Earlier this week, we got into the speed with which translators translate and how the three T’s (Technology, Traffic management, and Throwing-enough-translators-at-the-job until it’s done) affect delivery and deliverable. Most readers manage around 200 words per minute, and some can read much faster, especially if they scan for just the good parts. Written translation has great shelf life and wears very well. When properly managed, written translation is a gift that keeps on giving, communicating a message to whomever, whenever, wherever, no matter how long ago the translation was completed.
But while translation is asynchronous, meaning readers can read it anytime, not so with interpretation. The spoken word is synchronistic, meaning it’s driven by the clock. Once you say something, meaning expires faster than fresh-caught fish, and if the response lags, then [...]

Google carries the barrier of the language with the translating telephone.

Google is developing software for the first capable assembly to translate foreign tongues almost instantly as the fish bebble and that is all, to speak with Scott in the Galaxy….
Huh? This blog is supposed to be about the Google Voice translation announcement last week, but so far I’m making less sense than usual ― this is smelling more like TranslationParty than some big voice translation breakthrough. Maybe the problem is the SDL machine translation I used for the back translation:
Google lleva la barrera del idioma con el teléfono traductor.

Google está desarrollando software para la primera convocatoria capaz de traducir lenguas extranjeras casi instantáneamente como los peces bebble y eso es todo, hablar con Scott en el Galaxy.
¡Ay, [...]

I watch the Super Bowl for the ads, which I suppose is kind of like saying I read Playboy for the articles, except that in the case of the Super Bowl ads, it’s true.  “Parisian Love” by Google was by far the best ad, and it was probably the first time I teared up watching someone else do a Google search. (I tear up plenty on my own searches… try Haiti and you’ll know what I mean.)
The Google ad (first TV ad ever for this advertising firm) tells the story of a romance helped along by a series of Google searches conducted by some guy who finds a new life after a plan to study abroad in Paris turns into love, marriage, and a need to know how to assemble [...]

Businesses can only spread as far and as fast as they can find people speaking a common tongue, but researcherss at IBM may have the breakthrough. CNN’s Matt Ford’s reports on n.FLUENT at IBM.
The multinational currently has 100 staff working on an internal project named “n.Fluent” that offers instantaneous translation across a variety of platforms.
“n.Fluent” began in 2006 as one of 10 innovations sponsored by IBM’s chairman Samuel J. Palmisano. The company decided that the language barrier was a key issue, both for global businesses and companies with clients worldwide and so resolved to find ways of addressing the problem.
Vernacular and jargon can be particularly problematic for translation software, so “n.Fluent” has been designed to learn from its mistakes and pick up specific terms used within IBM.
To do this the [...]