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Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Indian students make electric appliances operable via sms
The device, which was developed by Abdullah Azhar and Kamal Gupta, both final year B.Tech students of Department of Electronics, will enable users to operate electrical appliances at their home from anywhere in the world at any time at a very low cost, a college spokesman said.
According to him, existing technologies for home automation require internet, Bluetooth and wi-fi systems, which are comparatively expensive. The device has also won the second prize at the international exhibition of 'Electrical and Industrial Electronics' held in Mumbai recently.
Now, a software to translate as you speak on phone
Bangalore: Internet giant Google, which has also made an entry in the mobile world with its own phone Nexus One, is working on a software which will interpret foreign languages as a person speak. The translation is done almost instantly and Google hopes to have a basic system ready within a couple of years, reports Chris Gourlay of Sunday Times.
Google has already developed an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being polished by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week.
Recently Google also launched a feature where a user can search on the search engine by saying the key words instead of typing. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller's voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language. The phone would analyse "packages" of speech, listening to the speaker until it understands the full meaning of words and phrases, before attempting translation. "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years' time," said Franz Och, Google's Head of Translation Services.
Although automatic text translators are now reasonably effective, voice recognition has proved more challenging. "Everyone has a different voice, accent and pitch," said Och. "But recognition should be effective with mobile phones because by nature they are personal to you. The phone should get a feel for your voice from past voice search queries, for example."
Google has already developed an automatic system for translating text on computers, which is being polished by scanning millions of multi-lingual websites and documents. So far it covers 52 languages, adding Haitian Creole last week.
Recently Google also launched a feature where a user can search on the search engine by saying the key words instead of typing. Now it is working on combining the two technologies to produce software capable of understanding a caller's voice and translating it into a synthetic equivalent in a foreign language. The phone would analyse "packages" of speech, listening to the speaker until it understands the full meaning of words and phrases, before attempting translation. "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years' time," said Franz Och, Google's Head of Translation Services.
Although automatic text translators are now reasonably effective, voice recognition has proved more challenging. "Everyone has a different voice, accent and pitch," said Och. "But recognition should be effective with mobile phones because by nature they are personal to you. The phone should get a feel for your voice from past voice search queries, for example."
Soon, Gmail to allow status updates like Twitter
Yahoo had done a similar revamp of its website to allow status updated. These updates also alerted users when their friends have uploaded photos to Flickr.
An unnamed informant says the new Google revisions will also allow users to share their YouTube and Picasa content. Gmail already lets contacts chat in the browser, set away messages and write short messages as their status.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Google shows off Chrome OS tablet ideas
Who could resist the months of hype that paved the way for Apple's iPad debut last week? Apparently not Google, which has shown its interest in tablet computing with its browser-based Chrome OS.
On Monday, Glen Murphy, a user interface designer for Google's Chrome browser and the Chrome operating system based on it, pointed to image and video concepts of a Chrome OS-based tablet that went live two days before the iPad launch. Apparently nobody noticed initially, because only now did Murphy tweet, "Apparently our tablet mocks have been unearthed."
The site also shows the array of devices Google envisions for Chrome OS.
"While its primary focus is Netbooks, Chrome OS could eventually scale to a wide variety of devices. Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power," according to the Chromium form factors site. Chromium is the name of the open-source developer project that underlies the branded Chrome product.
It's possible that Chrome OS could be an easier sell on tablets than on Netbooks, the class of device on which Google said it plans to launch Chrome OS. Netbooks often are used as general-purpose PCs, so the browser-based philosophy of Chrome OS is a more jarring transition.
Today's tablets, in contrast, tend to focus more on a collection of specialized uses such as reading books, surfing the Net, and chores that only require light typing. With that approach, Chrome OS' break from the PC world could be less jarring. The tablet market isn't as big as the Netbook market, though.
The ideas are only mock-ups, but Google has established itself as a real if not dominant force in the computing industry. Its Android mobile-phone operating system is increasingly influential, and its Chrome browser continues to steadily grow in usage.
On Monday, Glen Murphy, a user interface designer for Google's Chrome browser and the Chrome operating system based on it, pointed to image and video concepts of a Chrome OS-based tablet that went live two days before the iPad launch. Apparently nobody noticed initially, because only now did Murphy tweet, "Apparently our tablet mocks have been unearthed."
The site also shows the array of devices Google envisions for Chrome OS.
"While its primary focus is Netbooks, Chrome OS could eventually scale to a wide variety of devices. Each would have vastly different input methods, available screen space, and processing power," according to the Chromium form factors site. Chromium is the name of the open-source developer project that underlies the branded Chrome product.
It's possible that Chrome OS could be an easier sell on tablets than on Netbooks, the class of device on which Google said it plans to launch Chrome OS. Netbooks often are used as general-purpose PCs, so the browser-based philosophy of Chrome OS is a more jarring transition.
Today's tablets, in contrast, tend to focus more on a collection of specialized uses such as reading books, surfing the Net, and chores that only require light typing. With that approach, Chrome OS' break from the PC world could be less jarring. The tablet market isn't as big as the Netbook market, though.
The ideas are only mock-ups, but Google has established itself as a real if not dominant force in the computing industry. Its Android mobile-phone operating system is increasingly influential, and its Chrome browser continues to steadily grow in usage.
