Thing #18 Google Products Panoramio and Google Translate

I'm skipping Thing #17 for now as the slide program won't open on my Internet.

My Goodness! Google has so many products that it's hard to choose just two more....

The first product I choose is Panoramio - it's a photo product, but the photos are linked to Google Earth.  I found it easy to search for places using the map or search box.  There aren't a whole lot of photos added yet, but I did find some nice ones of Space Shuttle launches from the Cape and views of Kuwait City where I lived at one time.  It's somewhat like Flick-R but more devoted to places than personal photos.  You can also share travel itineraries with others and link your photos geographicaly to Google Maps.

The other Google product I investigated is Google Translate.  It's fascinating!  You type in the word on the left in your language or another and on the right it appears in a second language.  Many of them can be spoken aloud by a voice, some realistic and some machine-made.  They have lots of obscure and not so obscure languages.  I'm sure kids would have fun typing in bad words or phrases to see what would come out.  And yes, it does work to a degree.  There were even multiple alternative choices in German for "Bastard" so you could call someone all sorts of bad things.  The voice sounds so cheery, though, you just don't get the correct inflection....

In a more serious application this could be used in a pinch to communicate with patrons who speak a language you don't.  It waould also be great on a smartphone while you are traveling. Here's "I need to print out my boarding pass" in Finnish, "Minun täytyy tulostaa minun lippuni."

I also found the helps for searching in Google to be interesting and I learned a few things reading it.