We've heard from a lot of Google+ users wanting an easier way to understand posts written in other languages, so we thought we should do something about that.

We just introduced on Google+, a new Chrome extension, Google Translate for Google+, that uses the power of Google Translate to automatically translate any post or comment into more than 50 languages.

Once you've installed the extension, refresh Google+ and you'll see Translate links next to posts and comments. Click the links to instantly see translations.

You can get the extension from the Chrome Web Store here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jfppgkomfopklagggkjiaddgndkgopgl

Note: This extension is currently experimental as we figure out the best way to integrate translation into the Google+ community. So please give us your feedback in the comments, or by clicking the “Send Feedback” button on Google+.

Posted by Josh Estelle, Senior Software Engineer

(Cross-posted from the Google Code Blog)

Back in May, we announced the deprecation of the free Translate API v1. Today, we’re introducing a paid version of the Google Translate API for businesses and commercial software developers. The Google Translate API provides a programmatic interface to access Google’s latest machine translation technology. This API supports translations between 50+ languages (more than 2500 language pairs) and is made possible by Google’s cloud infrastructure and large scale machine learning algorithms.

The paid version of Translate API removes many of the usage restrictions of previous versions and can now be used in commercial products. Translation costs $20 per million (M) characters of text translated (or approximately $0.05/page, assuming 500 words/page). You can sign up online via the APIs console for usage up to 50 M chars/month.

Developers who created projects in the APIs Console and started using the Translate API v2 prior to today will continue to receive a courtesy limit of 100K chars/day until December 1, 2011 or until they enable billing for their projects.

For academic users, we will continue to offer free access to the Google Translate Research API through our University Research Program for Google Translate. For website translations, we encourage you to use the Google Website Translator gadget which will continue to be free for use on all web sites. In addition, Google Translate, Translator Toolkit, the mobile translate apps for iPhone and Android, and translation features within Chrome, Gmail, etc. will continue to be available to all users at no charge.

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

A month after this spring’s devastating earthquake in Japan, we created a site where people from around the world could submit messages of hope in their own languages and have them automatically translated into Japanese. From Paris to Dubai to Manila, nearly 30,000 messages have been posted through messagesforjapan.com.

This past weekend marked the celebration of Tanabata in Sendai, the largest city in the disaster area and home to one of the most famous festivals in the country. People often celebrate Tanabata, which means "Evening of the Seventh,” by writing wishes on tanzaku (small strips of paper) and hanging them on bamboo branches. This year, these paper strips displayed some of the messages of hope submitted through the site, and festival participants added their own messages to those from around the world.

We’ve updated messagesforjapan.com so you can see photos of people gathering for Tanabata in Sendai—reading, creating and hanging messages in the area surrounding the disaster earlier this year.

Posted by Arielle Reinstein, Product Marketing Manager