Google launches local language tool for users in India

Computerworld - Google Inc. today launched Google Labs India, a version of its Google Labs platform that includes technologies to allow people in India to conduct searches and get results in their local languages, according to a Google blog post.

"In line with our mission of making information universally accessible, we're now offering an easier way to search in 14 Indian and South Asian languages," said Google software engineers M.T. Raghunath and Gokul Nath Babu Manoharan in a Google blog post.

Google Labs is the company's "technology playground" and a showcase for some of its ideas under development.

The engineers said they are testing two technologies on Google Labs India, an Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget and Google Indic Transliteration. Users can search by choosing letters from the on-screen keyboard using a mouse. They can add the gadget for their chosen language to their personalized iGoogle home pages and use it to search for content in their languages, according to the blog.

The Google Indic Transliteration tool allows users to type in Hindi by first typing the words out phonetically on an English keyboard, which Google will then convert to the correct Hindi word.

The content created can be used in e-mail, word processors and other applications from both Google and its competitors. The technology will help increase the amount of content available online in Hindi, according to Google. Hindi transliteration was launched earlier this year on Google's Blogger, a service for bloggers.

"You'll soon discover that our sophisticated transliteration technology makes it really easy to compose in Hindi. Our algorithm might get the occasional word wrong, but it is always willing to learn. You can teach it by clicking on the wrong word and correcting it," according to the blog. "This is also available as an iGoogle Gadget."

A number of multinational companies are working on technologies that will make computer and Internet access easier for people in India who are more at ease with local languages. IBM, for example, announced earlier this month that it has developed speech recognition software that will allow people speaking Hindi to create e-mail and documents on computers and also to operate ATMs and interactive voice response systems.

Earlier this year, Yahoo Inc. introduced portals in seven Indian languages. It has introduced plug-in modules to its instant messaging software that allow users to chat in nine different regional languages and scripts. The company also plans to introduce Indian language versions of its e-mail service later this year.

John Ribeiro, of the IDG News Service in Bangalore, India, contributed to this report.