Localization Today

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) announced earlier this week that it's launched an institute specifically dedicated to the development of language technology for Indian languages.

The largest healthcare provider in the state of Washington is currently facing a lawsuit over its use of faulty video remote interpreting (VRI) technology.

While brushing up on some Arabic vocabulary, one user pointed out that Google Translate's entry for the Arabic word meaning "plan" was accompanied by an example phrase that means "planning to blow up the car."

This non-conventional way of creating innovative products passes through five phases — e mpathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test — and is most useful to tackle ill-defined or unknown challenges. So how can we best translate these phases with localization in mind?

Interpreters Unlimited (IU) has developed and released IU Customer App, a proprietary program that allows professionals and businesses to book foreign language interpreters and American Sign Language interpreters in-person, over the phone, or via remote video.

TikTok, a popular video-based social media platform, just became the latest big tech company to launch its own translation feature.

Spotify recently addressed user concerns regarding the automatic translation of song names into English, making titles in languages such as Chinese particularly difficult to find on the platform.

BigScience, an artificial intelligence (AI) research initiative, recently launched  BLOOM , an open-source large language model (LLM) that aims to make such technology more accessible.

In 2018, Airbnb began a major transformation in its localization strategy and operations, developing and executing countless decisions, projects, products, processes and improvements — which have not only collectively produced strong business results, but also garnered external validation.

In a statement to MultiLingual, Iris Permuy, president of ATRAE, elaborated on the open letter, which claimed that subtitlers and audiovisual translators face low rates and “appalling” work conditions that naturally lead to a decline in quality.

Translating a well-documented, widely spoken language is hard enough. Translating one that doesn’t even have a standardized writing system is even harder. That’s the dilemma Nye County, Nevada is currently facing. 

User feedback — direct information from those who use your product — is both the most important aspect of any good methodology and also key to any localization effort.

A month after Disney+ launched in Turkey, local media reported that the company’s Turkish subtitle translators received an email with directions on certain content and sensitive themes that they should flag when working on translation assignments.

The announcement comes just a few months after the company announced that it would begin a project to develop a machine translation (MT) tool that can translate the majority of the world’s 7,000 or so languages.

Verbit is undergoing an organizational change involving about 50 layoffs in the U.S. and 30 in Israel. It will employ a total of 520 employees following the cutback, 50 more than it had when it announced its latest funding round.

Squid Game , the subject of everyone’s  favorite subtitling debate , has become the first non-English series to receive a nomination for outstanding drama at the Emmy Awards.

A new translation and transliteration tool with a particular emphasis on Southeast Asian languages allows users to easily write in non-Latin scripts without the use of a different keyboard or settings.

So what are the elements that a company must have in place to conquer global growth in an agile way?

ENCO , a Michigan-based company specializing in technology for radio and television broadcasting, announced July 6 that it has acquired TranslateTV (TTV) and Sentinel Solutions.

Reports of service outages across several Lionbridge platforms have kept the language service provider’s (LSP) engineers busy over the past week. 

Speechmatics, a startup developing speech recognition technology, announced June 27 that it raised $62 million in Series B funding.

On Friday June 23,  the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Board of Education of the City of Chicago agreed to a settlement with a group of parents who filed a federal lawsuit after being denied interpreting and translation services.

Dozens of independent contractors, including translators and interpreters, turned out today for a U.S. Department of Labor Zoom forum over proposed rule changes to employment regulations. 

Zoom announced earlier this month that it will be rolling out a machine translation (MT) feature along with a suite of additional offerings in its new Zoom One package.

Illinois’s House Bill 5214 (HB 5214) — which expands access to interpreters in the state’s public schools — was approved earlier this month, going into effect immediately as of June 10.