' Probably the oddest thing in the Universe.' — 'The Babel fish,' according to the Hitch Hiker's Guide, sup to the Galaxy, 'is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on the brainwave energy received not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with.
Altavista Babelfish is one of the first translation engines online that supports full text translation. Today is no longer active signs Yahoo and Bing merged their translate tools.
It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.'