Google adds translation to main search engine

Google has began weaving an automated language translation feature into its universal search service.

A new “translated search” tool lets people direct Google to seek results from Web pages written in an array of languages and then deliver results in a searcher’s preferred tongue.

The feature has been available at the Google Translate service, but is becoming part of the California-based Internet firm’s popular main search engine.

“Now, when you search on Google for something in your own language, you can use this tool to search the web in another language,” Google technical lead Maureen Heymans and product manager Jeff Chin said in a blog post.

“We’re integrating it fully into Google search, making it easier for you to find and read results from pages across the web, even if they weren’t written in a language you speak.”

The tool can be found in a menu revealed by clicking on “Show Options” at the top of a Google search results page.

Search keywords are translated into languages that appear relevant, such as French and Dutch for a query about Belgium, and Web pages found are presented in the searcher’s language.

“We’ll algorithmically select the best language(s) to translate your search query into and then return you translated results from those pages,” Heymans and Chin said. “We’ll even display results from multiple languages.”

Searchers can look for Web pages written in any of 51 languages. The tool will display results from as many as five languages at a time, according to Google.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Google Squared gets more data, better filters

Google has released a few enhancements to Google Squared, its attempt to build spreadsheets out of search results.

Google Squared is a Google Labs project first unveiled in May at its Searchology event and set loose on the world a month later. The idea is to take the search results for a given query, such as “U.S. presidents” or “European countries,” and present the results as a table with facts and dates helpfully sorted for easier research.

The company announced on Friday “a number of improvements to the amount and quality of information you can find with Google Squared, as well as new tools to sort and export the data,” it said in a blog post. For example, Google Squared can now return 120 facts organized in rows and columns, as opposed to just 30 at launch. The filters have gotten better as well, which was a definite problem with the first batch of Google Squared results.

It’s still not ready for prime time, however: according to Google Squared, the Milwaukee Brewers play home games in both Milwaukee and San Diego. It had no idea what city is home to Yankee Stadium–let alone which New York borough–and it also seemed to miss the grand opening this year of a new Yankee Stadium to replace The House That Ruth Built.

Google said Squared is an experiment in “understanding structured data from across the Web to build new tools for organizing and presenting information.” Despite plans to offload its back-end search technology, Yahoo is trying to keep its name in the game as a search company by conducting much of the same research.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Twitter to introduce live video-tweeting

Twitter users may soon be posting real-time video tweets in addition to text tweets under plans to modernise the site.

The upgrade, which is being discussed by Twitter’s founders, will enable Twitter users to upload brief video snippets to their profiles directly from mobile phones, laptops and other devices.

Third party sites Twiddeo and Tweetube already allow Twitter users to post video tweets but only by creating links to their sites.

Both Twideo and Tweetube have so far failed to gain as much popularity as similar external service Twitpic.

Twitter’s founders hope by adding live video-tweeting it will help boost its prominence as a fashionable social-networking tool again.

In recent weeks both British singer Lily Allen and Hannah Montana actress Miley Cyrus have snubbed the site by closing their Twitter accounts. Allen’s last tweet read: “I am a neo-Luddite, goodbye.”

Some of Britain’s biggest tweeters include Stephen Fry with 810,000 followers, Sarah Brown, the prime minister’s wife, with 840,000 followers, and rock group Coldplay who have more than two million followers. Sarah Brown’s Twitter following is already believed to be five times larger than the entire membership of the Labour party.

Although many tweets describe mundane activities, the site has played a role in news events. Twitter was an active platform for protesters during the Iranian elections and in January, a ferry passenger was the first person to post pictures of people being rescued from an airliner in New York’s Hudson River.

Twitter has also been used as a campaign tool by Barack Obama and British politicians in support of the NHS.

The site has yet to make a profit or find a way of making money but has been valued at £603m. Twitter has 54 million users around the world every month.

Popularity: 10% [?]