On the UT news, there is a link,
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7054, about a new approach to automatic translations.
The idea (that the software learns by comparing thousands of previous translations) seems an interesting new approach, but for me, in this case, "seeing is believing"; i.e., I doubt that it will produce a high-quality result.
IMNSHO, by the time automatic translators can be made that are really intelligent enough (if ever), they will no longer be needed. (It is my hope that mankind will learn a common language in schools all over the World. This language must not necessarily replace the languages spoken in each country.)
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
