If communication barriers on Google+ got you down, never fear. Google has released a tool to ensure that updates from its international user base can be easily translated.
Google Translate for Google+, released Monday, is a simple browser extension for Chrome that translates posts and comments into more than 50 languages.
For well over a year now, Google has been hyping up something called Native Client. It’s an open source technology that allows a web browser to run compiled native code. In other words, it’s a potential missing link between native apps and web apps. And now it’s finally getting baked into Chrome.
As Google notes on their Chrome Blog blog today, the latest beta version of Chrome (version 14) has Native Client built-in. Their implementation allows for C and C++ code to be executed inside of the browser while maintaining the security that a web technology like JavaScript offers.
Google’s Chrome is Britain’s second most popular browser, a sign of the internet giant’s increasing grip on the UK search market. Three years after launch, Chrome last month captured 22% of UK users and marginally overtook Mozilla’s Firefox browser, according to the web metrics firm Statcounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is losing market share to Chrome but remains the most popular browser for UK users with 45% – although it has a head start by being pre-installed on almost all computers sold in Britain. Apple’s Safari is UK number four, with a 9% share.
Google’s rise in the browser market is in part down to nationwide advertising – Chrome is the first Google product advertised on British TV – but is largely attributed to its speed.
by Stephen Shankland
Google, banging its make-the-Web-faster drum again, announced a new service today to rewrite and host others’ Web pages so browsers can load them faster.
But this time, the service isn’t free.
The company’s earlier moves in this area haven’t cost a cent, but Google will charge for the new Page Speed Service when it arrives for the masses at some undefined time in the future. In the past Google used the argument that a faster Web leads to more activity and, ultimately, more ad revenue for Google, but with Page Speed Service, Google is going the old-fashioned route of charging money for a services rendered.
Google announced a host of new search features at its “Inside Search” event on Tuesday. On the desktop side, the company announced voice search for Google Chrome and a new search by image feature.
We decided to take the Google voice search for a test drive. As you can see in the video, Google’s voice search works quite well. It looks like the same engine that Google has used across mobile devices is integrated with the desktop.
Out of 22 attempted searches shown in our video, Google correctly recognized what we were saying 15 times. That puts its accuracy at about 68%. If you don’t count the number of do-overs, however, the accuracy is more in the range of 85%.
Google recognizes words, phrases and names, for the most part. However, the search engine does have issues with special characters, unusual names and URLs.
One nice feature — you can use the Google calculator feature with voice search.
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