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Google Transliteration with Brand New Look
Google has announced their transliteration service with a Rich WYSWYG editor. Currently it’s supporting major Indic languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and also it has support for Arabic.
HTML Support
New rich interface allows you to do most of the stuff you wanted to do in a word processor such as formatting, colouring etc. Also it lets you see the HTML code of the stuff you typed, which you can use for HTML web pages.
Google Dictionary
Google Dictionary also integrated with this site so you can easily search the meaning of words between languages. Most of the popular languages are supported in the Google Dictionary. Tamil, Hindi and most of the Indic languages supported in the dictionary but Google is yet to add support for Sinhala.
Insert Unicode Letters
You can insert Unicode letters with a simple mouse click. As I said above most of the languages are supported including Sinhala and Tamil.
Google Transliteration is available in Blogger, Gmail, Knol, Orkut and as a bookmarklet. You can also enable it on your website using the transliteration API.
Google’s Tamil Dictionary
There are so many online dictionaries available for English-Tamil-Tamil. The most popular and comprehensive one is Tamil Wiktionary (sister project of Wikipedia). It has good number of words especially in the field of current technology and happenings.
Today I found that there is a new comer added to the list of online Tamil dictionary. Yeap, the new player is none other than Google Dictionary.
Google Tamil Dictionary is nowhere near to the quality of the Wiktionary, but still worth a try with their simplified interface.
Text to Speech Engine for Tamil
Text to speech is a wonderful tool when it comes to accessibility issues. For a long time we had Text to speech in English and other European Languages but not for Tamil.
Today I come to know that there is a tool is being developed at MILE Lab’s. Now tool is still beta but it works fine. I typed some Tamil text like “அன்பே ஆறுயிரே” to my surprise the automated tool read it correctly.
It’s worth giving a try. Hope they’ll release API and all the stuff around it, so we can integrate such services in our websites where disabled people can make maximum use of it.
Try the tool at http://mile.ee.iisc.ernet.in:8080/tts_demo/
Google Friend Connect Now Available in Tamil and 47 Languages
Google Friend Connect is a service provided by Google to integrate Social Network feature into sites. You can see Google Friend Connect integrated with MAYUonline.com.
Google has once again shows their cabability in localisation. Now they’ve released Google Friend Connect in 47 languages, including Tamil. South Asian languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu are supported in this release.
Tamil Interface
It’s a good opportunity for web masters as they can easily reach their users in their native laguage. You can set languages for your site, so it’ll automatically show relevant langauge gadgets in your site.
If you use localised browsers then it’ll show Google Friend Connect gadget in same language. I’m using Tamil Google Chrome, when I visit my site (thought it’s English) it is showing the gadget in Tamil.
Friend Connect’s newly supported languages are: Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Oriya, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnames.
Hot to go Google 
Special thanks to Arabcrunch.com for updating me about this development.
Firefox 3.5 is Ready!!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Here by I’m giving you the happy news “Firefox 3.5 is available for download”.
Happy news is it’s available in both Tamil and Sinhala
Firefox giving us five reasons why you should upgrade to Firefox 3.5
1 Security
2 Performance
3 The Awesome Bar
4 Better Bookmarking
5 Password Manager
Why still waiting?? Go grab your copy of Firefox 3.5
Do you know Google Chrome is now available in Tamil?
Tamil Spell Checker for Firefox
Good news for Tamil Firefox users. A new version of Tamil Spell checker is available in Firefox. More than 50,000 words have been included with the help of Tamil Wikipedia.
I’ve been using it and its comparatively doing a good job but we need to have some decision machine attached to this spell checker to suggest spellings.
Hats off to Balachander Muruganandam, for initiating this project. He is a known blogger in blogosphere and has developed so much of Gadgets and tools in Tamil.
You can download Firefox Tamil Spell Checker from Firefox website.
SIX Sites to Write in Unicode Tamil Online
Before starting, I have a small request. Please activate support for Tamil in Regional Language Settings.
When you’re in net cafe or office where you don’t have access you can use following online Tamil Unicode writers.
1. Google Transliteration
This tool introduced by Google and now this feature available in Google products such as Gmail, Orkut etc.
2. Suratha’s Puthuvai Ezhuthi
This tool is for phonetic users and Bamini layout users.
3. Tamil Key (for Firefox users)
This tool can only be used in Firefox. This is a one good Firefox addon all Tamils should have on their Firefox browser.
4. W3 Tamil Keybord (Tamil 99 Layout)
This is an online Keyboard for Tamil 99 layout users.
5. IIT’s Tamil Keyboard
Just like other online Tamil writers. It’s using Phonetic layout.
6. Tamil Friends
This site offers Tamil 99, Type Writer, Phonetic layout
BBC College of Journalism in Tamil & Sinhala
College of Journalism program is launched by BBC in Sinhala and Tamil. They’ve already launched this program in many languages including Russian, English, French, and Arabic etc.
Also BBC says “This is just the first step, we would like to see these pages grow and become a more detailed introduction to the language of Journalism.”
Most annoying thing I found is BBC Sinhala’s site is in English while Tamil, Hindi sites are in respective languages. Even this College of Journalism is launched in English by BBC Sinhala while BBC Tamil launched in Tamil.
When I roughly go through, I came across many interesting stuff related to journalism such as pronunciation, choosing correct word etc.
Quote from Tamil Site
பிபிசி ஊடகவியல் கல்லூரியும் மற்றும் பிபிசி உலகசேவையும், ஏழு ஆசிய மொழிகளில் சிறப்பு மொழி வழிகாட்டிகளைக் கொண்டுவருவதில் பெருமையடைகின்றன. தமிழ், சிங்களம், ஹிந்தி, வங்காளி, பர்மிய, நேபாளி மற்றும் வியட்நாமிய மொழிகளில் இந்த வழிகாட்டிகள் தொடங்கப்படுகின்றன.
Quote from Sinhala Site
The BBC College of Journalism and the World Service are proud to launch special language guides for: Sinhala, Tamil, Bengali, Burmese, Hindi, Nepali, Tamil and Vietnamese.
Airtel HSPA – DATA Connection – FAQ
1. What is Airtel HSPA?
Airtel HSPA is using 3.5G technology to provide wireless broadband to your machine. Its very useful when you’re on a move.
2. Can I get one?
Yes. But make sure you’ve got 3.5G (HSPA) coverage in your area atleast 3G coverage in your area.
3. How much per month?
1500 LKR per month before tax, and you need to pay 500 LKR as activation fee. With dialog you need to pay around 2000LKR as deposit.
4. How much the USB modem / Dongle costs?
Modem costs 9,000LKR – 10,000 LKR. With dialog you can sign a 6 months contract and buy the same modem for just 5500LKR.
5. What about download limit and FUP?
No download limit in Airtel unlimited package and no fair user policy, therefore you can download as much as you want.
6. Better than Dialog?
mmm… that’s a million dollar question 
If Airtel can give wide coverage than Dialog then it’ll become a better choice. Also note that Airtel HSPA downlink is working at 800 Kbps even though promised speed is 3.8Mbps.
As far as I hear from my friends new Dialog customers also are getting the speed around 800Kbps.
7. Airtel HSPA is cheaper than Dialog HSPA?
It seems Airtel HSPA is cheaper because unlimited package of Airtel is 1500 while Dialog unlimited package with FUP and download limit is 3000 LKR. Now you decide
8. Are you gonna change from Dialog to Airtel?
For the time being NO, because I have 6 months contract with Dialog and I’m getting around 2.0 Mbps speed with my Dialog HSPA connection.
If the Dialog continue to keep the Fair User Policy (FUP) and download limit then probably I’ll think of switching to Airtel HSPA
New question added as per request from readers
9. Can I use 3G mobile as my modem?
Yes, you can use 3G Mobile as your modem. You need to connect your mobile with your computer using data cable.
Windows Live Messenger in Tamil
I went to download live messenger to chat with my friends and found out the Live messenger is available in
Live Messenger in Tamil
Tamil too. You can select Tamil as language in right hand side drop down list and download it from Live messenger site. Along with Live messenger, other programs such as mail, writer also coming in Tamil.
Once you started the installation it’ll proceed as shown in the figure.
You can also check out their FAQ section also in Tamil.
I thought yahoo will release Tamil messenger first but apparently its Microsoft who taken the lead on localization. Happy to see most of online products are getting localized into Tamil. I can give you several examples such as Tamil WordPress, Google products such as Gmail, Google Docs, Orkut, and Facebook etc.
Hope to see more wide presence of Tamil in virtual world in near future.
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