It looks like this has happened before when bablefish went away and that is when Google came in.

No it hasn't. Lingua::Translate::Google was inspired by Lingua::Translate , but its by a different author

Does this group of wise people know if there will be an update to lingua::translate to use another public translate API?

Seeing how there hasn't been one to begin with ...

If we could predict the future, we'd win the lotto ...

Are you going to make one? What other public api?