] According to ScienceBlog, the U.S. Office of Naval
] Research, trying to keep friendly armies in Iraq from
] accidentally blowing each other to smithereens, is
] helping create software that connects instant messaging
] (IM) with machine translation (MT). The result: Chat
] software to be used in Iraq that automatically translates
] your messages into the correct language of the reader,
] called the the Coalition Chat Line - it's 'getting rave
] reviews from U.S. and allied-coalition personnel.'"

Very interesting... The actual article is slashdotted out, so I'm linking them instead for the time being...

Slashdot | Navy Unveils Polyglot Chat For Iraq