TAUS drops membership fees, finally
The Translation Automation User Society has always been an organization that I’ve admired more in theory than in practice. That is, I admire the organization’s goal of broadly sharing translation …
John Yunker
Have you localized your error messages?
While trying (and failing) to buy an iPhone this morning, I’ve encountered three different error screens. Here’s my favorite: I seriously doubt that “Oops!” has been localized for different markets. …
Twittering in Tongues: How companies are going global with Twitter
Over the past six months, Twitter went from mostly serving people based inside the US to mostly serving people based outside of the US. Today, 60% of Twitter’s 105 million registered …
Interview: Lionbridge and IBM seek to expand “real time” translation
As readers of this blog well know, I’ve been bullish on machine translation for quite some time. Way back in 2004, I wrote: Note to translators: I’m not implying you’ll …
The Swiss Air global gateway: When one flag isn’t enough
When it comes to web globalization and, in particular, global navigation, the general rule about flags is to avoid using them. By avoiding them, you avoid stepping into any number …
The Globalization of Enterprise Content Management Software
From SharePoint to Documentum to Interwoven, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software provides the information infrastructure for large enterprises, both internally and externally. And although most ECM developers will eagerly say …
United vs. Continental: Which is the better global web site?
When I read about the announced merger between United Airlines and Continental, I began wondering which web site would win out over the other. As of now, there is a …
Google, Bing and Babelfish: What’s the best translation engine?
Two months ago I wrote about an effort to evaluate the quality of the three major free machine translation (MT) engines: Google Translate Bing (Microsoft) Translator Yahoo! Babelfish Ethan Shen …
Country Codes of the World Cup
It’s almost here. Just a month away. The 2010 World Cup! There are 32 countries competing in the World Cup, which means 32 country codes. In celebration of those 32 …
Adobe launches translation crowdsourcing in China
Facebook has demonstrated that you can crowdsource translations with high quality and rapid turnaround, leading many other companies to ask how they too can leverage the crowd to translate their …
The dawn of a new URL
ICANN announced today that its first full-length IDN has gone live. Here it is: http://وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر Give it a test drive. I just did (on the Mac) and Firefox, Safari, and …
Nike -> Brike
From today’s Wall Street Journal: Nike Inc. aims to boost annual revenues more than 40% to $27 billion over the next five years by adding new stores and rapidly expanding …
For the love of Chinglish
As Shanghai cleans up its more humorous Chinese to English mistranslations, some folks are feeling wistful. Check out the NYT slideshow. Also, I was just told that the Telegraph has …
Free webinar: Secrets of the Best Global Websites
I’m pleased to be speaking on a topic near and dear to my heart — the best practices of global websites. Lionbridge is hosting the webinar and attendance is free. …
Air France wants to be liked — in English or French
Since I’m on the topic of Facebook and its “like” button, I just received an email from Air France that linked to, what else, an Air France Facebook page: www.facebook.com/airfrancemusic …
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