Babel Fish Internet Ranslator: You all remember how Arthur Dent was able to understand everything the aliens said in The Hit

Babel Fish Internet Translator: You all remember how Arthur Dent was able to understand everything the aliens said in The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy. That's right: his buddy, the Betelgeusian, Ford Prefect, slipped a babel fish into his ear and it easily translated whatever was said. Since all those aliens were similarly equipped, they could also understand what Dent and Prefect said when they were speaking English. The BabelFish internet translator is almost as good. It can translate into English any Internet page (or up to 5 kilobytes of text) in French, German, Portugese, Spanish, and, most importantly to us, Italian. It can also work from English to any of those languages.

The real test of any translation program is a "there and back" translation, and Babel Fish doesn't do too badly. For example if you type in "Help! I need this in English!" you get "Aiuto! Ho bisogno di questo in Italiano" in Italian, and the reverse translation then produces "Aid! I need of this in Italian!" It ain't gonna win no awards for good English or Italian, but it is understandable. You can find Babel Fish and information on how to use it on the Internet at http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/.