Andrew Joscelyne
European, a language technology industry watcher since Electric Word was first published, sometime journalist, consultant, market analyst and animateur of projects. Interested in technologies for augmenting human intellectual endeavour, multilingual méssage, the history of language machines, the future of translation, and the life of the digital mindset.
English into 3D
In a previous speculative blog, I suggested that text to visual 3D ‘translation’ might one day enhance our access to content. This report from...
Hype(r)words
Words in a text are wannabee ‘hot’ links. So treat every word on a web page as a launch pad for searching, translating, pronouncing,...
The old spark of Electric Word
Thanks to John Rynne, language tech nostalgia-seekers can reread bits and pieces of LT/Electric Word, a now-defunct computer mag founded about 20 years ago...
Keyboard as programmable interface
Check out this coming-soon keyboard from the Russian developer Optimus. Presumably still in the design stage, it apparently enables users to actually program their...
A theory of translation: the short version
Just read a strange book (called Shutter island) by Dennis Lehane of Mystic River fame. A couple of characters in post-WW2 America talking about...
pi or omeros
Boing Boing reports (via the BBC) that a Japanese man managed to “remember” pi to 83,431 decimal places, doubling the world record. He took...
Memory or machine?
In my Google alert for ‘machine translation’ the other day I received this:
Lionbridge & Bowne: Waiting For the Other Shoe To Drop
Corante – USA
“......
SDL acquires Trados
A big event in the (smallish) localization business, but one long expected by insiders who tracked SDL’s rise and rise. Users at every level...
L without H
Blast from the past: Jo Lernout, half the notorious Belgian double act from the 1990s, has published a “my story†autobiography. He is interviewed...
Key bored?
The standard QWERTY layout of the English language typing keyboard has been much debated by economists as an example of sub-optimal design achieving commercial...
Greeked domain names
According to Multilingual Search, quoting the Greek telecoms authority EETT, Greece is to introduce domain names expressed in the Greek alphabet in early July....
Google’s translation agenda
Haven’t had time to do the proper checking, but Google invited journalists to discover what’s cooking in their development kitchen last week, in the...
ABC of Kulcha
Useful review article by a US academic working in Japan of some recent books on the cultural stereotyping of Asians. Main issues dealt with:
Is...
Virtual keyboards for real
More in my occasional series on keyboards. French academic spin-off Sensitive Object is planning to develop an acoustics-based technology solution to the multiple and/or...
Poetic license
Only just seen The Spellchecker’s Guide to Poetry, a poem by John Fuller which appeared in the Times Lit Sup for April 13 (subscribers...
Should linguists do politics?
The French linguist Claude Hagège has called for greater diversity in European language policy, (thanks to Transblawg for the link) suggesting that a Slavic...
Unicode texting
If you want to send a non-Latin script text message to a mobile phone, do it via the web. The South African firm SMSWarehouse...
Morse vs SMS
The London Times reports on a messaging competition pitching a 93 year old telegraph typist using Morse code against a 13 year old using...
Open source MT workshop
OS enthusiasts should note the workshop on Open Source translation technologies at the MT summit to be held this summer in Phuket, Thailand:
Open-source software...
Nations of Bloggers
Ross Mayfield, a major blogosphere commentator, recently reported on Les Blogs, an event held in Paris to scan and reflect on blogging habits in...
KOD linguistics
Deutsche Welle published a curious story the other day about a German supermarket millionaire called Johann Vielberth who is funding a project to develop...
Multilingual keyboard
An outfit called Kợnyin – yes that’s a diacritical under the ‘o’ , not a smudge – has just launched a range of...
The short version
The UK text processing company Corpora Software has struck again (see here for a previous posting on their products), this time with Summarize!, a...
Battles won on the playing field
Scrutinizers of the spread of international English may like to note the two part series on "The Ascent of English" in The Financial Times...