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Traveling to a foreign land and don't care much about roaming data costs? Check out this neat trick: you can use MSN messenger as a translation service with the new version of Windows Live Messenger Translation bot. Once you add the mtbot@hotmail.com you can start chatting to get translations. Currently supported languages are:

• English to/from: Arabic ,Chinese Simplified ,Chinese Traditional ,Dutch ,French ,German ,Italian ,Japanese ,Korean ,Portuguese ,Russian (RUS->ENU only) ,Spanish
• Chinese Simplified Chinese Traditional

If you have your (Windows-based) laptop with you, then you might also be interested in Windows Live Accelerator for Internet Explorer 8 Beta. This allows you to browse over to the Italian web page your friend designed and read through instructions like a champ. All you have to do is highlight what you want translated then click on

Cellpassion [via Engadget Mobile] caught the above info over at the Bluetooth SIG site (it's now gone). Yes, folks, yet another entrant for the title of “What exactly is the Mystery Q?”

Of course, current speculation is centered on the leaked Motorola Atila and Motorola Alexander -- both of which are decent enough but don't grab us all that strongly. Our money's on the Alexander “Sliding Q” device.

Everybody's wondering what happened to the Q10 but that's not what's bothering us. No, what's bothering us is that Motorola hasn't run out of letters to append at the end of “Q9.” We have Q9c, Q9m, Q9h, Q9e, and the Q Global (or the Q9h Global). Maybe it's just us, but we don't see Motorola being able to surprise us until after the rest of the alphabet represented in the Q9 lineup.

If your hankering for the Treo Pro (read our embarrassingly comprehensive review of the Treo Pro here) just can't be contained, you can go on and preorder the thing from Palm UK for £399.00 (around $704 US) right now. The Pros appear to be fully unlocked, but the pre-loaded software will be UK-specific - to wit: “Webraska GPS” instead of TeleNav.

If you want to wait a bit for the “fall” release in the US and save $150 bucks you can sign up at Palm US to have them email you when it's available. Or just keep an eye out here at WMExperts, because we'll let you know, too.

For you dev (and adventurous) types out there, Sony Ericsson has released the software development kit for the still-unreleased Xperia X1.

What's in store?

Developers can use the Windows Mobile SDK, free of charge, to produce a wide variety of panels to meet the consumer’s demand for a rich, individualized multimedia experience on their phone. Users of the Xperia™ X1 will be spoilt for choice as they personalize their handset with panel applications to suit their mood and lifestyle.   Whether it is a search engine, advanced calendar or social networking application, music or film catalogue, sports or news related content, the panels enable you to access any information – quickly and directly – with a simple tap on the 3” super high resolution touch screen.

So while you still can't get your hands on the phone, you can get a head start on customizing it.

Read the full press release here; get the SDK here; and check out a video with Ramanth Bhat, senior manager of application and product planning, speaking about the sliding panels interface, after the jump.

The folks at WM Power User are on hand in London right now for Palm's official launch of the Treo Pro across the pond.

Follow along right now as they liveblog the event.

Thanks to StarrWulfe for the tip!

For many Windows Mobile users, threaded SMS long had been the Bigfoot of the mobile operating system. You were pretty sure it was out there, you had seen snippets of it, but you'd never actually seen it.

That finally changed with Windows Mobile 6.1 (yes, Palm had it much sooner, and there are hacks and third-party solutions out there, either as an alternative or for older phones).

But say you just updated your Blackjack II or your Motorola Q9h to 6.1, and you just don't like having your text messages look like instant message conversations (why, we'll never understand). The enterprising souls over at MoDaCo have you covered.

It involves a wee bit of registry hackery (and has also been neatly wrapped into a cab file), and reportedly works on touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices.

If threaded SMS on WM6.1 just isn't your thing, check out the solution here. And as always, backup your device first.