Sri Lankan app developer Dhanika has developed SETT browser (download), a web browser for the Android platform for rendering webpages with unicode in Tamil, Sinhalese and English languages. Google's mobile OS, Android does not support Indic language scripts; in fact, in the developer pages of Android's latest release, Gingerbread or Android 2.3, Google lists support for Hindi (not Tamil and Sinhalese) in its SDK. However, developers have complained that it still doesn't work with Hindi. SETT Browser (Sinhala English Tamil Trilingual), which is a modification of the open source Zirco browser for Android renders text that is both native (unicode) text as well as transliterated (into Latin script): users on Android 2.2-Froyo can use SETT Browser to read native text, but for older versions of Android (above 2.0, though), the browser displays text in transliterated in the Latin script. We tried the browser, and found that it rendered the text in both modes. Note that BOLT, a J2ME based browser also supports Indic languages. According to Androidos.in, the Android version of BOLT is also in the pipeline. Nikhil adds: it's strange that Google isn't doing enough to support Indic languages in India. Android is getting significant push from its handset partners in India, perhaps its time Google did something to support them. India may not be a high priority market for the company when it comes to the online space, but that shouldn't be the case in mobile. Related: - Mobile Browser BOLT To Launch Support For 9 Indian Languages - Futuregazing: The Opportunity…
