Google Translate, however, is fast becoming that device. Its most recent update includes seamless conversation and foreign text translation.

Voice translation has been available as part of the Android version of the Google Translate app since the back end of 2013. It could only translate one phrase at a time, however. The new version of the app can act as a real-time translator between two people speaking in different languages.

In order to use the real-time speech translation in a conversational setting, users need only open the app and press the microphone button. If speech in a foreign language is detected first it will be immediately translated into the user's native language, spoken aloud and displayed on-screen. The user can then press the microphone button again to respond in their native tongue and have it immediately translated to the foreign language.