Interpreting languages can be a real challenge. It’s especially difficult for frequent overseas travelers or those who converse with foreign clients over the phone. Google wants to make things easier with smartphone translator software that will instantly convert the words you speak from one language to another while on the phone.

They’ve been doing it for some time with text translation, and now speech-to-speech translation is possible with ‘high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition’ only. The idea is that the users phone would adapt to the user by learning their style of talking and make it easier to translate in real time.

[GW]

Corsair has a couple of new SSDs in the Nova and Reactor. The Nova comes in 64GB and 128GB capacities, while the Reactor series comes in 60GB and 120GB capacities. The Nova is a 2.5″ SSD that uses MLC NAND chips and 64MB of cache, for read speeds of up to 215MB/s on both the V128 and V64, with writing speeds of 130MB/s for the V64 drive and 195MB/s for the larger V128.

The Reactor series is equipped with a 128MB cache and read/write speeds of up to 250/110 MB/s for the 60GB model and 250/170 MB/s for the 120GB model. The Reactor series also features a mini USB port.

You can never have too much Pac-Man in your life. Or Space Invaders. Excuse me, “Pac Boy” and “Space Intruders”. You could buy yourself a regular mug featuring arcade scenes, but these mugs from Thinkgeek react to the heat in your drink and actually do things.

For instance the Pac Boy mug starts off with an empty maze, but when you add heat and it gets filled with detail. Same with the Space Intruders mug.

ZoomMediaPlus has announced its new zoomIt application-enabled accessory for the iPhone and iPod touch. It works with the company’s free zoomIt app. It’s an SD card reader for the iPhone and iPod touch. Some features include support for all iPhone OS 3.0 file types, including photos, videos, music, and documents, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, PDF and others.

The app allows you to view, listen and share the files via e-mail, Facebook, and Flickr, and supports the transfer of files from the card to the iPhone or iPod touch for unconnected access. The app will also allow you to save photos and videos from the card to your Camera Rolls, or move media from the Camera Roll onto the SD card.

AT&T has offered a service for a while now that lets family members track their family using their phones. The service used a map on a computer or software on some of its mobile devices to show where a family member was at the time.

AT&T has announced that the FamilyMap app for the iPhone is now available. The app lets a user track the location of other family members on their talk plan directly from the iPhone. The app lets the user set up areas that kids are allowed to travel in and places where they are allowed to be.

Monster teamed up with rapper Dr. Dre last year to produce a line of headphones called Beats by Dr. Dre. The headphones are offered in several styles and now include versions designed in conjunction with other artists like Lady Gaga.

Monster announced that a new version of the Solo HD headphones is available called the Beats Solo HD PRODUCT(RED) that will help raise money for the Global Fund. The Global fund helps pay for Aids research and treatment around the world.

The number of external hard drives on the market is staggering. The drives can be had in a huge range of capacities and styles to match the needs of the end user. Many external hard drives with higher capacities are used to back up data from computers on a network and to store movies and other content.

Samsung has announced a new special edition of its S2 Portable hard drive. The drive has 500GB of storage space and will launch alongside the DVD and Blu-ray version of the Michael Jackson THIS IS IT film on February 22. The drive will have a digital copy of the movie pre-loaded.

Lots of people out there like to keep a flash drive on them at all times. This allows them to be able to share files and move files to and from a computer or between home and the office without having to dig for floppy discs or burn a CD or DVD.

Active media Products has unveiled a new flash drive called the MotKey that is designed to look like a car key. The point of the device is that the MotKey will blend in with the keys already on your key ring. The MotKey is offered in 4GB or 8GB capacities.

Denon’s latest S-5BD Blu-ray player, called Cara, is a hefty device, weighing in at 7.8kgs. It’s hefty in price too costing you £1,999. The Cara features 5.1-channel surround sound, two-source, two-room distribution capabilities, BD-Live and HDMI 1.4.

Some other features include an SD memory card slot and iPod/iPhone digital direct playback through USB. The player also supports a huge list of formats. Look for it to be released later next month. That gives you some time to save your cash.

If you’re in Russia, you might be one of the lucky few to receive a gift from HTC: An HTC Hero. But it’s not what you think. It’s made entirely out of chocolate, so you can’t make any calls. It’s a pretty neat and tasty promotional campaign from the company.

The display reads “quietly brilliant new year”, so it was obviously a New Year’s gift. Looks like it is the same exact size of the real phone too.

BenQ is all about staying ahead of the competition in displays with the V2220. It features 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, but the real kicker here is that it is just 15mm thick, which makes it the thinnest 21.5 monitor available.

It supports HDMI and headphone connection options, with a 1920 x 1080 resolution, 250 nits of brightness, 1000:1 real contrast ratio and a 5ms response time. The display will be launched in Taiwan within in a few months, and will be available everywhere else in June.

Barnes and Noble has production of the Nook shifted into high gear at last. The e-Readers should start appearing in stores this week and the company has plenty of “More In Store” content and promotional offers, like: A short story by Adriana Trigiani, a Valentine’s Day recipe for red velvet cupcakes from Anne Byrn, the Cake Mix Doctor, and something called “Read Between the Wines,” a feature by wine expert Kevin Zraly.

I know you can hardly wait for all that stuff. You can order online with free shipping right now or buy one in person.

We’ve covered many steampunk mods around these parts. Some are actually Steampunk while others are just a lot of brass attachments glued onto a gadget. Well this one is Steampunk alright. And these guns actually fire.

The blunderbuss shown above shoots not bullets, but rubber balls. That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt like a real bullet though. It shoots those rubber balls fast enough to actually penetrate cardboard from a distance. Ouch! And while we don’t want to be on the wrong end of this thing, we can’t help admiring the craftsmanship. Check out some videos below.

Over the past few days Microsoft has silently cut prices on the Zune HD through an at least temporary promo. Microsoft’s media player now costs $190 for a 16GB model at Amazon. That’s $32 less than the original price. The 32GB model has also dropped to $250.

Microsoft’s very own store has dropped its prices as well, to $200 for a 16GB Zune HD and $270 for a 32GB edition. It’s looking like a great time to buy a Zune. Walmart and some other retailers are also closely matching those prices on Amazon.

You might think that Sony is raking in the cash by selling PS3s, after all Playstation 3 sales have recently been on the rise, but the Wall Street Journal has determined that Sony is still losing money on each and every PS3 unit sold.

According to the WSJ, in an analysis of Sony’s 3rd quarter financial performance, the company loses 6 cents on “every dollar of PS3 hardware sales.” So if the current PlayStation 3 sells for $299, it’s likely that Sony loses about $18 per unit.