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Chrome 11 released – adds speech input, new icon

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

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The latest version of Google Chrome is available for download, or for automatic without so much as a by-your-leave update if you’re already using a previous version of the browser. Chrome 11 fixes multiple security issues in WebKit, as well as adding some new features and a cool new icon (well, I like it anyway). Get it now for Windows or Mac.

The most interesting addition to Chrome 11 is probably the HTML-powered speech input function that allows you to input text with the power of your vocal chords. The new function doesn’t work in many places yet  but you can give it a go at Google Translate. Using the latest version of Chrome, simply enter the Translate page. If you’re translating from English to another language, you should see a small microphone icon in the bottom right of the text box – click this and speak to start voice input translation. Translation via voice doesn’t yet appear to work for other languages.

Chrome 11 voice translate

If, like me, you’re a big fan of voice search in Android, you can get the same capabilities in Chrome 11 using the free Speechify add-on. Speechify works with Google, Amazon, YouTube and other sites. In general, though, I expect that we’ll see increasingly widespread use of the voice API gradually negating the need for 3rd party add-ons in this area.

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

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