Google Transliteration IME (Input Method Editor)

Typing is one of the most important skill of computer users.  It was a time when people used Typewriters even now. I have experienced typing with those typewriters, it's very painful and expectation of mistake since letters are not erasable :) I learned typing with Typewriters when I was at 9^th standard 4 years ago. Hardworking is required to excel at this skill! Well what if you have to learn another language like Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Punjabi, Gujarati or any other Indic language? I'd not like to go and learn them all, who has time? I have had a software "Hindi  Writer" which helped me writing in Hindi with my roman (en-us) keyboard. Hindi Writer works well with ease.
          Recently Google launched a software Google Transliteration IME (Input Method Editor). Which allows users to write in supported language like Hindi, Arabic, Marathi, Telugu etc with their existing roman keyboard. It doesn't translates the words but transliterates. Transliteration means a transcription from one alphabet to another or rewrite in a different script.
How does Google Transliteration IME work?
When you type a word say "Google" it converts (transliterates) the script according to the pronunciation instead of what it means in Hindi or other language as "गूगल"

You can toggle English to Hindi and Hindi to English by pressing Ctr+G or F12. It comes with a keyboard (Ctr+K) map called char picker. In case you don't see proper combination of your word in the choices then you can use Char Picker to input letters.
The interface and the floating toolbar is pretty and decent. The floating toolbar pops up and shows a number of possibilities of the word may be as you type a word in the sequence of priorities 


Google Transliteration IME is available for 14 different languages -
Arabic, Bengali, Farsi (Persian), Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu

Start using Google Transliteration IME after installing the software from
http://www.google.com/ime/transliteration
However there is a web based transliteration also. Access the web based transliteration at
http://www.google.com/transliterate/

I posted a blog about the Domain Names in Hindi and other regional languages. So there was a problem that how would people type the Hindi URLs? So now Google has done a very good job and came with this solution. I am very much sure that people would like this IME. 

How about you? Have you tried Google Transliteration? Did you like it?
शेखर साहू

Related: Google Recently Launched Virtual Keyboard.