Deglobalization & AI: The calm before the storm
While reviewing websites for the 2025 Web Globalization Report Card I was struck by two things: Combined, I believe we are in the midst of the calm before the storm. …
MT
Language is a feature (to be promoted)
One of the takeaways from the Web Globalization Best Practices & Emerging Trends report is that language is a feature, every bit as important as many other features. After all, …
Massively multilingual
It seems like only yesterday (2009 actually) when Google Translate had reached 50 languages. And for the past few years it appeared that Google has largely plateaued at the low …
Neural machine translation is unlocking website content and connecting the world
The fact that neural machine translation has the word “machine” in it should tell you that this technology has been evolving for a very long time, to back when computers …
Apple Translate expands to iPad and across apps
Apple may have been late to the machine translation game but they’re working to make up for lost time. They announced today that the Apple Translate app is coming to …
Announcing the State of Localization survey
LILT, a Global by Design sponsor, is asking for those of us in the localization industry to give our thoughts on localization trends, best practices and our priorities for the …
TAUS launches Data Marketplace
TAUS has gone live with its Data Marketplace. This resource, co-developed with Translated and FBK Trento, and co-financed by the European Union, provides more than 35 billion words across more …
Reinventing the Translation Industry: Notes from the TAUS conference
I recently participated in the TAUS event Reinventing the Translation Industry. The focus of the event was on imagining the translation industry a year from now, in light of our global …
Apple Translate is coming
Very cool (and overdue) announcement this morning from the Apple WWDC. The Apple Translate is on its way and is all about voice (and privacy). Here are the supported languages. …
Join me in reinventing the translation industry
I’m happy to be participating in the upcoming TAUS event: Reinventing the Translation Industry. This virtual event, taking place June 8-18th, poses the question: What will be the state of …
Google Translate expands to 108 languages
Google announced the addition of five languages today: Kinyarwanda Odia (Oriya) Tatar Turkmen Uyghur (Sadly, many of the speakers of Uyghur won’t have access to this tool) Notes Google: These …
Say goodbye to Google Translator Toolkit
Not a huge surprise given the lack of investment over the years and the rise of more full-featured competitors, but Google is shutting down its Translator Toolkit: Google Translator Toolkit …
Leading with languages: Why 30 languages is below average
According to the 2019 Web Globalization Report Card, 32 languages is the “average” number of languages supported by the leading global brands.
Google and Wikipedia: Partners in (multilingual) content
In 2008, Google launched a project called Knol. Remember it? It was designed to replace Wikipedia. Google apparently wasn’t happy that so many of its visitors were quickly abandoning it …
A More Responsive Google Translate
Google Translate is the world’s most popular translation tool. The company says it now translates 30 trillion sentences a year across 103 languages. The key data point here is the …