Using cameraphones as its eyes, the service currently is limited to a number of languages including English, Italian, German, French and Spanish. Taking a picture of a menu, street sign, or words off a computer screen, Google Goggle first asks individuals if they want a translation to be completed before automatically processing words. Meanwhile, whilst Google also aim to increase the number of languages that Goggle’s can recognise, they revealed that they had also improved the foundational database to the system, allowing the application to recognise far more objects than before.

Google Goggle’s was first launched last December, marking an important step for the company as visual search was introduced to their portfolio. Whilst it remains a small developmental programme, the company behind it has been pushing efforts to increase its capabilities in a bid to eventually develop an automatic and instant translator. Buying Plink, the virtual search app in April, Google quickly integrated its developers with their own Goggle’s team whilst revealing that they were aiming to open the service to additional mobile platforms other than its own Android.

Dr Prata, who leads the Support to Aviation for Volcanic Ash Avoidance (Savaa) group and is the Norwegian Institute for Air Research’s senior scientist said that though satellite instruments had been vital for mapping the current ash conditions, further sensors were needed to allow for better data. Explaining that the best effort was to develop components that already existed, he said “Everyone’s looking at what the best solutions might be. Nobody wants to spend lots of money so fast-tracking an existing programme would be a good solution.”

Meanwhile the EGU has also been hearing from scientists in regards to explaining the degree of fine ash spewed out by the Icelandic volcano. Edinburgh University’s Dr Thor Thordarson said “Why this event disintegrated the magma so intensely, we don’t know; and it’s something we desperately want to find out. If we get enough observations from a good number of sites then we can reconstruct the total grain-size distribution that was coming out of the vent. And when you have that information, then you can start looking at models to explain the fragmentation processes involved and why they were so intense.”

Announcing their profit figures for the beginning of the year, Nintendo said that the past 12 months to March 31st had noted a 36per cent reduction in funds, falling down to 356.57bn yen. Whilst Wii profits had remained stable after the initial launch of the product, recent advances on other consoles and the decreasing novelty of the device have led to falling sales with 20.53 million units being sold this year. Though still a considerable number, Nintendo said that targets for the year to March 2011 had been reduced to 18 million units to reflect the decreasing interest in the product.

Meanwhile however they revealed that their sales in the DS consoles were likely to be increased this year, with new version of the popular gaming device continuing interest in the product. Whilst they have already brought out a unit with a slightly larger screen and text to allow for hard sighted individuals to use the system’s better, a 3D version is due to be released later this year. With the next generation graphics taking the world by storm, with gaming, electronics and film companies all trying to get in on the action, the current market suggests that a handheld console providing 3D graphics will be gratefully received. However, once the pioneer of the motion controlled gaming console, developments from rivals such as Microsoft and Sony may mean that dwindling Wii sales look set to continue.

Reducing power consumption by creating 19 chip areas so that when not in use certain portions could be turned off, head of handhelds at Intel, Pankaj Kedia, said “We’ve reduced the power so we are competitive in the smartphone space. We’re in the zone.” However, whilst expected to come to phones after tablets due to the rigorous certification process needed to allow operators to sell them, CCS Insight’s director of mobile internet research, Martin Garner, revealed that Intel’s career in developing chips for the mobile market has noted a chequered history. “This is about Intel’s third attempt to do a reference design for phones. They have a not very happy history going back over eight years or so,” he explained.

Expected to first appear in smartphones running Android OS, Intel said that handset’s using Moblin Linux based OS and Meego were also expected to gain the chips. And with standby power reported to be increased to ten days, Pocket Lint founder, Stuart Miles, expressed “it’d be nice not to have to panic for a power socket at the end of the day for your mobile.”

Providing an easy step by step process, users can now provide their personal voice to 53 directions that will then be used in Nokia’s navigation service to guide the way. As simple as following the instructions and reading each direction into the device, the Own Voice sound file is saved and instantly uploaded to the same titled website where owners can download it and use in their Ovi Maps applications as soon as they wish. Meanwhile, for those who don’t wish to hear their own voice repeating direction after direction, a host of other user-generated files will be available on the website including ‘angry Charlotte’ who shouts orders, or ‘the Reaper’ who provides navigational instructions in a deathly tone.

The move from Nokia comes after a successful launch of their Ovi Maps service. Initially brought out in February it has proved popular with consumers, noting over a million downloads in its first week alone. And meanwhile, as Google look to steal some market share with the recent announcement of a free Google Maps navigation service, Nokia’s latest offering will certainly add the custom content that many individuals are looking for.

The move is radically different to methods used by both the Amazon e-book store and iBookstore which provide books for their own specific devices. And with Google already having scanned more than 12 million books it could mark a point where e-books become far more accessible. Yankee Group have already suggested the U.S e-book reader market could be equalling $2.5bn by 2013, but those at Gartner have intimated that Google’s latest announcement could push this figure higher. “Anything that puts more kinds of art in people’s hands in a way that fosters competition, innovation and creativity is good,” explained Gartner senior vice president Whit Andrews.

Markedly opening the access to publications through Google Editions either on PC, netbook or mobile phone, Google engineer Dan Clancy said “It’s much more of an open ecosystem, where you find a way for bricks-and-mortar stores to participate in the future digital world of books. We’re quite comfortable having a diverse range of physical retailers, whereas most of the other players would like to have a less competitive space, because they’d like to dominate.”

Announcing that a glitch had led to the security and privacy of some user’s profiles being compromised, an official statement from Facebook said “For a limited period of time, a bug permitted some users’ chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends by manipulating the ‘preview my profile’ feature of Facebook privacy settings.” They added that quick action had been taken, expressing “When we received reports of the problem, our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function. We also pushed out a fix to take care of the visible friend requests which is now complete.”

With Facebook being alerted to the problem when an article was posted on TechCrunch, live chat services were taken offline and have remained unavailable with Facebook saying “chat will be turned back on across the site shortly.” Meanwhile the company, which have come under a series of severe criticism over the privacy policies upheld by the social networking community website, said that they were working quickly to resolve the issue so that service could commence as normal.

Whilst Apple is already caught in legal affairs due to the recent raid on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computer and information regarding leaked information on the iPhone HD, the latest suggestions could cause a serious problem for Apple. The problem surrounds OLED screens produced by LG which are believed to be incorporated into the latest Apple handsets. Providing the iconic iPhone look, LG have now become embroiled in legal action with AU Optronics (AUO), an Asian screen producer, over possibly infringed screen tech patents from the latter firm.

However, a recent court ruling found that it was in fact LG who had infringed upon AUO’s patents, resulting in AUO now able to seek a legal injunction preventing LG’s OLED screens from being manufactured and used in any products. With possible devastating implications for Apple it could mean the instant halt of their LG relationship, which is estimated to be a $500m deal, with the screen manufacturer having exclusive production rights until 2013. And whilst Apple could take alternate action to secure rights to OLED screens any deviation from their current plans would impact heavily on the their current plans for a summer launch.

Much of the fall for IE has been attributed to the introduction of a browser choice menu in Europe provided by an automatic windows update and installed in all new machines. Meanwhile a public highlighted fault in security may have affected consumers, with both the French and German governments advising internet users to switch to other options.

Meanwhile NetApplications revealed that second dominant browser Firefox had seen significant gains, whilst Google Chrome in third place had noted a sharp increase of late, climbing from last year’s 1.7per cent to a 6.7per cent share. Jeffrey Mann, an analyst at Gartner, expressed that a rising awareness of other browsers was also likely affecting the consumer market. “There are more viable alternatives now,” he said. “Google has been advertising and there are more people using Macs and Apple’s Safari. There is just a great awareness that there are alternatives. There were a lot of people using IE6 and some will have said that if they are going to change, they may as well look at some alternatives,” he added, referring to the recent faults highlighted in IE.

The important step marks a move away from the current system which uses applications that are only able to be stored on Android’s limited inbuilt memory. With developers therefore having to reduce the amount of storage space needed, software quality is impacted. However, with the ability for developers to begin creating applications requiring far more space for storage, Google could see a chance to finally seriously compete against Apple’s thriving application market.

Though the feature has been long awaited by fans and developers alike, Google have now announced that the move is currently in development and will be hitting Android systems soon. However, whilst apologising for the delay in not rolling the system out sooner, Google negated to actually confirm any specific schedule. Meanwhile, with Apple’s iPhone HD speculated to be released later this year, therefore bringing a host of new, graphically advanced applications, Google needs to implement its action fast before it loses an important opportunity.