AI Learns the Art of Smooth Talking

Last week, we looked at how research on a multilingual knowledge base at Google could be forging the beginnings of truly multilingual AI, marking one of the more interesting recent technological developments for the localization industry. Now, days later, new reports on a study at Facebook AI Research appears to signal even more compelling developments in NLP (natural language processing) than systems that can cross-reference world idioms. Challenging criticisms that NLP agents tend to be flat approximations of human speakers, it appears […]

Walmart Adopts New Localization Techniques in Face of Pandemic

Big-box companies like Amazon and Walmart have only been enhancing their dominant presence in today’s market. Their relentless takeover from acquisition to plain out-performance of smaller companies has brought them to the international stage, where for Walmart, their standardized supply chain cost-cutting model for success does not necessarily translate to an augmented bottom line. Standardization […]

Has AI Become Multilingual? How New Advances Could Be Pushing Past Language-specific Information Retrieval

When you enter a piece of text in Google Translate using the ‘Detect language’ feature, an algorithm able to recognize the belonging of specific words and patterns to various world languages selects one of many linguistic frameworks at its disposal, then begins the more linear natural language processing (NLP) task of translating your content into the target language. As magical as that is, it is easy enough to recognize that Google Translate […]

Ungaming the System: A Look at the Coming Communication Challenges of Smarter Language AI

For everyone keeping up with our posts on the latest developments in artificial intelligence, two major themes in how AI is impacting communications are likely already familiar points of interest: how it is changing industries that need communication solutions, and how it is changing communications themselves. On the one hand, the profound changes AI technology is bringing to both new and existing products and services in the […]

Localizing Internal, Yet Global Communications

Many different individuals, agencies, and companies have their distinct idea about business best-practices, and the role each department plays in their operations. Outward engagement best practices vary from industry to industry, country to country, and even between sectors, and different emphases are put on different tactics such as brand position, differentiation, and customer experience, to […]

Halloween Story Contest – 1st Place Winner: Who’s Coming on Halloween Night?

Who’s Coming on Halloween Night? Tonight is Halloween. It is really exciting. Little Pumpkin hid behind the door and waited for his friends anxiously. Father Pumpkin, Mother Pumpkin, Grandpa Pumpkin, Grandma Pumpkin and Big Pumpkin did not notice his absence – they were busy making Pumpkin cake. Following traditions, Little Pumpkin’s family was celebrating the […]

Could Regulatory Submissions Be Coming to the Tech World?

A look at how advancing technology is generating new communication needs for consumer protection If you search online for information about regulatory documents, Google will likely return you a list of results about required submissions from across the life sciences sector, whether or not your search terms name any part of the industry. It is […]

Defeating Product Confusion: When Localization Becomes Rebranding!

Recently, the Republic of Ireland’s Supreme Court declared, ‘Subway bread is not bread’. With over 145 Subway locations in Ireland, more than 22,000 in the United States and over 38,000 locations around the world, Subway is the world’s largest global fast-food chain. Although now reviewing the ruling, officials from Subway publicly disagreed with this announcement, […]

Disruptive So Far: A Look Back at Neural Machine Translation in the Age of Natural Language Processing

With news this week that Google has improved some of the key linguistic functionalities of its search engine’s machine learning algorithms – including an AI spell check improvement that Google’s head of search considers more important by itself than the previous five years’ progress – it is an interesting moment in the brief history of […]