Are you a frequent traveler or someone that frequently receives emails either partially or wholly in another language? If so, you're likely to appreciate the latest major feature to be added to Gmail.

Google is introducing a new message translation function to Gmail that will allow users to automatically translate any email from one language to another. We heard immediately from Google Apps for Business users that this was a killer feature for working with local teams across the world, said product manager of Google Translate Jeff Chin in a blog post. Some people just wanted to easily read newsletters from abroad. Another person wrote in telling us how he set up his mom's Gmail to translate everything into her native language, thus saving countless explanatory phone calls (he thanked us profusely).

In addition to adding the new translate function to Gmail, Google has tweaked the way that the site's title appears in the tab of a person's browser. It now reads Inbox (5) - user@gmail.com rather than Gmail - Inbox (5) - user@gmail.com. The change is especially noticeable and helpful for users that open several different tabs within one browser window.

Google has updated Gmail's Smart Mute function, too. Smart Mute makes it especially easy to manage noisy or extremely active email threads so that they stay out of your inbox. More can be learned about the feature in Gmail's help center.

As these three major features are given more emphasis, the Gmail team will be retiring eight of the less popular lab features including Old Snakey, Mail Goggles, Mouse Gestures, Hide Unread Counts, Move Icon Column, Inbox Preview, Custome Date Formats and SMS in Chat gadget (not SMS in Chat, itself).

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