Be careful venting your frustrations with modern technology when using the latest version of Google Chrome, released today. Chrome 11 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) comes with the ability to convert your speech to text, which could prove to be a big boon to people who have difficulty with keyboards as well as providing on the go translations when used with Google Translate.

 

The new feature, based in HTML5, requires a microphone icon embedded in the Web page. Click the icon and then speak into your computer's mic. The input records as text, and the browser automatically inserts the text into the available form field.

You can test this by going to Google Translate and clicking the microphone icon in the lower right corner of the text field. At the time of writing, the microphone and voice-to-HTML feature appears to work only with English.

While the feature is interesting to include in a browser, it's hardly a random decision on Google's part. By including a speech-to-text feature, the Chrome OS instantly provides a modicum of accessibility for users who have difficulty with keyboards. When the browser is the operating system, being able to speak to the computer and have the computer know how to interpret that speech is a quick way to ensure a broader appeal.

Other changes in Chrome 11 include the introduction of hardware accelerated 3D CSS, bug fixes in cloud print, a security update to the built-in version of Adobe Flash, and user agent string changes introduced to bring Chrome in line with user agent changes made in Firefox 4. The jump from Chrome 11 beta to stable also includes 25 security changes, including 15 marked as high risk. These fixes cover potential risks such as URL bar spoofing during navigation errors, and numerous instances of stale pointers in PDF forms, sandboxing, and drop-down list handling.

Google has been moving forward with its less stable versions of Chrome too. It recently bumped Google Chrome Canary version 13 (Windows download only), the first version of Chrome to reach that milestone. Chrome Canary 13 doesn't appear to have any features different from Chrome dev 12 at this time.

Google Chrome dev 12.0.742.9 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) includes tweaks to the Sync interface, introduces a new version of the V8 JavaScript engine, and has been offering a still-in-development feature that lets users select multiple tabs at once. There's also an experimental "new tab" page, which users can activate through the about:flags configuration screen, and a multiple profile option for having different user profiles under the same Windows log-in. Currently, this is available only on the Windows version of Chrome dev, though like speech-to-HTML it has bigger implications for Chrome OS.

 

Google has churned out their newest version of their browser Chrome. Version 7 has fixed hundred of various bugs to make this version go as smoothly as possible to users, but Google say that their big noticable changes in the browser “may be of interest to some developers”.

The new version provides full AppleScript support for Mac OS X which is for UI automation and implementation of the HTML 5 parsing algorithm, File API and Direct Upload. As well as this, Chrome 7 provides easier blocked cookie management.

The bugs which were fixed were just a collection of fairly normal bugs which have been stacking up since the original launch. Don’t expect this to mean everything will run perfect, but it’s going be the best version so far so expect little disappointment.

Chrome 7 is available from Google to download for Windows, Mac, and Linux users.

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.

 

Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.