Gmail adds message translation

Forget about Mail Goggles and location-aware signatures. Google just announced a new Gmail Labs feature that's actually useful, especially in multinational enterprises: the ability to automatically translate e-mail messages into any of 41 supported languages.

In a blog post announcing the new capability, Google's Darren Lewis announced that Google's automatic translation technology has been integrated directly into Gmail. To use the new feature, users simply enable Message Translation from the Labs tab under Settings, and then set it to the language in which you wish to receive messages. (Users of Apps Premier and Apps Education need to first have their domain administrators enable Gmail Labs in their control panel.)

It's a great move, especially for users who in the past needed to cut and paste messages into Google Translate in order to see what their multinational partners or customers had to say. And it's much more useful than being forced to do math problems before a message can be sent.

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