At last Hindi has made it to Google’s machine translation service that allows you to translate chunk of text or entire web pages from English to Hindi and vice-versa. It comes with another nice service that translates English Search strings in to Hindi and performs a Google search for you. Both the services are still very rusty and still distant from being usable at the moment. But it is a great start and Google deserves a pat on the back for this initiative which will surely boost use of Hindi on the web. More commendable is Google’s willingness to improve this service, so if you find the translation poor or awry you can provide your suggestions right there. [Via]
Josh18 introduces Live Cricket Scorecards in Hindi
Hindi Portal Josh18.com has announced the launch of ‘Live Cricket Scorecards‘ in Hindi, probably the first such feature on the Internet. This Live Cricket Scorecard is available on the ‘Cricket section’. India has more than 40-million internet users and PC literacy in India has shown a steady YoY growth of more than 40% since 2004. Youth from Tier-2 and 3 cities and towns are increasingly logging on to the internet. [Read the full story]
Researchers at IBM’s lab in New Delhi have created a pilot program called “Spoken Web” that lets speakers of Hindi surf the Internet using their voice. The feature is targeted at people who are unable to access web through mobile phones. IBM estimates that 1 billion people will surf the Internet on phones by 2011. The company plans to complete the test project in India within three months and have the application rolled out in the country by the end of 2008. [Read the full story]
Multilingual dictionary on 7 Indian languages soon
Madras university will soon bring out a multilingual dictionary on seven Indian languages to promote cross-cultural relations. The dictionary is aimed at making languages from the south more accessible in other parts of the country. The Multi-Lingual Dictionary of Indian Languages Project funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) is a joint venture by the seven language departments of the Oriental Research Institute (ORI), one of the university’s premier wings. The five-volume dictionary will comprehensively cover language and literature, art and culture, science and technology, administration and law, and, flora and fauna. [Read the full story]
Noida based Mediaguru has released a new bilingual cricket website to bring the latest news on IPL 2008. The site is in English and Hindi. This probably the first such website in Hindi.
Penguin India is to launch its 2,000-strong back list into the UK and Europe via Gardners, targeting the UK’s Indian population as well as those with an interest in India. An initial 100 titles are to be exported, most of which are English language titles, though a handful will be in the Indian languages of Hindi, Marathi and Urdu. The launch titles will cover fiction, non-fiction and children’s apart from other favorites like the Penguin Hindi-English English-Hindi Dictionary and Thesaurus by Arvind Kumar and Kusum Kumar. [Source]
Edmon Chung, CEO of DotAsia and a member of ICANN working groups believes that Internationalized domain names (IDNs) may debut early next year. He pointed out that the launch of IDNs does not just revolve around technical issues, “It’s also a lot to do with policies or even politics…there are many of these issues in different languages to deal with as well and that’s why it’s taking so long.” Chung added that DotAsia intends to provide multilingual domain names, including Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Thai. For example, the “asia” in “.asia” would not be the English term but the Chinese equivalent, in Chinese characters. [Read full Story]
NDA’s prime minister-in-waiting LK Advani’s autobiography “My Country My Life” is doing very well and the publishers say that a Hindi translation of the book is slated to come out in May, 2008. [Source]
Update: You can get a glimpse of the upcoming Hindi edition of the book (titled “Mera desh, mera jeevan“) at the official website of the autobiography. The website features book excerpt, reviews etc.
