It's hard for a military to win hearts and minds if none of its members speak the local language. Humans who grew up speaking a language and joined the military are the best solution, followed closely by interpreters recruited locally. But that's not always possible, as there's sometimes a rarity of language speakers or a lack of safety guarantees for the interpreters. For this reason, the military wants a technology that can work as an interpreter in real time--a universal translator, if you will. Or perhaps a less-squirmy version of Douglas Adam's Babelfish. Last week, the Air Force Research Laboratory put out a solicitation for such a device. They're calling it, simply "Human Language Technologies."