Internet & Websites News - Page 90

If you play games on Facebook, which, by the way 40 to 50 per cent of the time spent on Facebook is playing games, and those games - like Farmville and Mafia Wars - are paid for and you have to buy credits for that and they are called Facebook Credits.

If you come in through Facebook, you'll be able to access for free all stories involving animals born with extra limbs.

If you come in through Twitter, you'll be able to access for free words that contain more than six letters, but only those that refer to antiquated transportation machines (i.e. "funicular").

If you come in through Google, you'll be able to access stories of criminals who break into people's houses and then do strange things, such as take a shower or eat a snack.

If you come in through Digg, you'll be able to read for free all stories that refer to TV's Erik Estrada.

Slideshows and videos of adorable kittens (our signature offering) will be available for free only to one very senior New York Times employee.

No longer will people be required bend to the will of technology. Instead, technology will now bend to our will.

Say, for example, you're planning a winter trip to Tahoe, Calif. When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you're looking for a new pasta recipe, we'll show you +1's from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1'd your local coffee shop.

I believe that efforts like those of Google are essential to keeping our language alive.

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - The international technology leader Google has added the Cherokee written language, called Cherokee Syllabary, to its repertoire of searchable languages. Just like the many other languages Google supports, now anyone who can read and write Cherokee can look up virtually anything, at least in the universe of the World Wide Web.

"I believe that efforts like those of Google are essential to keeping our language alive," said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith. "We have been working hard to get our young people interested in learning our Native tongue but we cannot be successful unless they can read and write in the medium of their era - all the digital devices that are currently so popular."

Cherokee Nation translators worked side by side with Google employees to work through all the challenges of adding a new, and very different, language to their services. The syllabary, created by Sequoyah in the early 1800s has characters, some of which resemble Latin and Greek letters. The 85 character syllabary quickly made the majority of Cherokees literate and was adapted into the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix which was written in Cherokee and English.

Over the past decade Cherokee Nation has been dedicated to keeping its language vital. It started with free language classes, a youth choir that sings in Cherokee, student language bowl competitions, a Cherokee degree program at Northeastern State University and a language immersion school that has grown every year, which is now up to fifth grade.

"Translators from Cherokee Nation were eager to volunteer to help make this project a reality, including Cherokee speaking staff, community members and youth," said Cherokee Nation Language Technologist Joseph Erb. "We now have the power and knowledge of the Internet accessible in our own language."

Google's corporate mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Their work with the Cherokee Nation gives access to the most comprehensive search engine in our Native language. "With these tools we are building for Cherokee tomorrow," added Erb.