Good translators are hard to find, especially if you are the US military and you need people who speak Arabic. But if new software from IBM proves successful in field trials, it will soon be easier for English-speaking personnel in Iraq to communicate with Iraqis without the need for a human translator.

The United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) has ordered 35 ruggedized laptops equipped with IBM's MASTOR software to test the utility of speech-to-speech machine translation. The software, which has been under development since 2001, provides real-time, two-way translation between English and Arabic without requiring speakers to use preprogrammed phrases.

The universal translator is a fictional device common to many science fiction works. Its purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language. Like hyperdrive, a universal translator is a somewhat improbable technology that is an accepted convention in science fiction stories and serves as a useful plot device. As a convention, it is used to remove the problem of translating between alien languages, unless that problem is essential to the plot. To do this in every episode when a new species or culture is encountered would consume time (especially when most of these shows have a half to one hour format) normally allotted for plot development and would potentially, across many episodes, become repetitive to the point of annoyance.

Universal Language Translator:

As this is used on the Star Trek shows, it's just an automagical device to enable characters to get through the stories. It would be too tedious and repetitious in a one-hour show for the characters to overcome real language barriers in a realistic manner in every show. The way the Enterprise crew can encounter an alien spacecraft, "hail them on standard frequencies," and establish instant telecommunications on their viewscreens is a preposterous shortcut to keep the plot from faltering. We can certainly dismiss the possibility of such an invention ever being built.