Google has updated the Chrome beta channel with a couple of new capabilities, especially for web developers.

The HTML Speech Incubator Group has added support for the HTML5 speech input API. With this API, developers can give web apps the ability to transcribe users' voice to text. When a web page uses this feature, users click on an icon and then speak into their computer's microphone. The recorded audio is sent to speech servers for transcription, after which the text is typed out for them.

The new beta release also offers a sneak peek of GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, which allows developers to apply slick 3D effects to web page content using CSS.

Lastly, users on the beta channel will start seeing the brand new shiny Chrome icon on their desktops.



Full details about the changes that are in Chrome 11 are avilable in the SVN revision log.

The latest Chrome 11.0.696.16 is available to the Beta channel for Windows, Mac, and Linux.