The Google Talk blog made an announcement that sounds like a great Christmas gift globally – Translations Bots. The new feature will let users translate different languages while chatting using Translation bots.
The bots are named with 2 letter abbreviations in the format:
[from language]2[to language]@bot.talk.google.com
All the user has to do is add the bots in the contact list and commence a group chat or a single IM session and the bots will do just what their name suggests, convert the chat messages to the destination language.
Most IMs convert from the English language but there are translation bots from other languages too. The bots are available for 24 different languages.
And in its true open spirit Google also released details on the open protocol and client libraries that users can use to create their own bots.
The spirit of innovation that drives Google’s products is what has made it such a recognized brand. Perhaps Apple only can truly match this innovation engine. But all has not been hunky-dory for Google. The roll out of new features for Gmail met with some flak as several users complained of slow connections. Nonetheless these should have been valuable lessons for the firm as it strives to achieve greater heights in technology innovation.
