Google Makes it Easier for You to Refuse to Learn Another Language

In the olden days, when you were on a subway in another country and couldn’t read the signs due to not speaking the language, you’d approach a stranger and use gesturing to figure out where to go. That kind of “cultural exchange” may go extinct, however, thanks to Google’s giving us our own Babel fish, the universal translator dreamt up in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. On Wednesday, Google announced that its Translate smartphone app is now going to support 30 different languages.
Those with the Google Translate app on their smartphone can point their device’s camera at something with a foreign language printed on it, and the app translates it instantly. Likewise, you can record a question or statement, hit translate, and a Google spokesbot emerges from your speakers.