The Google Chrome 11 Beta has landed. The latest beta version comes with several new features which, while may be of interest more to developers for now, will eventually benefit every user. Google Chrome 11.0.696.16 Beta now available adds support for the HTML5 speech input API. It also comes with support for some 3D CSS features.

"Today, we’re updating the Chrome beta channel with a couple of new capabilities, especially for web developers. Fresh from the work that we’ve been doing with the HTML Speech Incubator Group, we’ve added support for the HTML5 speech input API," Satish Sampath, Software Engineer at Google writes.

"With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe your voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, you simply click on an icon and then speak into your computer’s microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for you.

HTML5 speech input, as is obvious from the name, enables web developers to implement speech-to-text features in their web pages and apps. Speech input makes the most sense on mobile devices, where it's used the most, but its applications can be wider.

The world is moving beyond the keyboard and mouse and towards alternative input methods. On smartphones and tablets, speech recognition comes in rather handy, but there hasn't been a way for web apps to use it from the browser.

With the introduction of support in Chrome, Google hopes to push the adoption of the feature. Of course, Chrome itself is headed for touch-based devices, as an experimental new tab page demonstrates.

The HTML5 speech input API is technology and platform agnostic, it only provides a way for the web page to notify the browser that it can receive speech input. The recognition and text transcription have to be done either locally, via built in capabilities, or on a remote server.