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Back in June 2009, Google introduced a virtual keyboard API that developers can use to add to their multilingual web sites. In fact, we used it on some of our web sites.
Now, Google is including this virtual keyboard directly in the search bar, within the search results page. For example, conduct a search at Google Poland or Google Israel and after you search, on the search results page, you will see a keyboard icon near the search bar. Clicking it will bring up a virtual keyboard. Here are pictures:
There is a detailed help document on Google using the virtual keyboard in the search results. Here is a closer screen shot of a virtual keyboard:
Pretty cool, don't you think?
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and hat tip to Kasia and Istvan.
Comments:
Rasmus
04/20/2010 01:09 pm
So this was not just a test - we saw this in Sweden last week: http://twitpic.com/1h1hau
Barry Schwartz
04/20/2010 01:11 pm
Thanks, I didn't mean to imply it is a test. It seems to be on all non-latin characters.
Ilan
04/20/2010 03:44 pm
This works better than I expected. It even works with Hebrew Nikud (diacritic marks that are used instead of vowels). Turn on the virtual Caps Lock and then Shift to activate :)
Javier Guillen
04/22/2010 03:02 pm
I added that improvement in my search engine http://keitor.com for some time, and it went quite unnoticed, but if Google makes people say they are geniuses … You can check at http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/keitor-com-improving-your-search-experience Also in my translation web http://babelxl.com offers virtual keyboards. Soon Google will copy to his translator and bring the glory
Michael Butler
04/22/2010 03:58 pm
I wonder when the virtual keyboard API will work with the Prototype Javascript Library :)