Google News Updates

Google already runs a flourishing online translator, Google Translate, but they’ve got far-loftier ideas than merely converting the written word. They want to decode languages spoken over the phone, according to their head of translation services.

Presently, Google’s text translation service covers 52 languages, together with the addition of Haitian Creole last week. Google has developed its text translation examine by crawling and comparing millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. It then uses this translation data to offer text and website translation to users of this translation service.

On the mobile side of its business, Google has released a voice search scheme for Android’s 2.x version. Users can speak into a handset mic and Google’s voice search system will identify the spoken words and perform a search. For the live voice translation service which Google’s Franz Och is developing, this voice search method and Google’s text translation service would be combined to instantly translate spoken voice.

As of yet, no dates or technical details have been revealed about the coming of Google’s live voice translation service. This technology would be a greeting addition to Android or any mobile phone service, as our continually globalizing economy may yield a larger need for voice translation.

Last month, Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, demonstrated at the Computer History Museum the capability to search by using your location as the query. Now, you can try this yourself by going to Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser and clicking on "Near me now" once your location has been provided by your phone.

"Near me now" was intended to address two user problems. First, Google wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away. For example, you may want to know what other clients think about a restaurant before you go inside (see quick video below) or what they have been raving about on the menu before you order. By selecting the "Explore right here" option, you can find out more about a place "right here" with not many clicks.

Second, Google wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple. Imagine that you emerge from the subway station and you want to take a coffee, but you don't see a coffee shop around you. You can merely search for all nearby coffee shops by using "Near me now". To search other categories of places not shown, "Browse more categories" provides access to our local search product with more groups of choices.

"Near me now" is at present available in the US for iPhone (OS 3.x) or Android-powered devices with version 2.0.1 or later. You must first allow location in order for "Near me now" to appear, and "Explore right here" works only if the phone provides location accuracy within approximately a city block.

Way more motivating are the rumors we’ve been hearing for months about a pure Google-branded phone. Most of our sources have unofficial information, which we explain below. But there are a few things we have completely confirmed: Google is building their individual branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long scheduling to have the phone to be available by the holidays, but it has now passed to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone company but will only have Google branding.

There won’t be any compromise over the phone’s design of features – Google is dictating every last piece of it. No splintering of the Android OS that makes some applications ineffectual. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google’s clean vision of what a phone should be.

HTC T-Mobile myTouch 3G

We have news that HTC, a Taiwanese company, is building the new Google phone, but we think that information is incorrect. We have some reasonably good information that suggests Google is working with a Korean phone manufacturer on the Google phone – LG or Samsung. Samsung has numerous parts in the iPhone and could be pressured by Apple not to work with Google, which suggests LG is the most likely partner for Google. So rumors like this one may be much more significant than they first appear. But either way, the greatest information we have right now points directly at Korea as the birthplace of the Google Phone.

We’ve also heard from a good source that Google is scheduling a big advertising push around the device early next year – like January.