Google Translate announced they added in integration with Google Goggles, to help with your translation needs. So when you are in a restaurant and the menu looks foreign to you, you can pull out your Google Translate app and have it search for the translation. You take a picture of the words, highlight the words by brushing over the words with your finger and it translates it on the screen. It can even speak it back to you. Here are pictures of how it works step by step: The languages currently support optical character recognition for Czech, Dutch, English, French [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Translate

In January, Google Translate for Android gained "Conversation Mode," a way to speak into your phone and have it speak back in a different language. Today, Google's expanded the number of languages supported. Originally, the tool only supported English-to-Spanish translation (or vice versa). Now, Google says 14 languages in all are covered: Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. The announcement comes a day before the iPhone 4S will be arriving to the public, with its vaunted Siri spok [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Translate

A question I get asked all the time is "what's the future of search?" Everyone wants to know what's coming next. I mostly tend to answer that search has become so ubiquitous that it's becoming part of nearly everything we do and we probably won't always recognize the future of search as "search".  Urban Spoon's iPhone app that uses your geographic location and a quick shake to suggest a restaurant doesn't require you to type anything at all and yet it's a great restaurant search. Google Goggles lets you just point your phone at something (a landmark, a book cover...) and serves up great searc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Translate

The web is buzzing about how you can use Google Translate to make a neat beatbox. This came via Reddit and all you need to do is go to Google Translate, set the settings to translate from German and to German. Then copy and paste the following text and hit "listen." pv zk pv pv zk pv zk kz zk pv pv pv zk pv zk zk pzk pzk pvzkpkzvpvzk kkkkkk bsch Here is a video demo of the beatbox in action: eekosystem noted that HackerNews documented a rudiment/instrument notation guide for Google Translate. Here it is: zk = suspended cymbal bschk = snare pv = brush bk = bass tk = flam1 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Parodies | Google: Translate

Google announced a few new small features added recently. (1) Google Translate added Latin as a new language. Google said, "although considered a "dead language" by many, Latin is still studied by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide and is the predecessor to many modern tongues." I am sure those who study in this language welcome it to Google Translate. (2) Google has updated their flu shot location search in collaboration with the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS). The flu season is right around the corner and it might pay for you to get your shot early, i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Alerts | Google: Health | Google: Translate

The Google Operating System blog posted a demonstration by Google of a new Google Translate feature. The feature will be available on Android phones in the next few months and it is named Google Translate Conversations. The video demo below shows how one person is talking English to another person, who responds in German. The app works where you talk in one language to the app, the app then converts it to a desired language verbally over speaker phone, then the other person speaks his/her language back into the phone and the app translates that back in your language verbally over speaker [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Translate

The Google Mobile Blog announced a new version of Google Goggles now supports translating what it sees. You simply point the phone at the text you want translated, it could be a menu, sign, book or whatever and specify which text you want translated and snap the picture. Then Google will scan the words and attempt to return the translation via Google Translate directly in Goggles. Google said, Goggles can read English, French, Italian, German and Spanish and can translate to many more languages. They are working towards other Latin-based languages and eventually read non-Latin languages. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Translate

Google is deploying their virtual keyboards on the search results pages for their non-English based search portals. For example, you can see them live at Google Poland and Google Israel and Google Russia, amongst others. Here is a screen capture: As you can see, the keyboard icon is next to the search box. When you click on the icon, a keyboard opens up and lets you type on this virtual keyboard. Google said in their help document: Our virtual keyboard allows you to enter the precise search terms you want, regardless of the language keys on your physical keyboard. It can be h [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Outside US | Google: Translate | Google: User Interface | Google: Web Search

Google leaps language barrier with translator phone from The Times Online reports Google is working on a new tool that would bring instant translation to people. It appears that Google is a couple years away from this coming but they would build on their existing Google Translate and Google Voice features to create an instant translator. You would speak to it in any language, Google would then convert that and spit it back in the language of choice. Google Voice, Google Mobile search and similar products already take use of speech to text services. Google Translate already has some langu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Google: Translate | Google: Voice Search

The Google Blog announced the latest version of the Google Toolbar for IE (Internet Explorer) has new "advanced translation" capabilities. The translation features include: Automatic detection of languages other than your default language One click translation Client side (does not communicate with Google) language detection Automatic language translation on page clicks Real-time translation for dynamic content Auto translation feature (bypass click for translation) for frequent sites you visit There are 41 different languages currently supported, including: Albanian, Arabic, Bulga [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Translate

Google has announced several new ways to use and control its Google Translate service, including the support of new HTML tags and attributes that will prevent Google from translating your content. The "notranslate" meta tag will block an entire page from being translated. It looks like this: If you only want to keep Google from translating a certain piece of content within a page, the "notranslate" attribute can be added to any HTML element, like this: On the other hand, if you get a lot of international visitors and want to make it easier for them to translate your content, G [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Translate

The Google Talkabout Blog announced the launch of an instant messenger bot that is an interpreter. An instant messenger bot is a little computer program that accepts instant messages and automatically replies to them. AOL has the AIM Bot program for years, allowing developers to create these bots as they see fit. In any event, Google released a new bot that utilizes Google Translate and acts as your personal interpreter. Google currently has 29 different translation bots, including: ar2en bg2en de2en de2fr el2en en2ar en2de en2el en2es en2fr en2it en2ja en2ko en2nl en2ru en2zh es2en fi2en [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Gmail | Google: Translate

Google Operating System reports that Google Translate has dropped using Systran as the technology used by Google for translations. Google now uses their own home brewed version of translation technology to translate between the 25 languages available. Yahoo's Babel Fish still uses Systran technology, so if you are in a compare and contrast mood, you can compare the two. Google's technology was created by Google's research group and uses statistical machine translation. Google's approach is a bit different from other approaches. Google explains they: feed the computer billions of words o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Translate

Garett Rogers reports that Google Translate has added a dictionary feature. Rather than let you just translate a word from one language to the best guess in another, this tool shows you various meanings, so you can select the right option. For example, "right" has multiple meanings in English, such as to mean a direction, to affirm something is correct or to mean something someone is entitled to. Translating it into French, some of these meanings are shown: 1. (not left) droit 2. bon 3. (not left) à droite 4. (completely) tout, complètement 5. (correctly) correctement, bien 6. direct [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Translate

As promised at its "Searchology" event last week, Google has launched cross-language information retrieval (CLIR). It's now been added as a new feature to Google Translate and went live yesterday. As Chris Sherman previously wrote, Google is playing a bit of catch-up with this initiative; Yahoo has been doing this on a more limited basis since 2005. Regardless, it appears to be a useful service, chiefly for non-English speakers seeking information from English-language sites. As Google Engineering VP Udi Manber said, when he introduced the service last week, the goal is to open up the Web " [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Other | Google: Translate | Search Features: General