Google has started showing a virtual keyboard on search pages in non-Latin languages that require special characters such as Hindi, Arabic and Russian. The virtual keyboard has been introduced to allow users type exact search words independent of the keyboard layout of the computer in use.

To access the on-screen keyboard, click the keyboard icon next to Google search box.

You can Google's virtual keyboard functionality in action on Google India (Hindi), Google Greece, Google Finland, Google Sweden, Google Iceland, Google Poland, Google Russia, Google Ukraine, Google South Arabia, Google Thailand, Google Mongolia and others.

In June 2009, Google had introduced the virtual keyboard API that developers could use on their multilingual web sites. You can also see the API in action on Google Code Playground site.

[Google OS]