Google Goggles: Translation

I'm sure you've heard of Google Goggles at this stage. What you may not have heard of is Goggles new translation feature. Plain and simple, anyone who is traveling to another country will find this invaluable. Imagine sitting in a café in France but not having a single word of French. With the new Goggle service all you need to do is aim your phone at a word or phrase on the menu, use the 'Region of Interest' button to draw a box around specific words, take a picture, and if Goggles recognises the text it will give you the option to translate it. Then just press the 'Translate' button. Brilliant!

The first prototype of the service was unveiled at the beginning of the year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona but it only worked with German. The service has now been upgraded to read English, French, Italian, German and Spanish and can translate these into many more languages. All in all the service is still limited to Latin-based languages but Google's goal is to eventually provide a service that will read non-Latin languages (such as Chinese, Hindi and Arabic) too.

Google Goggles is currently available on devices running Android 1.6 and higher.

Carlsberg: The Secret - The Music

Back in December I posted about the launch of the Carlsberg ad, The Secret. The ad premièred on Facebook and proved to be hugely popular. What was particularly interesting was the buzz that sprung up around the ads music. Well I am delighted to announce that I have been able to get a clean sample of the tune!

Either play it below or download it here...

In case you can't remember it, this is the ad itself...

Vodafone Italy Domino Effect

A fantastic ad from Vodafone Italy to show their latest 'Smart' tariffs. Using a very elaborate Rube Goldberg Machine mechanic, the ad uses a brilliant domino effect to show a variety of cool apps interacting to bring the campaign tagline to life - 'piu smart conVodafone' (Smarter with Vodafone).

Calvin Klein & Chatroulette

Chatroulette, the online chat platform developped by Russian student Andrey Ternovskiy, has spurred a number of high profile 'virals', all equally hilarious. however, the platform is also widely seen to be bursting with sex and nudity. So in a fun advertising campaign Calvin Klein now offers a small program that scans for nudity on Chatroulette and then hides it with Calvin Klein underwear. Brilliant!

Lonely Planet Offers Free iPhone Guides

Every now and then a company does something really cool. This is very much one of those times. With so many travellers stuck in foreign locations due to the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, the Lonely Planet has made 13 of its city guides available on the App Store for free. The move has been made so that these unfortunate folk might be able to make the most of their “unexpected” holiday.

Tom Hall, Lonely Planet Travel Editor, commented on the Lonely Planet "Volcano Relief Sale", saying:

“Travellers stuck in unfamiliar places need access to practical information as well as suggestions on what to do while stranded.”

These iPhone apps are usually priced between €10 and €15 but have been made available for free for the next four days (until 11:59pm GMT Thursday 22/04). The 13 free Apps are: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Istanbul, London,Moscow, Munich, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, and Vienna.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand, and appreciate, the marketing here - 4 days of free downloads could potentially generate huge later sales as users come to realise the quality and value of the Lonely Planet Apps, as well as generating public positive sentiment through the campaign. All that said, I still think this is a great initiative and something that other companies could learn from. I don't advocate profit from misfortune, but I certainly think that temporary goodwill gestures (whether they could have future positive sales impacts or not) are a very good thing.

Fair play Lonely Planet.