Google Labs dons desi garb

The Google Labs platform added a new feather to its cap - a desi avatar in the form of Google Labs India, technology that would help Indians to conduct local languages searches, in 14 Indian and South Asian languages.

Coming close on the heels of Yahoo Inc launching portals in seven Indian languages, it serves as a pointer to the fact that the major search engines find the burgeoning Asian markets, especially populous India and China, an apt destination to expand and monetize their services in the long run. Google Labs for India would hit the nail on products that serve the Indian market, though not necessarily developed in India.

Under the spotlight are two technologies which sit on the testing hammer at the Google Labs website namely the Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget and Google Indic Transliteration.

The Indic On-Screen Keyboard iGoogle Gadget facilitates search in 14 Indian languages through the use of an on-screen keyboard. What comes in really handy is the option for users to add their chosen language gadget to their personalized iGoogle home page.

Google Indic Transliteration goes a step further allowing users to key in Hindi using phonetically equivalent English text through an English keyboard. This was launched in Blogger earlier and would encourage vernacular users to use email and like without the handicap of not knowing English.

The Indian focus by major companies is not a recent phenomenon. IBM in fact has already developed speech recognition software that would enable Hindi speaking people to use emails as also operate ATM’s and IVR systems. Yahoo of course had introduced plug-in modules to its Instant messenger, a real panacea to those with an English handicap.

It’s a no-brainer really to expect more of Internet growth and penetration in areas outside of the major Indian cities. The icing on the cake would be the exponential growth of content in more of the local languages. Information in its entirety now is on the fast track to becoming universally accessible as the latest trends on the information highway aptly show.