Twitter seems to be doing something really cool that will make it even more accessible. With most of its users based in the US, it's no wonder that English is the semi-official language of the Twittersphere. But with usage increasing right around the globe, how do you get around those pesky language barriers? Crowd source translation of course. I've recently noticed on one or two of my Spanish friends' profiles that they have a Translator badge - it turns out that Twitter is inviting users to translate their tweets using some specially developed tools, so they can enjoy Twitter in their local language.

LINK:  http://twitter.com/translate

For anybody working with the web, it is becoming increasingly impossible to avoid having a mobile strategy. Over the next decade, mobile devices are widely tipped to overtake desktop devices as the primary means for accessing the internet - an exciting but disruptive prospect. Check out this fascinating slideshow of what some of the top mobile thinkers believe will happen to the mobile internet in the next decade (I'm super-excited by some of the ideas here as they cross over with my new venture)....

 

Mobile Trends 2020View more documents from rudydw.

Thanks so much to Rudy de Waele at http://m-trends.org and http://dotopen.com for putting this together

 

I don't know why I had never heard of Mozilla's Ubiquity before reading this post on 35 Mac Apps to Improve your browsing experience. It is FANTASTIC. For anybody who uses a quick launcher in Linux or OSX such as Quicksilver, Ubiquity should seem pretty familiar. It is essentially a live, networked menu system summoned using Alt-Space whilst browsing using Firefox; a number of natural text commands can then be used to achieve whatever goal you have in mind.

For example, you find a restaurant's address and you want to view it on Google Maps; rather than copying the address, navigating to http://maps.google.com and pasting the link there, you can simply highlight the address, fire up Ubiquity and begin to type 'map'. Before you have finished typing, it will already have displayed a zoom-able Google map which can then be embedded where ever you want. A bunch of other natural commands cover everything from translating text through to checking the weather forecast.

You can have a play around with Ubiquity here --> http://ubiquity.mozilla.com/

If you've been reading up on Augmented Reality and are jealous of all those Android users out there who are getting in on the action before you then fear not. Here are a couple of demos that will let you play around with the technology with just a webcam and a printer.

Submarine fun
http://www.defencejobs.gov.au/campaigns/submariners/subhologram/default.aspx

A powerful particle beam spews forth from your desk
http://jamesalliban.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/ar-particle-beam/

Do you know of any other similar demos out there? Leave a comment below!