Global Watchtower™

How Google Translate will Increase Demand for Human Translation

Benjamin B. Sargent — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:54:55 +0000

Journalists writing about machine translation always lean on the proposition that MT will one day put professional translators out of business. Just as likely, ubiquitous availability of “good enough” translation will do the opposite. Here is why. (more…)

SDL Acknowledges Longstanding Demand for Affordable TM and Open Systems

Donald A. DePalma — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:32:58 +0000

SDL today announced an update to Trados Studio, a new edition for freelancers, and an open application programming interface (API) for Trados. The freelancer version and API respond to longstanding demands in the marketplace for lower-priced translation memory (TM) software and a more open global information management (GIM) ecosystem.

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Telephone Interpreting Firms Compete for U.S. Federal Dollars

Nataly Kelly — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:58:16 +0000

This morning, California-based Language Line Services announced that the company was chosen to provide nationwide interpreting services for asylum proceedings — both in person and via telephone — for the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. While the total potential award amount was not disclosed, the asylum contract is just one of a string of federal contracts that is attracting the attention of telephone interpreting vendors at the moment. (more…)

New Online Tools Move Translation into the Cloud

Benjamin B. Sargent — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:36 +0000

While established players Lingotek, Lionbridge, Sajan, SDL, and Welocalize continue to make noise about crowd-in-the-cloud translation management, upstart entrepreneurs are jumping into the fray with innovative technologies modeling new approaches to crowd and cloud-based translation systems. Most are web-resident applications (metaphorically “in the cloud”) but several go further, deploying literally in cloud-computing architectures such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). (more…)

Where to Find More Military Interpreters? Do Tell.

Nataly Kelly — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:55:39 +0000

This month, U.S. President Barack Obama called for an end to the 16-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The top two defense officials, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, followed suit. How will this change affect the U.S. military’s ability to staff languages of limited demand and critical need? (more…)