At dusk, a car stops at a checkpoint in Afghanistan. It is a tense moment for all. Because an interpreter is not available, U.S. Marines use hand gestures to ask the driver to step out of the car and open the trunk and hood for inspection. There's a lot of room for error.

This scene was re-enacted recently during an evaluation at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—but, this time, the Marine had a new smart phone-based device that translates his English into the driver’s native Pashto and the Pashto back into English.

For the past four years, scientists at NIST have been conducting detailed performance evaluations of speech translation systems for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Previous systems used microphones and portable computers. In the most recent tests, the NIST team evaluated three two-way, real-time, voice-translation devices designed to improve communications between the U.S. military and non-English speakers in foreign countries.

Traditionally, the military has relied on human translators for communicating with non-English speakers in foreign countries, but the job is dangerous and skilled translators often are in short supply. And, sometimes, translators may have ulterior motives, according to NIST’s Brian Weiss. The DARPA project, called TRANSTAC (spoken language communication and TRANSlation system for TACtical use), aims to provide a technology-based solution. Currently, the focus is on Pashto, a native Afghani tongue, but NIST has also assessed machine translation systems for Dari—also spoken in Afghanistan—and Iraqi Arabic.

A U.S. Marine and a native Pashto speaker converse using a smart phone voice translation system as part of an evaluation of the technology recently conducted by NIST for the Defense Department.

All new TRANSTAC systems all work much the same way, says project manager Craig Schlenoff. An English speaker talks into the phone. Automatic speech recognition distinguishes what is said and generates a text file that software translates to the target language. Text-to-speech technology converts the resulting text file into an oral response in the foreign language. This process is reversed for the foreign language speaker.

NIST researchers held focus groups with U.S. military personnel who have served overseas to determine critical communication interactions to simulate and evaluate in tests. The research team then devised 25 scenarios for evaluating the performance of translation devices. These included vehicle checkpoints; communication of key information, such as how long electricity will be available each day; facility inspections; medical assessments; and Afghani-U.S. military training exercises. Marines experienced in these tasks and native Kandahari-dialect Pashto speakers acted out the scenarios without a script. Each scenario was performed using the three industry-developed translation devices.

For each test, on-site judges observed the scenarios, and the participating Marines and Pashto speakers were surveyed about the ease of interaction with the systems. Later, a separate panel of judges fluent in English and Pashto viewed videos of the exercise and evaluated each of the three systems in terms how accurately concepts were communicated in both languages, Schlenoff says.

“We are writing a detailed assessment of the evaluation for DARPA so they can make an informed decision to determine where to direct funds and efforts in the TRANSTAC project,” says Schlenoff.

• Hardware: Just like some of the early videos indicated, the tablet is made entirely of black plastic. For $150 we can't really knock the build quality of this thing, but we do have to say the $199 Archos 7 Home Tablet feels a lot sturdier and is also a bit thinner. Still, the Augen tablet is satisfactorily light and it's easy to hold up to read a website or e-book. As we've said before, 7-inch tablets are an ideal size for holding in one hand. Oh, and as you will see in the gallery, Augen throws in a faux leather case -- probably to hide the 78's cheap aesthetic. Surrounding the tablet is a micro-USB port, a 2.5mm headphone jack (yeah, it's a bummer!) and a microSD card slot. As for that headphone jack, Augen has told us that if you email them atsupport@augenus.com, they'll send you a pair of 2.5mm headphones or some sort of adapter -- cheers to that!

• Screen: Come on, you're not really shocked that the display is resistive and only has an 800 x 480 resolution, are you? For the price, we expected nothing more really, though in use it wasn't as bad as we'd imagined. Obviously, you have to press pretty hard on the 7-inch display to make selections, but there's also a stylus that pops out on the top of the tablet. We've actually defaulted to using the stylus, but a fingernail certainly gets the job done as well. Either way, resistive is, well, resistive. Also, you may notice in the pictures that there's a slight gap between the glass of the screen and the actual display. There's also no accelerometer or software for adjusting the screen orientation. No beating around the bush on this one: this screen is cheap, but then again so is the tablet.

• Performance / Android experience: We actually have to give Augen some credit for shipping the Gentouch 78 with Android 2.1. It's not 2.2 -- though Augen says it may be upgradeable sometime -- but at first boot we were greeted by a live wallpaper and shortcuts to the browser, YouTube, the Market, iReader, Skype and others. Basically, if you're an Android user, you'll feel quite at home. However, we cannot tell you how badly we wish there was a home and back button on the front of the device -- there are a few cheap, very clicky buttons on the back, but it's incredibly annoying to guess what each one does when you're looking at the screen. The good news is that the GenTouch tablet is nowhere near as slow as the GenBook, but its 800MHz processor and 256MB of RAM makes Android smartphones, like the Droid X, Incredible and Evo 4G, look like Usain Bolt. As you see in the video, the application panel jiggers across the screen, scrolling is quite delayed and launching applications takes a noticeable few seconds. Still the tablet is capable of doing things like loading and watching YouTube videos as well as surfing the web, albeit on Hawaiian time. There's 2GB of onboard memory, but the microSD slot should support up to 16GB cards.

• Apps / Market access: So, yes, the Gentouch does come preloaded with the Google Market, but just as we experienced with the smartbook, applications won't install. When we chatted with Augen, we were told that an update should restore access, though they also mentioned they'd be chatting with Google soon about the access. (We can't imagine Google is all that happy that this company is shipping tablets with the Market preloaded.) However, Gmail and YouTube are both pre-installed on the device, and we have had no issues with either one. Skype, on the other hand, doesn't work at all. We'll be burning through our weekend trying to sideload some .apks, so stay tuned on how that all turns out. Augen tells us the updates for the store will appear on its support site.

Regardless or not we'll end up seeing some kind of new hardware from Palm this year, it's not stopping developers from fine tuning and enhancing apps created for the platform. It's evident in the most recent release of the Facebook app for webOS version 1.2.30 beta which continues to emulate the desktop experience on a mobile level. Although this isn't a groundbreaking update, it does add some new features such as the support for selectable news feeds, toggling feed comments on/off, and the ability to clear multiple notifications at the same time. In addition, you'll find the customary amount of enhancements and bug fixes to better the overall experience. Since it's not yet available to download through the App Catalog, you can basically just click the source link to get yourself a copy of the update.

Android continues to proliferate as the smartphone market grows. The smartphone market grew 64% in Q2 compared to last year and all indications point to sustained growth. All major companies are experiencing growths in the numbers of shipped smartphones.

But it's Android that takes the cake - year-on-year basis it grew an astonishing 886% in the second quarter. Smartphone market grew 41% in the US with 14.7 million units shipped. Android devices accounted for 34% of those shipments. Almost a quarter of smartphones shipped worldwide are in the US, which retains its position as the biggest market for those devices.

Android is also doing well in China (which is the world's second largest smartphone market). From almost no shipments an year ago, in Q2 2010 Android grabbed a 7% market share in China - 475 thousand units shipped. China's home-brewed OMS platform (Open Mobile System) a.k.a. OPhone, which is based on Android, managed 174 thousand units too and should continue to grow.

Nokia remains the world leader in smartphone shipments with a record 23.8 million units shipped for a 41% growth year-on-year. It's currently enjoying a 38% market share thanks to affordable smartphones like the Nokia 5230.

Estimates put RIM in second place with 18% market share and strong positions in North and South America with the BlackBerry Curve 8520 pointed out as a strong seller. Apple slots in third position with a 13% market share for Q2. Their shipments were unaffected by all launch issues with the iPhone 4 and grew up to 61%.

The hotly anticipated Acer smartphone is right around the corner. The Acer Stream, running Android 2.1 as its operating system, offers a host of high-end functions for consumers. 

Available in early August, the Stream packs high capability into a relatively small handset. With 512MB of RAM next to a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the phone's actual performance will be slick and fast. The interface is controlled via a 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive multi-touch screen, boasting a 2000:1 contrast ratio. 

For those who enjoy mobile browsing, the internet can be activated at high speeds with inclusive HSDPA and Wi-Fi. Navigation is covered by the inbuilt GPS, while Bluetooth takes care of file sharing between phones. 

Media fanatics will enjoy a high-spec 5MP camera, which also has the capability for high definition video recording. Those with a HD TV can also connect the handset through the HDMI slot. 

The high-quality shots taken by the camera will be easily managed by the internal memory, totalling 2GB with the option for more via the microSD card slot. Acer's official site states that the phone can hold up to 32GB of extra storage. Facebook and Twitter apps are pre-installed on the phone, along with Acer's own music streaming service known as Spinlets. Imported multimedia content is viewable with the nemo Player, another Acer freebie. 

Mobile Choice UK has divulged some pricing information for the device from a certain retailer. The handset itself comes to under £400 from Expansys in an (initially) exclusive deal, although customers should be warned that this price does not include a sim card.