English-only multinationals are a bad idea
You can decree that the employees of your company speak only English. You can train everyone. You can test everyone. And you can get everyone to speak English in meetings, …
Languages
Money talks (in many languages)
It’s no secret that the US has been on a borrowing binge for quite some time. So when the US launched its redesigned $100 bill last year, the Fed went …
Taking Mobile Global: Tips for Aligning Mobile and Global Web Strategies
Here’s a new article I’ve written for UX Magazine on the importance of aligning global and mobile strategies. Too often, companies develop mobile apps and mobile websites without considering localization requirements. Here …
And another thing…
I recently received a t-shirt from Glyph Languages Services that I have to share: The ampersand is composed of translations of the word “and” into 150 languages — from Afrakaans …
Learning from the world’s leading travel websites
I wrote an article for UX Magazine (based on my research for Lionbridge) that highlights global best practices in the travel industry. Travelers want websites that travel with them In …
Holiday Greetings from Lexiteria
Lexiteria, a unique word products and services company, licensed our world peace design and customized it with their logo and message. I’m biased naturally, but I really like this card! …
Select Language(s): Facebook takes language settings to the next level
Facebook is updating its user profile page (profiled in-depth here) and one of the changes is to ask users to self-select one or more languages. Facebook already looks at the …
Inside Google’s language detection tool
One of the highlights of attending the 2010 Unicode Conference was listening to Richard Sites explain how he developed Google’s statistical language detection algorithm. You may have already used this …
The next Internet revolution will not be in English
This visual depicts about half of the currently approved internationalized domain names (IDNs), positioned over their respective regions. Notice the wide range of scripts over India and the wide range …
World Peace
‘Tis the season for greeting cards. Here is ours… I’ve posted the design to Zazzle. They may be customized with company name, etc. World Peace (green) World Peace (white)
See the World, featured in Communication Arts
Our See the World “eyechart” is featured on Communication Arts today. Now I realize the holidays are six weeks away, but it’s never too early to begin thinking about a …
Fonts in the cloud: Finding the most multilingual solution
For years, web designers have been restricted to a paltry range of fonts. It’s not that operating systems don’t support many fonts. They do. It’s just that web sites must …
See the world: A multilingual eye chart
The latest creation from Byte Level Research, available for purchase at bytelevel.com/eyechart. This unique take on the Snelling eye chart includes characters from more than 20 languages. It’s the perfect …
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 …
Signs of a translation rebound in Latin America
Idea Factory Languages, with 85 full-time employees and production centers in Brazil and Argentina, specializes in translation and localization for the Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese language markets. CEO Teddy Bengtsson …