The article addresses the role of professional translators versus machine translation in today's modern information society. The authors first define what they understand as conventional translation as opposed to translation with the use of new technologies. Secondly they provide a brief historical overview on the subject, followed by what they consider the advantages and disadvantages of both types of translation method. Selective examples of noun strings, prepositional phrases and meaning are illustrated within the framework of a real online case study. The article closes with conclusions which highlight what the authors esteem to be a realistic state of the art controversy.