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.
Bing Translator – Full Scale War Against Google?
It’s seems Microsoft is preparing a full scale offensive against Google. First they come up with Bing, and it was positively rated by many tech blogs. Now Microsoft challenges Google Translator with Bing Translator.
What I like most in Google is the support to Indian languages including Hindi and Tamil. Google translate offers translations in Hindi, but Bing translator lacks support to Hindi or any other Indian languages.
Bing Translator offers widget for web masters. If they place the widget in their site, their users can translate the site and see in the desired (supported) languages.
Also you can use Live Messenger’s translation Bot. It’ll automatically translate other languages when you chat with a person who speaks (or types) different language other than English.
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
Gmail allows you to type in Tamil
Long time back Google has introduced transliteration (NOT translation) for five indian languages including Tamil and Hindi. Later they integrated this feature to many of their products such as Blogger, Orkut, iGoogle etc.
Advantage of transliteration is you don’t have to learn any keyboard layout. If you type “namaste” transliterate service will transliterate this to “नमस्ते.” Similarly, “vanakkam” in Tamil will become “வணக்கம்.”
Though it’s a wonderful feature if you continue to use this you’ll get addicted to this service and will not be able to continue with normal typing layout. Therefore use is when there is no other way to type in Tamil.
Now Google has integrated Transliteration in Gmail too. It’s so good that we can directly type in Tamil, especially when we are in Net café or office.
To enable this feature go to settings. (See the image below)
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.
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.
Google’s Voice Recognition in Hindi & Telugu
Now Google is offering Voice Search in Hindi and Telugu. According to Google it’s a pilot service and they are working on it to improve.
It is Google’s new experimental service making local business information, movie show times and real time flight status available from any phone for free. You get fast access to the same information you would find on Google.com and Google Local Search when you are on the go, anytime, for free.
It is free. 1-800-41-999-999 is a toll free number and it does not cost you anything. Google doesn’t charge you for the information. The service may not be available from payphones, but is available from any mobile phone and land-line in Hyderabad and Delhi.
Tamil Interface for Blogger
Blogger is one of the most popular blog portal owned by the internet giant Google. As per Google’s initiation to provide their products in local languages, they have taken steps to give Tamil interface for Blogger.
Currently you can check out the Tamil interface in Blogger Draft. A translation seems ok.
So far we have Good number of Tamil interfaces from Google including Orkut, Gmail, Main Search Site, Google News and Google Docs. Soon Blogger.com will also join with this queue.
PS: Tamil Interface for WordPress is already available.
Tamil Movies Online
Early days I hardly see a site to download Tamil movies, but today there are enough sites offering Tamil movie downloads. Just like music pirate (in MP3 format), Tamil movie pirate also very hot in the internet these days.
As number of Internet users in Tamil Nadu, India grows, the number of Tamil pirate movie sites also growing to cater the market demand… 
Read more
Automated Online Hindi Translator
Now you can translate Hindi sites into English and also Hindi speakers can translate English sites into Hindi. As far as I know this is the first initiative for an Indian Language translation.
I translated BBC Hindi site into English using this translator tool, seems ok. I have translated some Chinese pages but those things usually return some garbage. Read more
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