Apple's successful venture into mobile technology has revolutionized the industry with the touch interface of the iPhone and the iPod Touch. More recently, the iTunes applications store recorded its billionth download demonstrating a customer want for a variety of ways to customize their mobile devices. Some of these many applications have the potential to be transformative for people living with disabilities.

One such application that has the potential to be useful to not only the deaf community but also the greater non-disabled population as a whole, is Polyglotz. Polyglotz is a talking translator application that supports more than 30 languages, which is also preloaded with certain well-used greetings, slang, emergency assistance and other basic language needs. The user can also customize their own "private translation database" and add specific questions or words to be translated.

The deaf and non-verbal community can use this device to aid in their communication needs among the hearing population because of the application's text-to-speech (TTS) capability. Several of my deaf friends have concerns about speaking in public because they feel that their vocalization skills are not easily understood and thus, I would imagine, an application such as Polyglotz would be a valuable tool in communicating efficiently with the hearing community.

I believe this application was designed to help the average traveler to better communicate in foreign countries however I believe there to be an even more beneficial side note to this app as a tool for the deaf. I will ask my deaf friends to try this application out and report to me on its usefulness for a future post on MyWirelessReview.com. Polyglotz is available at the iTunes Store for $7.99, which is good for a five-year subscription

-- Pete "Pedro" Collman