So long, Alfred. It's been nice knowing you.

Google informed users of its Alfred local-recommendations mobile app recently that the time has come for the helper to be retired as of July 19. Users who have liked places that they want to take with them must request their data from Google by tomorrow.

Alfred was the brainchild of developer Clever Sense. Google acquired the app in its acquisition of that development house in December 2011. The company initially had plans to keep it open for the "foreseeable future."

Alfred provided recommendations on local places, including restaurants and bars. It was designed to learn what people liked and then recommend other places based on that. It appears now, though, that it didn't take off the way Google had hoped.

(Via Techcrunch)

When Chrome for Android encounters a Web page in a different language, it will offer to translate it.

Google, always trying to break down language barriers as part of its mission to make the world's information accessible, has added on-the-fly, automatic Web page translation to its Chrome browser for Android devices.

Chrome 28 for Android, released Wednesday, has the translation feature built in, said Chrome team member Jason Kersey in a blog post. The feature has been built into Chrome for personal computers for years.

Also new in Chrome 28 for Android, according to Kersey and another Chrome team member, Dan Alcantara:

• An optimized user interface for right-to-left (RTL) languages including Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew.

• Full-screen support on tablets, which lets Web apps -- in particular games and video -- take over the entire screen.

• Support for Google's experimental data compression service that lets fast Google serve... [Read more]