Enter WorldWalla. A while back I used their multi-lingual e-mail application. It converted text I typed on a virtual keyboard to images (of characters). My addressees received message in any language I selected. It was more than cool. It was liberating. Along same vein, WorldWalla's software allows application and content developers to work in 66 languages. In their own words:

"WordWalla allows device manufacturers and application developers to meet this challenge by developing products that support any language. This simplifies testing and configuration management, accelerates time to market, lowers unit costs and allows companies to quickly and easily enter new markets and offer greater levels of personalization and customer satisfaction."

GlobalVu converts text to device-independent images. GlobalEase Web is a "Java-based multilingual text input and display engine". It includes virtual keyboards, front-end processors, and a contextual processor and text layout engine for left to right and right to left language formatting. They have versions tailored to specifications of mobile devices.

The secret is in generating and processing images (bitmaps), compressing them and transmitting them. In a way, WordWalla generates a FACSIMILE message (the kind we receive on our fax machines) every time text is exchanged. It is transparent to both sender and receiver - and it makes a user-driven polyglottal Internet a reality.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com

"The power underlying Enfish Onespace is its patented DEX 'engine.' This technology creates a master, cross-referenced index of contents of a user's email, documents and Internet information. The Enfish engine then uses this master index as a basis to understand what is relevant to a user, and to provide them with appropriate information. In this manner Enfish Onespace 'personalizes' Internet for each user, automatically connecting relevant information and services from Internet with user's desktop information.

As an example, by clicking on a person or company, Enfish Onespace automatically assembles a page that brings together related emails, documents, contact information, appointments, news and relevant news headlines from Internet. This is accomplished without user working to find and organize this information. By having everything in one place and in context, our users are more informed and better prepared to perform tasks such as handling a phone call or preparing for a business meeting. This results in ... benefits in productivity and efficiency."

It is, indeed, addictive. The inevitable advent of transparent computing (smart houses, smart cards, smart clothes, smart appliances, wireless Internet) - coupled with single GUI (Graphic User Interface) approach can spell revolution in our habits. Information will be available to us anywhere, through an identical screen, communicated instantly and accurately from device to device, from one appliance to another and from one location to next as we move. The underlying software and hardware will become as arcane and mysterious as are ASCII and ASSEMBLY languages to average computer user today. It will be a real partnership of biological and artificial intelligence on move.

Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com