Google Releases Useful "April Fool's" Tool: IM Translation Bot

Okay, so it's April Fool's Day...

You've no doubt heard laughter and groans through the day as we sift through news reports, blog reports, and emails with an extra-cautious filter knowing that many of the obscure and questionable posts are just another attempt to pull your leg. Some funny, many not. (I personally gave up on April Fool's Day pranks years ago after one too many failed to be funny.)

Google today brings us a series of pranks from many of their teams -- some funny, others amusing. One, in particular, has the potential of being, IMHO*, somewhat useful.

Text messaging on a mobile phone is limited to 160 characters or less, forcing users to creatively squeeze correspondence under the limit. This, coupled with the often difficult task of entering more than 26 characters on a 10 button keypad, has led to a sort of SMS shorthand common amongst the (often younger) text-savvy set. It is widely used in instant messaging conversations, chat rooms, text message conversations and even emails.

Some expressions, "LOL" for example, are commonplace and understood. Others may be more challenging and evasive for parents trying to figure out what their kids are up to or law enforcement trying to translate the latest "net speak". (Though the last one is certainly a stretch, I'd hope our police forces aren't hung up on abbreviations and IM jargon to fight crime!)

Two years ago, on Portland's Morning News (Newsradio 750 KXL), I presented (Listen/MP3) common expressions and how parents can bring themselves up-to-date with the latest online slang.

Now, thanks to Google's April Foolin', it just got a whole lot easier...

Google's Talk Blog today announced plans to "Go Green" by shortening IM conversations over the Google Talk network in an effort to, "Reduce the number of characters we send when we chat with all our friends." (The blog claims that each character (byte) of traffic sent increases energy consumption, thus a reduction in characters sent in IM messages lessens our carbon output.)


Okay, so I realize it's a joke and doesn't actually save the planet. But what this does offer is a simple way to translate IM speak into plain English.

The companion tool to translate IM chatter from full-sized English to shortened IM/SMS-friendly jargon also works in reverse. Add en2im@bot.talk.google.com to your Google Talk contacts and the next time you're wondering what "LOL CUL8R" means, the translation is a merely a quick chat with a bot away...

...now the next sound you hear this April Fool's Day will be a collective sigh of relief from parents finally able to translate their teenager's secret messages.

Happy April Fool's Day!


* IMHO = In My Humble Opinion

Tech Check for 26 Feb: MacBook Updates, Google Chatback, Hotmail Outage

The MacBook and it's bigger brother get a boost today, Microsoft Windows Live services take a mid-day siesta and Google Talk goes micro on Tech Check for 26 Feb 2008.

Apple launched updates to its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines today. Adding 802.11n (faster WiFi), faster Core 2 Duo processors and larger storage are among the features. Jump on over to the online Apple Store to learn more.

Throughout much of the day users of Microsoft's Windows Live Services experienced outages. Users of Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger -- along with other online applications -- found themselves unable to access mail and instant message tools today. The new Windows Server 2008 operating system, which runs the services and launches to the public tomorrow, is said to not be at fault.

Finally to round out what is apparently a look at the big three today, Google launched a micro version of its Google Talk Gadget. Called "Chatback" it allows website developers to place a small bit of code on a web page enabling users to interact with the site creator via. Google Talk. Google's Official Blog has more on the enhancement.

Your feedback is always welcome! Email: techexpert (at) brianwestbrook (dot) com

Using Gmail to Chat With AIM Buddies

Over a year ago, Google bought a piece of AOL. Now in a brilliant move and convenient step towards taking over the online world... Google Talk users can use the Gmail client to chat with their AOL-based buddies.

(Full disclosure: My partner is a software engineer on this project at Google's Kirkland, Wash. office.)

While not perfect, it's a step towards bringing all instant messaging clients together into one big, happy family.

I'm something of a power-user: the 17" screen on my laptop provides extra screen real estate, it seems, simply to handle the growing number of messengers I have running at any given time. With AOL's "Instant Messenger", Microsoft's "MSN Messenger" (err, "Windows Live... uhh, I forgot already"), Google Talk (I prefer a flavour known as the "Google Talk Gadget"), Yahoo! Messenger -- nevermind IM and instant messenger applications from various online and social networking sites. Keeping up with all the flashing windows can be something of a challenge.

MSN Messenger (insert current brand-name-du-jour) and Yahoo have previously allowed synergy between contacts -- though I confess I haven’t quite figured out how. While the Google-AOL partnership is currently only one-way (AIM client users aren't yet able to add Gtalk contacts), I'm happy to be able to drop my simultaneously open IM clients by one.

Not so fast.

Before I bury my AOL Instant Messenger client I'll need to wait until the service is added to the Google Apps platform, a move that will apparently happen in the coming weeks.

If you’re a Gmail user, however, and chat within the Gmail client (using the built-in chat box) – you’ve been upgraded. Look for the “Sign in to AIM” option in the dropdown under your name. Add your AIM login details (the feature requires a separate AOL Instant Messenger account) and your AIM buddies will appear alongside your Google Talk contacts.

Perhaps someday instant messaging will become ubiquitous – much like email – allowing anyone to talk to anyone regardless of which network they are using.

Baby steps … baby steps.