Gadgetory

we can now talk to someone in another language without knowing how to speak their language I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET update Skype is now able to do live real-time language translations for video calls for now the program can translate to spoken languages Spanish and English so when your friend greets you in Spanish hola como estas you have to wait a moment to hear the translation in your headset oh hi how are you and then you see the transcript on the screen written messages can be translated for more than 40 languages it's just spoken that's limited in this preview phase and unfortunately you can't just jump in right away you have to first request access to the preview Microsoft began taking signup requests back in November this early preview is only for Windows 8.1 PCs and tablets when I grew up this was the sort of far-out futuristic technology featured at Epcot so it's pretty cool to see now it's possible as Microsoft enhances Skype it's no longer in a relationship with Facebook the social network broke off its partnership with Bing so when you do a search on Facebook you won't see bings web search results that's because Facebook is trying to build that its own search tool as something stronger just last week Facebook added a way to search for any word or phrase posted by your friends going all the way back to their first posts even though Bing isn't tied into Facebook Microsoft still owns a stake in the network now here's an advancement in technology that I'm not so eager about virtual reality exercises runtastic a popular GPS fitness tracking app has created a workout program for the oculus rift headset it's a seven minute leg workout where a 3d animated avatar is your personal trainer and you can pick from different backgrounds maybe you want a lush hillside an ocean view or you can stand inside a black hole because why not it's hard enough to get motivated to do exercise strapping on a headpiece and getting motion sick doesn't really make me excited about doing squats moving on to another new frontier in technology you can now buy 3d print address and this isn't some rigid plastic cage this is a dress that flows and moves with you the nervous system design studio created this print address in partnership with Kim attics it's created with many hinged triangles so it's sort of like chainmail interlinked so you can still move the computer gets a pattern that's folded up and that way you can fit print it inside the machine and then it's flattened out to where the dress is now on display at the Museum of Modern Art and you can order your own dress you just need to get a 3d body scan that's your tech news update there's always more at cnet.com and you can follow me on Twitter to stay updated from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey