Language Technology News for 2010

News for other time periods: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009.

New contents are provided biweekly. Please email any relevant news to feedback@lt-world.org.

A new crop of startups aims to bring artificial intelligence to the masses
2010/03/15

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24766/?nlid=2816
South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive has a reputation as being the place for social Web startups to hit the headlines. Twitter found one of its first big audiences at the event in 2007, and attendees are among the most eager adoptees of new social Web tools. To harness this cutting-edge mood, last year the event's organizers launched the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator, a competition showcasing 32 Web-focused startups.

Google '99% certain' to shut China search engine
2010/03/13

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44ffe612-2e40-11df-85c0-00144feabdc0.html?nc(...)
Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now "99.9 per cent" certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company's thinking. In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also yesterday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving.

Can BooRah help you decide on your Dinner?
2010/03/12

http://thecoffeedesk.com/news/index.php/2010/03/12/boorah-review-can-b(...)
Not quite sure where to eat? Do you want to know what others think about a particular restaurant? Try BooRah! BooRah is a semantic and natural language processing aggregator of restaurant reviews. The service pulls in reviews from numerous review sites and a substantial list of restaurant review blogs, and then analyzes the emotional tone of the reviews it finds. Good reviews (“Rahs”) and bad reviews (“Boohs”) are collected concerning food, service, and ambience.

Corporate Translations chooses Across technology
2010/03/12

http://www.multilingual.com/newsDetail.php?id=7314
Across Systems GmbH, a provider of corporate translation management software, has been selected by Corporate Translations, Inc., a translation service provider specializing in the life science industry. The Across Language Server will act as a central repository of linguistic assets, customizable by Corporate Translations' clients.

NSD Co., Ltd. and Language Weaver Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Japanese Automated Language Translation
2010/03/11

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/nsd-co-ltd-and-language,120063(...)
NSD Co., Ltd., a leading systems integrator in Japan, and Language Weaver, a leader in automated translation solutions, today announced a strategic partnership and the establishment of a dedicated team to advance automated translation quality and capabilities for the Japanese market.

Evri acquired Radar Networks in Semantic Search Consolidation
2010/03/11

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/11/evri-acquires-radar-networks/
After shopping itself around to all the major search engines, Radar Networks finally found a buyer in another semantic search startup. Today, Evri is announcing that it will be acquiring Radar Networks, along with its core technical team and its main product, Twine. Rumors surfaced yesterday on ReadWriteWeb that Evri was being acquired, but that is not the case. Evri is the acquirer.

Serendio debuts SaaS-based Customer Experience Analytics Solution
2010/03/11

http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/contact-centre/articles/78336-serendi(...)
Serendio, a provider of Text Mining software products and solutions, has launched its Customer Experience Analytics, or “CxA,” solution under a SaaS model. Built on Serendio's flagship Text Analytics platform – DisKoveror, the CxA is said to leverage natural language processing and advanced statistical/linguistic techniques for deeper analysis of qualitative content.

Franz Josef Och about Google Translate for L.A. Times
2010/03/11

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/03/the-web-site-transl(...)
This week we wrote about Google's Translate application and how it could eventually change the way people communicate, overcoming the language barriers that have long separated human populations. Franz Josef Och leads the machine translation (MT) team at Google, and has been the driving force behind much of the company's progress on the technology. The following is an edited transcript of a recent interview with Och.

Google launched App Store
2010/03/11

http://www.seoconsult.co.uk/SEO-News/new-technology/google-launches-ap(...)
The marketplace features 50 apps from companies and initially will focus on more business lead solutions; however, there are plans to move into the consumer market in the near future. This move further signals Google’s intent to fight with Microsoft and Apple for a piece of this market.

Language Services Industry Report details Web Marketing and Best Practices
2010/03/11

http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=54476
The report finds that 35 percent of language services supplier websites are monolingual. By contrast, just two percent of companies offered their website in 20 or more languages. “Fifty-four of the websites reviewed in our study cited ‘website localization’ as one of the services they offered, even though their own websites were available in just one language,” explained Nataly Kelly, senior analyst at Common Sense Advisory, who led the research initiative. “This is the language services industry equivalent of the shoemaker’s son going barefoot.”

Questions Answered: Invented Languages
2010/03/10

http://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/questions-answered-invented(...)
Co-vocabularists were invited to pose questions to two experts in the field of invented languages: Paul Frommer (the developer of Avatar’s novel tongue, Na’vi) and Arika Okrent (author of “In the Land of Invented Languages”).

Jon Wilbanks on Science Commons, and Generativity in Science
2010/03/10

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011019.html
John Wilbanks, the founder of Science Commons, is in the midst of a big move. His division of Creative Commons, focused on opening scientific research and innovation, is now five years old and is being “airlifted” to California to try to bring some of their ideas into the Creative Commons movement as a whole. One way to think of the mission of Science Commons, Wilbanks tells us, is to spark generative effects in the scientific world much as we’ve seen them in the online world. Because John comes from a legal background (and from the Berkman Center and Creative Commons), he tends to think about legal constraints and protections in the field. He asks us to consider three aspects of the world of science: data, tools and texts.

The Facebook Imperative cannot be stopped
2010/03/10

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/10/facebook-imperative-cannot-be-stopped(...)
Marc Benieoff considers Facebook and Twitter — and the ability to tap into his network of friends and followers — one of the most productive ways to start his day. Using these new Internet phenoms, he tested new ad campaigns and elicited great customer responses, promoted his book to a large audience of people who cared, and with the help of his network, even named new products.

IdiomaX Introduces Language Translation Software for Windows 7 and Office 2010
2010/03/10

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3698954.htm
IdiomaX has launched a translation software package that incorporates five of the company’s most popular language translation products. The IdiomaX Translation Suite 6.0, the company’s latest text translation software package, provides enhanced usability by offering more translation tools for more applications, than any competing product. It bundles five innovative translation products with improved features, accuracy, and applications.

smartRealm launched first Semantic Web-based Social Network Analysis API in Beta
2010/03/10

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3706194.htm
smartRealm announced beta launch of its SNAP API to provide developers with access to social network scoring and analytics indicating a person’s position and influence in their social networks for optimizing social media marketing and outreach. The smartRealm SNAP (Social Network Authority and Prestige) score summarizes a person’s position and influence within their social networks, allowing for a standardized ranking and segmentation of individuals across a variety of networks. The SNAP score ranks individuals on such dimensions as Authority, Footprint, and Information Diffusion Speed within their networks. This information makes it possible to target the most receptive and influential individuals in a variety of social media outreach activities