14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Mountain View-based company Google announced the availability of yet another interesting application for users of an Android-based mobile phone, namely Google Translate for Animals. Gone are the times when one would have difficult times understanding what one's pet has in mind, as the new software solutions, delivered on April Fools' Day, is here to enable a tighter connection between people and animals.
“Making the world's information universally accessible is a key goal for Google. Language is one of our biggest challenges so we have targeted our efforts on removing language barriers between the species. We are excited to introduce Translate for Animals, an Android application which we hope will allow us to better understand our animal friends. We've always been a pet-friendly company at Google, and we hope that Translate for Animals encourages greater interaction and understanding between animal and human,” a recent post on google.co.uk notes.
According to the company, the new application offers all that mobile phone users are looking for, namely ease of use and support for a wide range of human languages and, of course, animal sounds. The software solution is available in the Android Market, Google says, and offers translation of animals sounds into 52 supported languages. The application is still in beta, but the technology is being refined, especially since the “large corpus of cute cat videos that have been uploaded to YouTube” offer great support in the area. The video below will unveil more details on the new solution.
But this is not all. Those who do not have a house pet, or do not encounter animals as often as others, have a new solution available for them as well. The Standard Voicemail Mode announced today will bring all those old memories back, offering an alternative to modern technology. “Do you ever grow nostalgic for your old voicemail system and its long list of idiosyncracies? That's where Standard Voicemail Mode comes in,” the company notes.
Among the features of the new solution, we can count the fact that one won't have to listen to old voicemail messages anymore, as the service will automatically delete them after 14 days, not to mention that there will be no more web inbox. In other words, one will be able to access the service only from the cell phone, and they will also benefit from another appealing feature, the fact that “friends will be given the option to send a numeric page,” as Google notes, adding that they're “not sure what these are either.”
All in all, it seems that April 1 is a pretty busy day at Google. Beside the Translate for Animals app, developed in partnership with “world's top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics,” Google also announced the changing of its name to Topeka. Effective 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1, the new company name is meant to show the deep connection between the Internet giant and the Kansas city. You can read all about this on the company's blog here, in a post written by Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer, Topeka Inc.