Google Announces New Google Translate Languages
	Although this update could be seen as early as a few days ago, the Mountain View-based company officially introduced the new Google Translate languages today, along with several other improvements to the translation technology. The newly introduced languages are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish, raising the total number of supported languages to 23. This means that you ca ... [read more >>]
	16 May 2008, 08:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Translate Brings New Languages, Romanian Among the Newly Added
	Google Translate has always been a useful web tool because it allowed users to translate texts and websites with a single click. Moreover, just like most other Google services, it was available for free. However, Google Translate only provided a number of 26 language pairs because it only allowed users to translate texts to ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 06:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

iPhoneDict Delivers Free iPhone Keyboard Dictionaries
	Having trouble with your touch-screen iPhone keyboard? Are typos giving you headaches? Does it bother you that your iPhone doesn't support your language? Well, although Softpedia doesn't encourage installing apps that require a jailbroken device, it can ... [read more >>]
	23 April 2008, 03:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Future Language Issues Can be Detected even in 3-Month Old Infants
	You don't have to wait for the age of speech learning. A team led by Professor of Neuroscience April Benasich, at Infancy Studies Laboratory at Rutgers University in Newark, found just how the brains of 3-month old infants differentiate sounds signal language issues. The methods developed by this team can assess as early as 3 to 6 months if a baby will face language problems. A main role is played by the developing brain, ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 04:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

All Languages Evolved from only One
	The study of the origin of the languages is one of the most complicated disciplines. Since ancient times, people have attempted to explain it via legends like the Tower of Babel and similar stories from the Central American, African and Indian mythologies. Researchers have tried to count how many languages are spoke on Earth: the number varied from 2,000 to 6,000, as incomplete linguistic studies for many areas make difficult ... [read more >>]
	08 April 2008, 10:10GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Brain Secret of Human Speech Has Been Found
	The complex human speech is one of the most important traits that differentiate us from animals. It relies on our large brains, however it is not a question of size but of brain wiring, as showed by a new research published in "Nature Neuroscience." Since the 19th century, the Broca nucleus in the frontal cortex and Wernicke nucleus in the temporal cortex have been connected to language. The first area has an important role [ ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 06:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The First Siberian Language Connected to Native American Languages
	We all know the theory that Native Americans came from Siberia. So far, we have had archaeological and genetic proofs for this. Now, we have the first linguistic link: a nearly extinct language of central Siberia has a common origin with one of the largest groups of Native American languages, Na Dene, spoken thousands of kilometers away, as showed by a new research presented in February at a meeting of linguists at the Alaska Native Lang ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 05:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Robot Returns Objects at a Click of a Button
	Robots, as most other computer controlled devices, probably will never be able to fully understand human language, or to differentiate between two images of the same object. That is the disadvantage of processing information in binary code. However, robots can be taught, or at least instructed. Such a robot was recently created by Charlie Kemp, director of the Center for Healthcare Robotics in the Health Systems Institute at the Georgia In ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 07:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sexual Brain Differences in How Speech Is Processed
	Let's face it: men come from Mars, women from Venus. Women hear from a conversation just words like shopping, money, jewel, gold, diamond, spending, and so on. Men hear just sex, football, boobs, a**, beer, chicks and so on. A new study published in "Neuropsychologia" comes with another element to the overwhelming difference in brain structure between the sexes: teen males and females employ somewhat different brain areas wh ... [read more >>]
	14 March 2008, 05:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Android-like Robot Soon to Talk to Us
	According to University of Hertfordshire professors Chrystopher Nehaniv and Kerstin Dautenhahn, from the School of Computer Science, in the close future we may find ourselves surrounded by robots bearing human features. The first step in developing such machines is the robot created by the University of Plymouth, which will be presented on ITALK or Integration and Transfer of Action and Knowledge in Robots convention that has sta ... [read more >>]
	05 March 2008, 06:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

iTunes - Free iPod Phrase Books up for Grabs
	Coolgorilla.com has finally released its free iPod Phrase Books, following generous contributors' donations to the group. The Phrase Books are available for download via the iTunes. Sponsored by lastminute.com, the Phrase Books ... [read more >>]
	26 February 2008, 08:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Hackers Now Hiring Hackers
	The help-wanted ads are circulating the underground Internet channels and the desired applicants must be hackers and nothing less. As the web society evolves, so must the attacks and now after all of the major companies opened local branches to deal with the problems that might show up in the course of time (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and the list goes on), cyber criminals are hiring new people putting very much emphasis on their l ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 11:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Your Mother Tongue Influences How Your Brain Develops
	Well, the development of your brain is not only influenced by genetics, diet and intellectual stimulation, but also by... your mother tongue! "Everyone has a brain stem, but it's tuned differently depending on what sounds are behaviorally relevant to a person, for example, the sounds of his or her mother tongue," said Jackson T. Gandour, a linguistics professor at Purdue University. The team first compared the brain ac ... [read more >>]
	20 February 2008, 04:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Languages Behave Like Biological Species
	Languages behave just like species. This is the conclusion of a new research published in the Nature journal, showing that languages evolve in fits and starts, rather than gradually, a phenomenon called punctuated evolution in biology. The idea is not that new, but the British team employed mathematics to show this is real in the case of the language evolution. The team led by evolutionary biologist Quentin Atkinson and mathe ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Language Extinction: Last Speaker of Eyak Has Died!
	The disappearance of Native languages has touched Alaska. Marie Smith Jones, the woman who was the last native speaker of the Eyak language of Alaska has died at the age of 89 in her home in Anchorage. She was a champion of indigenous rights and conservation and collaborated with the University of Alaska for creating an Eyak dictionary, a tool that could enable future generations to revive the language. Another 20 native Alaskan languages ... [read more >>]
	25 January 2008, 04:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do Infants Learn to Speak?
	Speech is perhaps what makes us different from apes. They can have some degree of logics, but this is boosted to astronomic values in humans by speech. Speech is made of two sets of symbols: words and grammar, rules through which words are combined in phrases expressing precise links between objects and events. "John hit Paul" has a different meaning from "Paul hit John". Words may be the same, but grammar changes the m ... [read more >>]
	12 January 2008, 07:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google’s Robots Released Today
	The Google Robotics Division team have come open with what they have been working on, for the past year or so, and are finally ready to release their latest creation to the world. Yes, I know, it was a great surprise for me too, and by the looks of it, it is certain to change the face of things… if only it were true. Now I’m sad to say that the Robotics Division hasn’t done much lately, or better yet, hasn’t done anything at a ... [read more >>]
	19 December 2007, 14:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Natural Language Search Not to Come Any Time Soon, Says Google
	In short, there’s not going to be any natural language search because people are lazy and don’t type in the entire question, but rather a couple of words that they would like to find in the answer. That’s saying it grosso modo, Peter chose the more subtle approach of using carefully worded answers to the eventual questions that might have raised further. I think that this concept of natural language search is basically the sam ... [read more >>]
	19 December 2007, 06:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

International Navigational Bar from Google
	"I think – tide turning – see, as I remember – I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?" You all know and love him, it’s your George Bush! Let’s give him a round of applause as he goes off the stage. I actually thought of this quote from the American fearless leader, because he might not know it, but he said something that’s true: you could see a tide turn ... [read more >>]
	11 December 2007, 05:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Where Did Gypsies Come From?
	You come across these people in many countries; they do not have a national territory or their own government. Legends describe their arrival from Egypt, but these are only fairytales. Ignorant people in the west associate their origin with Eastern Europe, like Hungary and Romania. That's false, even if indeed large gypsy populations are to be found there (in Bulgaria they represent 15 % of the population, 10 % in Hungary and 7 % in R ... [read more >>]
	28 November 2007, 10:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Bet’cha You Didn’t Know About GMail’s Language Detection
	Picture this: you start receiving tons of spam from a lot of foreign countries and it takes so much of your inbox that you can’t really find your regular email conversations even if you go to the third page or so. And if you’re looking back to the third page you must be either really anxious about reading the new mail or very angry about how far back you have to go in order for that to happen. Of course it’s a hypothetical situation but ... [read more >>]
	15 November 2007, 10:10GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

10-Year-Old Boy Speaks 11 Languages!
	Most people babble a few words and imagine that a grammatically incorrect and wrongly pronounced enumeration of words means they ‘can speak a foreign language’ such as Spanish or French. And here comes this primary school boy speaking 10 languages besides English. Arpan Sharma, 10, from The Blue Coat School, Edgbaston, Birmingham, is (for the second year) finalist amongst other 30 children in a UK language contest. At hom ... [read more >>]
	06 November 2007, 06:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Photo Sharing Service in 38 Languages
	Picasa Web Albums or Google's photo sharing service is now available in 38 languages after the Picasa team included support for several new countries. Among the new ones, I can mention Bulgarian, Hindi, Slovenian, Filipino or Thai. In addition, Picasa Web Albums was improved with mobile support which enables the consumers to access their service anytime from any location. As you can see, the Mountain View company struggles t ... [read more >>]
	02 November 2007, 15:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

More 3D Google Goodies for Your Computer
	In case you never heard of it, Google Warehouse is probably the best source of 3D models for your computer, because the Google SketchUp users can upload their creations for free on this freeware website hosted by the Mountain View company. The webpage started to grow up since Google added interoperability for Google Earth and SketchUp, inviting the users to create 3D drawings to be included in the downloadable mapping tool. Becau ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 05:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does Language Evolve?
	Language is a living organism. And just as any living organism, it experiences evolution. Will we be able to understand the English of the year 3,000? It seems that at least at a basic level, the answer is positive. The words which are used the most in everyday language are the most conservative, as found by two new researches. A Harvard team investigated the evolution of English verb conjugations over a 1,200-year period while a team a ... [read more >>]
	22 October 2007, 03:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 5 of World's Hot Spots of Language Extinction
	It has already been predicted that by the end of the century, half of the languages spoken now worldwide will be gone. Not by evolving into another language (like Latin into Italian, Spanish, French or Romanian), but by being wiped out by other languages. A team has detected five global "hot spots" of indigenous language extinction, with northern Australia and the center of South America being on top. The Enduring Voices proje ... [read more >>]
	19 September 2007, 04:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

One More Google Service in Final Version
	Google Reader, the web-based RSS client powered by the Mountain View company was finally updated to the final product stage after the 'Labs' label was removed. As you might have heard, Google Reader was introduced a long time ago on the Internet but since then, it has remained a part of the Google Labs, the testing platform also powered by the search giant. Yesterday, it was revealed that Google Reader was updated with ... [read more >>]
	19 September 2007, 04:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Seven More Countries Joining The Googleplex
	The search giant Google released an updated version of Picasa that brings several new goodies for all the users of the application. First of all, you should know that Picasa is now available in seven more languages: Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, and Ukrainian. If you didn't know, Picasa is a very useful software solution powered by Google that allows users to find, organize and share th ... [read more >>]
	23 August 2007, 06:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Use Gmail in Your Native Language
	If you didn't know, Gmail is a mail solution that is available in numerous languages although most of the users prefer to use the product in the main US interface. However, if you want to change your language, here's what you must do: login in to your Gmail account, click on 'Settings' and you should be able to see a Gmail display language drop down menu. Click on it and choose one of the numerous languages in ... [read more >>]
	22 August 2007, 16:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did the Human Speech Appear?
	The complex human speech is one of our traits that definitely separates us not only from other animals, but also perhaps from our extinct relatives. It is believed that Homo sapiens appeared about 150,000 years ago, but a sudden boost in its evolution was given by the emergence of the language some 50,000 years ago. The speech can develop only inside a community and at the age when the brain is growing. Famous cases of children lost in ... [read more >>]
	03 August 2007, 14:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Can a Toddler Learn the Language so Quickly?
	"Oh, my God, I swear he has just said 'daddy'. He is definitely so smart!" Toddlers can impress you with learning 10 new words daily, but it appears to be quite simple for them, who must handle this vocabulary milestone to eventually reach the adult vocabulary. When being 18 months old, human offspring experience a "vocabulary explosion" involving a sudden learning of new words, leaving their parents a ... [read more >>]
	03 August 2007, 04:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google Evolves, Reaches New Limits
	Every day brings a new flavor of the Google products because the folks from the Mountain View company continuously struggle to expand the services of the giant. However, today Analytics, the famous solution powered by Google, gets two new versions that are meant to complete the recently rolled out updates. If you didn't know, Analytics received a brand new interface bundled with several features that improved the functionali ... [read more >>]
	25 July 2007, 03:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

US Army Develops Automatic Translators for Iraq Soldiers
	Language differences are the most important obstacle for an efficient communication, and especially crucial for soldiers fighting in foreign countries. That's why one of the US Army' newest projects is currently searching for real-time, two-way translation systems. Unlike the sci-fi series Star Trek, where a universal translator device can make every alien being speak English instantaneously, the more earthly problems of sold ... [read more >>]
	24 July 2007, 08:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Computer Mimics Babies at Learning Languages
	Supercomputers greatly surpass humans when it comes to performing complex mathematical calculations and processing speed, but there are some things no algorithm can do, at least for now, because they require advanced learning abilities that computers simply don't possess. Learning languages is one of these daunting tasks, where even the best supercomputers greatly lack behind human infants. Translation software are compl ... [read more >>]
	24 July 2007, 04:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What's the Origin of Human Languages?
	This is really ambitious: a project attempting to track down all human language to a common oldest language ever, "alive" 50,000 years ago. It is then when Homo sapiens, who had emerged at least 150,000 years before, suddenly changed behavior. Until then, Homo sapiens was not very different from the Neanderthals. Both buried their dead, employed stone tools, and had some form of communication, mostly gestural. "Almost ove ... [read more >>]
	23 July 2007, 05:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Microsoft Is Scared, Google Office Conquers Ten New Countries
	Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the main application that fights for the defeat of Microsoft Office, is now available in ten new languages besides the 15 ones that were already implemented into the product. If you want to select the language of the service, you must login to your account and press the Settings button displayed above the list of your documents. Then, in the General settings tab, you should be able to see a Languag ... [read more >>]
	19 July 2007, 04:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nokia and HP Want Native Language Smartphones
	Nokia wants to develop mobile phones which will "communicate" better with their owners by speaking the same language. A large number of dialects are not included in the list of those available on current handsets, but that is about to change. Nokia is currently looking for a partnership with Hewlett Packard (HP) for making smart phones with ... [read more >>]
	10 July 2007, 04:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google News: Anywhere, Anytime!
	The news service powered by the Mountain View company received some new goodies that surely make the product more attractive for the people from all around the world. For example, Google debuted a few weeks ago two new versions of Google News, allowing the users to view only a text flavor of the product or another edition based only on images. Today, Google releases News in Hindi in addition to the Greek version that was recently ... [read more >>]
	09 July 2007, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

1 in 5 Americans Still Believes the Sun is Orbiting the Earth
	This is a not a pointless satire on the educational system in the US. These are the results of a survey that points out that only about a fifth of all Americans have a clue of what science really is, and thus believe that the Sun is actually revolving around the Earth and that the Tooth Fairy gives them money in exchange for the falling teeth. Dr. Jon D. Miller is a political scientist directing the Center for Biomedical Com ... [read more >>]
	06 July 2007, 04:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

ZTE D Evolution Phone with Two Keypad Languages
	The number of people who speak two languages is larger than you might think at first. With this in mind, ZTE Corporation brings their new Evolution handset, which is capable of responding to the need for working with two alphabets. ZTE D Evolution is capable of supporting t ... [read more >>]
	04 July 2007, 08:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google's Blog Service Now in Romanian
	Google's blog service Blogger is now available in multiple languages besides the 19 ones that were already included in the solution. Among the new languages added to Blogger we can mention Romanian, Hindi, Portuguese and Hungarian. Blogger was first launched in August 1999 and was acquired by the Mountain View company in February 2003 but the financial terms were not disclosed. Since the acquisition of the product, Blogger r ... [read more >>]
	28 June 2007, 05:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Every Country Has Its Own YouTube
	The parent company Google updated the popular YouTube with regional versions for numerous countries including Italy, France, Brazil, Poland, Spain and UK. Although it was rumored that Google wants to release a local version of the online video sharing service, it denied all the speculation, and now several countries are able to use their own YouTube. Basically, the new editions of YouTube are 100 percent translated into a certain ... [read more >>]
	19 June 2007, 08:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Could Aliens Speak English? Could they speak?
	Doesn't it bother you that – as unlikely as it may seem – most alien species in the sci-fi productions can speak English, or Japanese, or French, or whatever the language of the show's producers and intended demographic is? Moreover, the same aliens seem to speak their native language when they don't want to be understood by the earthlings. But could aliens really speak English? Presuming that they really exist... I&# ... [read more >>]
	16 June 2007, 07:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google's Digital Photos Sent to 19 Countries
	Picasa is one of the downloadable applications powered by Google that is now available in 19 more languages beside the main version of the program. Still, the most used Picasa remains the old release that is currently installed on millions of computers, helping users to organize the photos, edit and add effects to the images and share the pictures on the Internet using Picasa Web Albums. The Mountain View company introduced langu ... [read more >>]
	05 June 2007, 03:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Learning Chinese is Genetic!
	The common conception says language is just another cultural trait, like clothing, hair due, music preference or religious beliefs. It was thought that a baby learns the languages he hears in the early years. But a new research points that genes could be in fact involved in learning tonal languages like Chinese. The team made by Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, discovered a genetic difference betw ... [read more >>]
	29 May 2007, 03:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Four-Month Babies Can Distinguish Between Two Different Languages
	Adult people need to hear a language to make the difference from another. But scientists have discovered that four-month old babies can distinguish between different languages just by looking at the facial movements of the speaker. Even when babies watched video recording with the sound switched off, they were able to make this difference. The "visual speech" ability could be important in language learning and appeared to be r ... [read more >>]
	25 May 2007, 03:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Origins of the Etruscans
	This civilization flourished on the territory which is nowadays central Italy (from Po River to Naples) and besides the Greek one, was the most influential for Romans. The Etruscans are still shrouded in mystery, even if there is a lot of data regarding their life, dances, or other habits, due to Roman writings and many archaelogical discoveries (frescoes, tombs, settlements and others). Women were equal to men, a fact that shocked ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2007, 19:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google in Foreign Languages?!
	Today, the Google AdSense team posted a notification to inform users about a problem reported lately that bothered a lot of registered members. It seems that many webmasters sent complaints to the search giant because their website preview showed by the HTML editors or even some online pages were displaying adverts in foreign languages. This problem is especially annoying because it might affect the member's revenues as some ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2007, 03:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Most Primitive Language?
	All languages are supposed to derive from an ancestral sole language. Or at least they followed some strict grammar rules during their evolution, as synthesized by the Universal Grammar (UG), which made famous in the 1960s Noam Chomsky, MIT professor of linguistics. Now a vivid debate was started by the work of Daniel L. Everett, a linguist at Illinois State University, who has lived several decades studying Pirahã, the lang ... [read more >>]
	24 April 2007, 06:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

“Ik houd van u” Blogger!
	Blogger represents the main blog service on the Internet, allowing users to build their own blog in just a few minutes. Since the search giant started to promote the product, Blogger was improved several times receiving even a new version containing new features, new interface and improved functionality. Today, the parent company Google reveals a new update, adding eight new languages to the product. You’re now able to write blog ... [read more >>]
	12 April 2007, 02:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia