Where are Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft taking us?

Where are Facebook, Google, IBM and Microsoft taking us? 

Fascinating article from TAUS: " It’s become a standing joke in technology crystal-ball gazing: fully automatic machine translation will be available “within five years”, a prediction made regularly since the 1980s. Well, this time it seems to be true."

What is your opinion about machine translation?

Many companies in the industry are taking the view that linguists are an unnecessary cost in localization and should be replaced by computer automated translation.

In the overall rush to various "systems" for localization, no one is getting feedback from the linguists themselves.

This week, we started polling our resources on the following questions related to the current issues in the industry:

Turkish pranksters load Facebook Translate with swears

Turkish pranksters load Facebook Translate with swears

Feedback on Admerix's Preferred Linguist Express program

Our project managers are really excited about our Preferred Linguist Express program. It is project managers in the industry who bear the brunt of not being able to source the right linguists for their projects because their companies choose to stall payments to improve their cash flow.

At Admerix we seek to show our respect for linguists with immediate payment for their valuable work.

We've already had excellent feedback from some of our resources.

Below is from K, a Japanese subject specialist:

...I greatly appreciate your effort to pay so quickly. Because no other companies can do that!

In a further email he commented: 

...I wouldn't mind if you quote this fastest payment in your blog. Your effort deserves to be praised. Note that usual companies take a month or two to pay money after invoices reaches them. Your company is quite  different. Anyway, I look forward to working with you again.
Kindest regards,
K

So, when you trust Admerix with your key projects, you can be assured that we are working with the very best subject specialists available--linguists we have built up experience and trust with over many large-scale projects over the years.

"SDL acquires LanguageWeaver. First reactions."

Great analysis of the implications of the sale of LanguageWeaver: SDL acquires LanguageWeaver. First reactions.

The article is by Renato Beninatto, one of the few sane and reasoned voices who really knows what's going on in the localization industry.