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пятница, 28 мая 2010 г.

Google приобрел AdMob

Google в официальном блоге сообщил о приобретении оператора мобильной рекламы AdMob, информация о чем также отражена и на сайте AdMob.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 27.05.10

Last Friday, we said that mobile advertising was moving fast. So are we! Today, we closed our acquisition of AdMob. Omar Hamoui has built a great team and great products at AdMob and we're thrilled to officially welcome them to Google.

We'll now begin the process of bringing our products and teams together in the best way, and building new products and features together. We're working to make this integration happen as fast and as seamlessly as possible. We'll actively keep our clients up-to-date as we bring our businesses together — stay tuned!

It's clear that mobile advertising is becoming a much larger part of our clients' and partners' strategies and with this acquisition, it's now a central part of our own business. In continuing to invest in this highly competitive area, we'll be bringing together our technology, resources and expertise in search advertising with AdMob's innovative solutions for advertising on mobile websites and in mobile applications.

Mobile search is central

One of the key ways that people find and access information on their mobile devices, just like on the desktop, is through search. As smart phones have proliferated, we've seen dramatic increases in mobile search volume. Over the past two years, Google's mobile search volumes have grown more than fivefold, at an accelerated pace. In the first three months of 2010, people with smartphones with "full" WebKit browsers (such as the iPhones, Android devices and Palm Pre) searched 62 percent more than they did in the previous three months.

Increasingly, people aren't just typing search queries into their mobile devices. They speak them, they take photos of them and they even translate them from different languages.

In addition to traditional search ads on mobile devices, we've worked to develop entirely new search ad formats. "Click-to-call" search ads, for example, have been really popular. They enable advertisers to include a local business or national phone number directly in their ad text that you can click to reach the business directly via phone. This is a really great way for you to easily get information from a relevant business (say, a local restaurant), and a highly effective way for advertisers to connect with interested customers.

With many more advances to come, search advertising will remain the central way that many businesses connect with consumers on mobile devices.

Mobile websites and apps

In addition to search, another key way that people access information is through mobile websites (accessed through a browser) and mobile apps (available through Apple's App Store, the Android Marketplace and more).

Mobile display and text ads make it easy for publishers and developers to make money from their mobile websites and apps, and enable advertisers to extend the reach of their campaigns to relevant mobile content. In this area, AdMob has been a real pioneer and has innovated at a tremendous pace, building a successful business and working with thousands of advertisers, publishers and developers.

AdMob was one of the first companies to serve ads inside mobile applications on the Android and iPhone platforms. They've developed a host of engaging and creative ad units for Android and iPhone apps—for example, interactive video ad units and expandable rich media ads. Google has also been developing new features for in-app ads. For example, last week, we announced that we'll be making "click-to-call" ad formats available to developers who run AdSense in their mobile apps. With Google and AdMob starting to work together, there's lots more innovation to come in this area.

The future

It's clear that mobile advertising is growing incredibly fast with lots of businesses innovating at great speed. Every day, more marketers are looking to take advantage of the mobile-specific capabilities, extended reach, great returns and value that mobile advertising provides. Advertisers are now starting to see mobile as an essential part of their overall campaigns, not just a silo-ed experiment on the side.

We want to unleash agencies' and advertisers' creativity on all mobile devices and deliver them better results from their campaigns, drive better returns and more choice for publishers and developers, and help people get better ads and more free mobile content.

We believe that mobile advertising can play a significant role in every single marketing campaign. We're passionate about the unlimited possibilities in this space. Today, with AdMob, our work to make them a reality begins.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President of Product Management

Stock Repurchase
As previously announced, Google intends to repurchase in the open market a number of shares equal to the number of shares issued in the transaction and issuable upon exercise of outstanding options to purchase common stock issued by AdMob. The repurchase program is expected to commence shortly after the completion of the acquisition. The repurchases will be funded from available working capital.

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вторник, 25 мая 2010 г.

Расширение для отключения Google Analytics

В официальном блоге Google Analytics сообщается о выпуске браузерного расширения для отключения пользователями сбора данных Google Analytics при посещении веб-узлов. Данное расширение взаимодействует с кодом JavaScript Google Analytics (ga.js) и передает сведения о том, что информацию о посещении веб-сайта не следует отправлять в Google Analytics. Расширение для отключения Google Analytics доступно для браузеров Internet Explorer (версии 7 и 8), Google Chrome (версии 4.x и более поздние) и Mozilla Firefox (версии 3.5 и более поздние).

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: Google Analytics Blog, Автор: Alden DeSoto, дата: 25.05.10

Many website owners use Google Analytics and other web analytics tools to make business-critical decisions about how to improve their websites by understanding how users engage with their webpages. We've worked hard to make Google Analytics both a robust and reliable web analytics platform while also ensuring the trust and privacy of visitors of these websites. Today we're taking additional steps to provide even more choice and transparency for both website owners and users.

First, we're announcing the availability of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The opt-out provides users with a choice of whether information about website visits is collected by Google Analytics. The add-on stops data from being sent from your computer when you visit websites that use Google Analytics Javascript (ga.js) to track usage. The beta version of the opt-out that we are releasing today is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome, and can be downloaded here: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Additionally, we're also releasing new functionality for website owners to provide an additional level of privacy for visitors to their sites by offering an option to anonymize IP address information sent to Google. Google Analytics uses the IP address of website visitors to provide general geographic reporting. Website owners can now choose to have Google Analytics store and use only a portion of this IP address for geographic reports. Keep in mind, that using this functionality will somewhat reduce the accuracy of geographic data in your Analytics reports. You can learn how to implement this within your existing Google Analytics installation here: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApi_gat.html

We're committed to Google Analytics as an industry-leading web analytics platform that also provides users with transparency and choice when it comes to privacy.

Posted by Amy Chang, Director of Product Management, Google Analytics

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Обновление Google Chrome Stable Channel до версии 5.0.375.55

Стабильная версия Google Chrome для Linux, Mac и Windows обновлена до 5.0.375.55.
Об изменениях и новых функциях данной в версии относительно предыдущей стабильной 4.1 сообщается в официальном блоге Google Chrome и официальном блоге Google.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: Google Chrome Releases, Автор: laforge@chromium, дата: 25.05.10

Google Chrome 5.0.375.55 has been released to the Stable channel for Linux, Mac and Windows.

For more details about the new features in the release, over our previous stable release 4.1, please see the Official Google Chrome blog.

Security Fixes:

Please see the Chromium security page for more detail. Note that the referenced bugs may be kept private until a majority of our users are up to date with the fix.

  • [7713] Medium Canonicalize URLs closer to the Safe Browsing specification. Credit to Brett Wilson of the Chromium development community.
  • [16535] High Possible URL bar spoofing via unload event handlers. Credit to Michal Zalewski, Google Security Team.
  • [30079] Medium Memory error in Safe Browsing interaction. Credit to Google Chrome Security Team (SkyLined).
  • [39740] Medium Bypass of whitelist-mode plugin blocker. Credit to Darin Fisher of the Chromium development community.
  • [41469] Medium Memory error with drag + drop. Credit to kuzzcc.
  • [42228] High Incorrect execution of Javascript in the extension context. Credit to Andrey Kosyakov of the Chromium development community.
In addition, we fixed a range of minor issues such as non-exploitable crashes, hangs and other annoyances. Credit to Sumit Gwalani; Google Security Team, sirdarckcat; Google Security Team, Google Chrome Security Team (Inferno), Carlos Ghan, WHK; elhacker.net, x41, Aki Helin; OUSPG, Jordi Chancel, kuzzcc, Robert Swiecki; Google Security Team, Tavis Ormandy; Google Security Team and Florent; Skyrecon Systems.

Also, we would like to extend our thanks to the following people who helped find bugs so we could fix them before they ever affected the stable channel: Robert Swiecki; Google Security Team, Alexey Proskuryakov; Apple, Florian Rienhardt; BSI, and Ben Davis.

Anthony Laforge
Google Chrome

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понедельник, 24 мая 2010 г.

Google сделал PAC-MAN постоянно доступным

По многочисленным просьбам пользователей Google решил оставить страницу с размещенной 21 мая 2010 года на 48 часов к 30-летию игры PAC-MAN в своем логотипе на главной странице Поиска Google доступной по постоянному адресу http://www.google.com/pacman/.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 23.05.10

We've been overwhelmed — but not surprised :) — by the success of our 30th anniversary PAC-MAN doodle. Due to popular demand, we're making the game permanently available at www.google.com/pacman.

Thanks to NAMCO for helping to make this wonderful collaboration happen. Enjoy!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

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суббота, 22 мая 2010 г.

Безопасный веб-поиск Google с SSL-шифрованием

Google запустил бета-версию поиска с шифрованием через SSL. В настоящее время кроме Google Search возможность SSL-шифрования по протоколу https доступна для служб Gmail (https включено по умолчанию), Google Docs (Документы и Таблицы), Google Reader, Google Bookmarks (Закладки), Google Calendar (Календарь), Google Search History (История поиска), Google Notebook (Блокнот), Google News (Новости), Google Health, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Google Webmaster Tools (Инструменты для веб-мастеров), Google Accounts, Google Contacts (Контакты и адреса), Google Voice, Google Wave, Google Groups (Группы), Google Chrome Extensions (Расширения для Chrome), Google Sites (Сайты) и некоторых других. Возможно, Google в дальнейшем в целях повышения безопасности пользователей расширит перечень своих служб и сервисов с поддержкой шифрования.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 21.05.10
As people spend more time on the Internet, they want greater control over who has access to their online communications. Many Internet services use what are known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections to encrypt information that travels between your computer and their service. Usually recognized by a web address starting with "https" or a browser lock icon, this technology is regularly used by online banking sites and e-commerce websites. Other sites may also implement SSL in a more limited fashion, for example, to help protect your passwords when you enter your login information.

Years ago Google added SSL encryption to products ranging from Gmail to Google Docs and others, and we continue to enable encryption on more services. Like banking and e-commerce sites, Google's encryption extends beyond login passwords to the entire service. This session-wide encryption is a significant privacy advantage over systems that only encrypt login pages and credit card information. Early this year, we took an important step forward by making SSL the default setting for all Gmail users. And today we're gradually rolling out a new choice to search more securely at https://www.google.com/.

When you search on https://www.google.com/, an encrypted connection is created between your browser and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party on your network. The service includes a modified logo to help indicate that you're searching using SSL and that you may encounter a somewhat different Google search experience, but as always, remember to check the start of the address bar for "https" and your browser lock indicators:

Today's release comes with a "beta" label for a few reasons. First, it currently covers only the core Google web search product. To help avoid misunderstanding, when you search using SSL, you won't see links to offerings like Image Search and Maps that, for the most part, don't support SSL at this time. Also, since SSL connections require additional time to set up the encryption between your browser and the remote web server, your experience with search over SSL might be slightly slower than your regular Google search experience. What won't change is that you will still get the same great search results.

A few notes to remember: Google will still maintain search data to improve your search quality and to provide better service. Searching over SSL doesn't reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it. And clicking on any of the web results, including Google universal search results for unsupported services like Google Images, could take you out of SSL mode. Our hope is that more websites and services will add support for SSL to help create a better and more consistent experience for you.

We think users will appreciate this new option for searching. It's a helpful addition to users' online privacy and security, and we'll continue to add encryption support for more search offerings. To learn more about using the feature, refer to our help article on search over SSL.

Posted by Evan Roseman, Software Engineer

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четверг, 20 мая 2010 г.

Расширенные фрагменты страницы в результатах поиска Google

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

Расширенные фрагменты страницы

источник: Google Russia Blog, Автор: Inessa Roman-Pogorzhelskaya, дата: 20.05.10

Оксана Команеску, Команда качества поиска

Не так давно к некоторым сниппетам наших результатов поиска мы стали добавлять расширенное описание. Вот так, например, будет выглядеть сниппет страницы с рецептом борща (на картинке дополнения выделены красным).


Это наглядный пример использования семантической разметки страницы в результатах поиска.

Польза от расширения фрагмента очевидна - это дополнительные данные. Например, в случае с нашим кулинарным рецептом сразу же понятно что 123 читателя попробовали приготовить борщ, следуя этому рецепту, что практически всем борщ понравился и что на его приготовление придется потратить около полутора часов. Такое, на первый взгляд, незначительное изменение в отображении результатов оказалось полезным не только нашим пользователям, но также и вебмастерам - по нашим данным, наличие дополнительных сведений в описании увеличивает вероятность клика по ссылке, ведущей на страницу.

Помимо кулинарных рецептов, мы поддерживаем расширенные описания для страниц, содержащих личные профили, обзоры, мероприятия и видео. Во всех случаях, чтобы отобразить дополнительные данные о своей странице в результатах поиска, можно воспользоваться одной из следующих технологий аннотаций: микроформатами, микроданными, или RDFa. Начать пользоваться языками аннотаций совсем несложно - достаточно добавить семантическую разметку к уже имеющимся на вашей странице данным, и она будет обработана в процессе индексации страницы.

Для всех тех, кто хочет использовать разметку структурированных данных для своего сайта, мы подготовили начальную документацию на русском языке. Также, для проверки отображения расширенного описания ваших страниц в результатах поиска вы можете воспользоваться специальным инструментом для тестирования разметки - он поможет вам убедиться в том, что разметка используется правильно и описание страницы соответствует вашим ожиданиям.

Важно отметить, что, как и прежде, главным приоритетом для нас является обеспечение качества поиска для всех наших пользователей, поэтому мы будем проверять корректность использования разметки и показывать расширенные описания только для тех страниц, которые в точности следуют стандартам. Также обратите внимание, что разметка структурированных данных не влияет на рейтинг страницы в результатах поиска Google.

Мы очень надеемся на то, что вы разделите наш энтузиазм и поможете нам лучше представить вашу страницу в результатах поиска, воспользовавшись семантической разметкой.

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среда, 19 мая 2010 г.

Автозавершение запросов в Google Custom Search

Google добавил функцию автозавершения запросов в системе пользовательского поиска.
Для того чтобы активировать автозавершение необходимо установить флаг в чекбоксе "Enable autocompletions" на вкладке "Основные сведения" (Basics) Панели управления (Control panel) пользовательского поиска.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: Custom Search Engine, Автор: Custom Search Team, дата: 19.05.10

One of the most requested features for Custom Search is autocompletion of queries. Today, we announced at Google I/O that you can now enable query autocompletions for your search engine.

The screenshot below shows an example of query autocompletion at Travelocity.



Custom Search autocompletion is similar to what you see on Google.com—optional queries appear as you type your query in the search box. However, behind the scenes, we do a lot of things differently. We created a different algorithm that uses data from multiple sources, including queries to your search engine, as well as keywords and phrases extracted automatically from the content of websites that your search engine covers.

Because the autocompleted queries are based, in part, on the specific content of the webpages covered by your search engine, we will not generate autocompletions for custom search engines that search the entire web, i.e., autocompletions will only work if you set your preferences to Search only included sites in the control panel.

To enable autocompletions, select Enable autocompletions in the Basics tab of the control panel.



After you've saved your settings, replace the code for the search box in your website with the search box code from the Get code tab and you're done. Please note that it can take a few hours for us to start generating autocompletion queries for your search engine.

If you are using the Custom Search Element with a theme, the autocompletions are styled to match the look and feel of your theme. Autocompletions will also work on high-end mobile devices.

We hope that you find the feature useful. As always, give us feedback so we can improve the feature.

Posted by: Bartlomiej Niechwiej and Jeffrey Scudder, Software Engineers

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Google Wave стала доступна для всех

С сегодняшнего дня Google Wave как часть Google Labs переведена в открытый доступ для всех желающих - приглашения в Волну Google больше не требуется.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: Google Wave Blog, Автор: acd, дата: 19.05.10

Starting today, we are making Google Wave openly available to everyone as part of Google Labs. You no longer need an invitation to wave -- simply visit wave.google.com and sign right in. Likewise, if you are a Google Apps administrator at a business, school or organization, you can now easily enable Google Wave for all your users at no extra cost (more on our Enterprise blog).

We began previewing Google Wave with individuals and a handful of Google Apps customers six months ago. Since then, Wave has been used in a great many interesting ways. It's clear from the invaluable feedback we've received that Wave is a great place to get work done, in particular for teams working together on projects that involve lots of discussion and close coordination. Here are a few examples:

Business: Co-workers at companies large and small are using Wave, from writing software code at Lyn and Line and coordinating ad campaigns at Clear Channel Radio, to international project communications for Deloitte's As One project.

Education: University students and professors worldwide have used waves within and beyond the classroom to collaborate on Latin poetry translations, write academic research papers and even build new functionality with Wave's APIs. An ICT teacher also enjoyed having her 5th-graders do their class research in Wave.

Creative collaboration: From virtual art classes to writing the Complete Guide to Google Wave itself, waves make it easier for groups to review and critique multimedia content like images and videos. (We've heard that Wave is fun for gaming, too.)

Organizations and conferences: The Debatewise Global Youth panel explored climate change across 100 countries and waves at eComm (Emerging Communication Conference), LCA 2010 conference and HASTAC 2010 helped track speaking sessions. We are using waves in the same manner at today's Google I/O conference.

Journalism: Mashable used Wave to interview journalists on the future of journalism, and The Seattle Times experimented with a public Wave to develop their Pulitzer Prize-winning news coverage.

And here's a brief video to illustrate how groups can work together in Wave:



If you tried Google Wave out a while ago, and found it not quite ready for real use, now is a good time to come back for a second try. Wave is much faster and much more stable than when we began the preview, and we have worked hard to make Wave easier to use. For example, you can now get email notifications when waves change, easily navigate to unread parts of a wave, and remove participants added by mistake. We have also added permission management options and an extensions gallery.

Today, we are also launching several improvements to the Wave APIs and open sourcing additional components for developers building their own Wave services. Read more about these updates on our developer blog.

Wave on!

Posted by Stephanie Hannon, Product Manager, Google Wave Team

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пятница, 14 мая 2010 г.

Новые языки в Google Translate

В Google Translate добавлены еще пять языков: азербайджанский, армянский, баскский, урду и грузинский. Пока эти языки доступны в альфа-версии. Общее число языков на Google Translate в результате добавления достигло 57.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 13.05.10

(Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog)

At Google, we are always trying to make information more accessible, whether by adding auto-captioning on YouTube and virtual keyboards to search or by providing free translation of text, websites and documents with Google Translate. In 2009, we announced the addition of our first "alpha" language, Persian, on Google Translate. Today, we are excited to add five more alpha languages: Azerbaijani, Armenian, Basque, Urdu and Georgian — bringing the total number of languages on Google Translate to 57.

These languages are available while still in alpha status. You can expect translations to be less fluent than for our other languages, but they should still help you understand the multilingual web. We are working hard to "graduate" these new language out of alpha status, just as we did some time ago with Persian. You can help us improve translation quality as well. If you notice an incorrect translation, we invite you click "Contribute a better translation". If you are a translator, then you can contribute translation memories with the Translator Toolkit. This helps us build better machine translation systems especially for languages that are not well represented on the web.

Collectively, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Georgian and Urdu have roughly 100 million speakers. We hope that these speakers can now more easily access the entire multilingual web in their own language. Try translating these and other languages at translate.google.com. Here are some phrases from the new alpha languages to get you started:

Baietz lehenengoan
میں خوش قسمت محسوس کر رہا ہوں
բախտաւոր եմ զգում
Mən şanslıyam
იღბალს მივენდობი

Posted by Ashish Venugopal, Research Scientist

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среда, 12 мая 2010 г.

Две функции Google Squared в основном поиске

Google представил добавление отдельных функций технологии Squared в результаты основного поиска.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 12.05.10

One year ago today we announced Google Squared in Labs, an early attempt to find and extract structured data from across the web, such as a detailed table of [dog breeds] or [broadway shows]. Since then, our team in New York has steadily worked to improve quality and add new features, such as the ability to sort your data and export it to a file. In the past week, we've introduced two features that bring parts of Squared's technology directly to regular search results. The first provides better answers to fact-finding queries like [independence day of india], and the second is "something different", a special kind of search refinement in our new left-hand panel.

Better answers, with sources
Often people search to find basic facts, such as [catherine zeta-jones date of birth]. Three months ago we began using Squared technology to highlight answers for these types of searches in snippets. Today we're expanding that effort so that when you're looking for this kind of simple fact in search, we give you more accurate answers right at the top of your results, sourced from across the web:


If you click on the new "show sources" link, a box will slide down with websites that corroborate your answer.


The sources list includes the relevant text from each page so you can quickly verify whether the webpages seem reputable and whether our algorithms correctly interpreted the context of the answer. If you see a mistake, please let us know by clicking on the "Feedback" link so we can make it better.

You'll find answers to millions of different fact-seeking searches because the feature relies on an algorithmic understanding of webpages, not a hand-crafted set of special sources. For example:
Often you're looking for these kinds of quick answers when you're out and about, so we've made sure the feature also works great on mobile browsers, where it can be slow and awkward to dig through multiple webpages to find an answer. Next time you're on a date to see The Nutcracker, discreetly pull out your phone and search for [nutcracker composer] and impress him or her with your deep knowledge of ballet (and Tchaikovsky).

"Something different"
Google Squared technology also helps power one of the new features of our latest enhancement to the search results page: "Something different." Sometimes when you search on Google, you'll see a new section at the bottom of the left-hand panel which contains related search terms. For example, search for [zebra] and you'll see other related searches such as [giraffes], [elephants] and [hippos]:


This can be a useful way to explore topics related to your original search. In the past, you may have seen similar search refinements at the bottom of Google search results pages under the heading "searches related to." These queries are a great way to drill down further into a specific topic, such as [zebra facts] and [zebra pictures]. But we've found that when people are searching for zebras, they often search for other zoo animals as well. So just as Google Squared can put together a table of zoo animals, with "Something different" we automatically find other entities in the same category, such as gazelles and rhinos. This helps for times when you want to browse a broad topic using Google, rather than dig for a specific bit of information. You can learn more about how this works in our Help Center.

In one year, we've come far enough with our experimental Google Squared technology to start using it to help you both formulate your search and find exactly the information you're looking for. While I'm happy with the progress we've made, there's much more to be accomplished in this area — from searches that have multiple answers, like [us supreme court justices], to searches too complex for us to understand today, like [what major did bill clinton's daughter study at stanford?]. We'll continue to look for new ways to apply our deepening understanding of the web to improve your search results. Both new features will be available globally in English (something different is available now, and the improved answers feature should finish rolling out by the end of the week).

Posted by John Provine, Technical Lead

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вторник, 11 мая 2010 г.

В Google Translate добавлены языки с речевой поддержкой переводов

В дополнение к введенному ранее звуковому переводу слов на английском, креольском, французском, итальянском, немецком, хинди, испанском, в Google Translate добавлен функционал по преобразованию текста в речь на языках африкаанс, албанском, каталанском, китайском (мандарин), хорватском, чешском, датском, голландском, финском, греческом, венгерском, исландском, индонезийском, латышском, македонском, норвежском, польском , португальском, румынском, русском, сербском, словацком, суахили, шведском, турецком, вьетнамском и валлийском на основе интеграции синтезатора речи eSpeak.

Отправлено пользователем Anonymous через Google Reader:

источник: The Official Google Blog, Автор: A Googler, дата: 11.05.10

(Cross-posted from the Google Translate Blog)

One of the popular features of Google Translate is the ability to hear translations spoken out loud ("text-to-speech") by clicking the speaker icon beside some translations, like the one below.

We rolled this feature out for English and Haitian Creole translations a few months ago and added French, Italian, German, Hindi and Spanish a couple of weeks ago. Now we're bringing text-to-speech to even more languages with the open source speech synthesizer, eSpeak.

By integrating eSpeak we're adding text-to-speech functionality for Afrikaans, Albanian, Catalan, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Latvian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese and Welsh.

You may notice that the audio quality of these languages isn't at the same level as the previously released languages. Clear and accurate speech technology is difficult to perfect, but we will continue to improve the performance and number of languages that are supported.

So go ahead and give it a try! Click the on the speaker icon for any of these translations: "airport" in Greek, "lightning" in Chinese or "smile" in Swahili.

Posted by Fergus Henderson, Software Engineer

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