. 

[via Gizmowatch]