Google announced the launch of its latest gadget - the Automatic Text Translator - on the company blog yesterday.

To try it out, go to Settings, choose the Labs tab, and enable Message Translation.

Google promises to bring people in touch with their oversees or distant friends and relatives via the message translation service, which covers a staggering 41 languages - sufficient for 98% of internet users, the company claims. What's more, they can have entire conversations in multiple languages, with each participant reading the messages in whatever language is most comfortable for them.

Those accustomed to working with (and being frustrated by) online translators will find typical faults with this new application: Sentences are still constrained by the grammatical limits shown by other online automatic translation services like Alta Vista's Babelfish, and the meanings of colloquial expressions don't always survive translation.

Even if some of it is lost in translation, Google's Translate does provide people with a glimpse of the world outside the confines of their own languages and connects them with a wealth of content on the web.

Web users can use Google's cross-language search feature to find and access data that is often only available in the local language, such as restaurant recommendations, train/bus schedules, and special events.

In April, Google launched an international version of Google Suggest, an application that simplifies searches by providing suggestions based on popular keywords after a few keystrokes are entered. The international version adds localized suggestions to account for various cultural and local factors, and provides users in different countries with suggestions relevant to their location.