Google has released its new way of using pinyin (the Latin alphabetic transcription of Chinese characters) to display Chinese on computers: Google Pinyin.
One sentence about this in a (short) review by Shanghaiist got me thinking: “If a user simultaneously logs into his Google account while typing, [Google Pinyin] will analyze and learn his word entry habit, and over time optimize character output to save user time. How cool is that?”
That’s not just cool — it’s also very smart. While my verdict on Google’s newly released translation tool was not favorable or mild, that system’s built-in ability to learn is promising. Ditto for Google’s book-scanning projects.
It looks like Google has started a rather intensive online Chinese class, helped by millions of users. (Of course, the same goes for all the other languages — but Chinese poses a special challenge.)
It would be interesting if Google would lift the lid a bit on this operation.
