The End User: The power of Babel

The End User: The power of Babel - Technology - International Herald Tribune: "What's old is new again on the Internet. Last week, Yahoo "debuted" a language translation service and incorporated it into its home page, tool bar and search engine, offering a simple if crude way to translate a handful of text between 38 language pairs.

But Babel Fish, as the translation tool is called, has been around since the Dark Ages of the Internet. Researchers at what used to be known as Digital Equipment Corp. put Babel Fish up on what was once the Internet's smartest search engine, AltaVista, all the way back in 1997.

Tracing the lineage of Babel Fish to its beginnings is an instructive history lesson for those whose Internet experience begins and ends with Google."