The machines do the translating

Posted by Franz Och, Research Scientist

This year, Google entered the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Machine Translation evaluation, an event that has taken place annually since 2001 to support research in this area and to improve the state of the art. Participants included university labs, industrial labs, government labs and commercial machine translation companies from all over the world.

Our approach was to use statistical translation models learned from parallel text, that is, sets of documents and their translations. The system learns a model automatically from the parallel data. This approach differs from the rule-based approach used by many existing commercial machine translation companies which is based on large sets of handwritten translation rules.

We're very pleased with the results of this evaluation. Our computing infrastructure allows us to do a lot of experiments and work with huge data sets very easily.

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The linguasphere at large

Posted by Enrique Muñoz Torres, International Product Manager

Since part of our mission is making the world's information universally accessible and useful, we strive to offer our services in as many languages as we can.

Today we're happy to announce the launch of Google in Cambodian, Corsican, Kazakh, Lingala, Pashto, Quechua, Shona, Tajik, Tatar, Tonga, and Yoruba. This launch raises the count of Google languages to 116.

We would like to extend our thanks to the volunteers who have translated Google into these languages. If you can't find it yet in your own lingua franca (please note: we do already offer Swedish Chef, Hacker, and Klingon) consider becoming a volunteer translator through the Google in Your Language program.

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That's so random

Posted by Matthew Vosburgh, Google Video Software Engineer

The cool thing about Google Video is that anyone, anywhere can send us their videos, and then everyone in the world can see them. Summer intern Nestor Hernandez wanted to make sure every video had a chance to be seen, so he came up with a page that displays a grid of random video links. We all liked this idea so much (if it wasn't for this new feature, for instance, I never might have found my current favorite) that along with launching a new random video page, we also now have 3 random video links right on the Google Video front page. Every time you refresh either page you'll see different links, so enjoy, and visit us often.

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Courts signal that Google's keyword policy is lawful

Posted by David Drummond, VP and General Counsel

There have been a few erroneous reports suggesting that a judge ruled against Google in a case involving GEICO. It's actually the reverse of that, so we thought we'd clarify a few things about that decision.

Last December, the judge in the case ruled decisively in our favor on the issue of keywords. In her oral ruling, she stated that GEICO had failed to prove that using "GEICO" as a keyword to trigger ads was likely to confuse consumers. Then, earlier this month, she issued a written ruling explaining the reasoning behind the December ruling.

In her written ruling, she stated that GEICO's own evidence "refutes the allegation that the use of the trademark as a keyword, without more, causes a likelihood of confusion." That is a clear signal that Google's policy on trademarks and keywords is lawful.

What has generated the confusion is another part of the ruling, of little significance to Google, that relates to the use of "GEICO" in ad text. Google already has a policy that prohibits advertisers from using someone else's trademark in their ad text when the trademark owner objects. Our policy on that is here.

It's been our longstanding policy -- dating back to well before GEICO filed its lawsuit against us -- to block use of a trademark in ad text when the trademark owner objects. GEICO said that there were instances when their trademark appeared in competitors' ads even after GEICO objected. In her December oral ruling, the judge called this a "narrow issue," and said that Google and GEICO should "see whether or not there can be a resolution of what is left in the case." In the recent written decision, she reiterated these points, and explained that while she thought that the ads with "GEICO" in the ad text were confusing, she hadn't decided whether Google was liable for that.

Judge Brinkema's decision is consistent with several other court opinions. A court in Austria recently ruled in our favor, concluding that the use of a trademark to trigger ads isn't likely to confuse consumers. A German court has also ruled in our favor on this issue. And in a case not involving Google, a federal appeals court in the United States recently reached the same result in a keyword-triggered ad case.

We're very pleased with Judge Brinkema's decision, which tracks our AdWords trademark policy. The decision is a victory for consumers.

Finally, even though we believe our current policy strikes a good balance between advertisers, users and trademark owners, don't be surprised if our policy evolves over time. We believe it is possible for an advertiser to create an ad that uses a trademark in a legal and non-confusing way - after all that is what comparative advertising is all about.

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Attention, Froogle shoppers...

Posted by Josh Redstone, Software Engineer

I'm excited to tell you about the enhanced version of Froogle Mobile, a handy service for checking online prices from your cellphone. Say you're in a store eyeing that new BeDazzler that you've always wanted. A quick price check via Froogle Mobile, and you can rest assured that you're getting this wardrobe staple at a fine price. You can also sort queries by price, and Froogle Mobile is now available to our friends in the U.K. too.

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This was posted from Microsoft Word

Posted by Jason Shellen, Product Manager

Last July, a few of us visited the Democratic National Convention to see political bloggers in action. Many were using Microsoft Word to post their reports. It was a multi-step process that didn't look like fun, but for citizen journalists, punctuation, spelling and grammar are important. That got the Blogger team thinking about how to help Word users to become bloggers.

So just now I fired up Microsoft Word, wrote this, hit 'Publish' on the brand new Blogger for Word toolbar and voila - you're reading it. Which means there's really no excuse, blogwise, if you prefer to finely craft your posts over time. Use Blogger for Word as a way to back up your document drafts with the 'Save as Draft' button or work on posts while you are offline and post them later. Hope you enjoy this new add-in.

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We get letters …

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team

The Google mailbag is filled with stories like this one, demonstrating the reach of Google across countries and between people. Occasionally we'll feature such a story here and hope you enjoy reading them. If you have a noteworthy tale about how you've used Google, write to testimonial@google.com.

Laura Escobosa is the executive director of Operation Rainbow, an all-volunteer organization which organizes medical missions to poor countries for American doctors and nurses specializing in orthopedic and plastic surgery. The people on these missions are affiliated with Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and one regular stop for them has been Esteli, Nicaragua. Among those mentioning his Operation Rainbow experience is Dr. Elliot Krane, who cites it on his CV.

Just two weeks ago, this year's team was preparing for its annual trip to Esteli. At the same time, a quite unrelated journey was underway. A young American woman, Alice Orman, was visiting Esteli en route to her new year-long role as an English teacher in Honduras. While in Esteli, she had an accident that led to a leg break in two places. Though local doctors wanted to help, they lacked good facilities or equipment for setting a complicated break properly.

Someone at the hospital remembered the Stanford doctors. The staff knew they were coming soon, but who, and when? Alice called her parents in Nashville for help. They went to Google and typed in [Esteli Stanford] and up came Dr. Krane's reference. They emailed him late that night, and by morning he had replied from his office in Palo Alto. He told them about Dr. Larry Rinsky, an orthopedic surgeon who was packing his bags right then for Esteli. With a copy of Dr. Krane's email reply in hand, Dr. Rinsky called Alice's parents and assured them he would see Alice, and that the team would do what it could for her.

So Alice rested and waited another day, hoping that the arriving team would treat her in addition to their Nicaraguan patients. Ms Escobosa says the team of Stanford doctors and nurses treated her right away, gave her crutches and some TLC too. Within a short time she was able to continue on to Honduras for her year of teaching. And she's there now.

Back in Nashville, Scott and Mindy Orman were very relieved: "When we received the call from Alice," writes Mindy, "we were very worried and didn't know how we could help, being so far away. But the miraculous timing of the Stanford doctors' annual mission trip to Esteli, and the Google search that led us to them, assured us that Alice would be in good hands. We are so thankful for all the prayers and encouragement of so many folks and the excellent care she received from the Stanford team."

Ms. Escobosa wrote us to marvel at the coincidences that led to this happy ending. We're glad we could be part of it.

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