WebProNews

Language barriers can make communicating the simplest things painful; no one wants to do a sort of hokey pokey just to find the nearest restroom.  However, Google's attempting to leap way past basic human needs and help with complicated manuscripts by introducing translation technology to Google Docs.

In an email to WebProNews, a Google spokesperson explained, "[W]e're releasing a new feature in Google Docs that lets you translate entire documents into 42 different languages."  All of the usual suspects are covered, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.

This development, while admittedly of limited use to many people, could help Google Docs gain popularity within large corporations.  If teams located in different countries are able to exchange ideas without going through separate translators or wasting time on translation dictionaries, companies will save time and money.

There are bound to be other applications, too.  A post on the Official Google Blog details how the tech aided a girl's grandparents in understanding her short stories, for example.

We'll just pass along one small caution that Google's spokesperson was honest enough to add: "This feature uses Google's automated translation technology, so you may notice that it's not always perfect -- but we do hope it makes things a little bit easier."