Greek Talking Phrasebooks for Olympians and fans

To help ease the language barrier faced by English, German, Spanish, French and Italian athletes and fans of the 2004 Summer Olympics, Beiks LLC has launched the company's first Greek Talking Phrasebook for Palm OS handheld computers. Beiks LLC, a provider of reference and language titles for mobile devices, enables anyone with a Palm OS PDA or smartphone (such as the popular Treo 600) to look up commonly used words or phrases in their native languages and hear the phrases verbally stated in Greek. This particular talking phrasebook is the first to leverage Beiks' new dictionary engine, thus allowing users to install the phrasebook without requiring a localisation toolkit.

GALA and Localization World Announce Agreement

The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has announced a cooperative arrangement with the producers of Localization World conferences. The upcoming Localization World San Francisco will be produced by The Localization Institute and MultiLingual Computing in cooperation with GALA. In addition to serving on the conference advisory board, GALA will hold its annual meeting at the event and organise several vendor roundtables. GALA members will also receive a discount on the conference registration and exhibit space.

"We have been very encouraged by the success of the Localization World conferences in Seattle and Bonn, so we're delighted to strengthen our cooperation with the organisers in future conferences," says Renée Sztabelski, GALA Board of Directors Vice Chair. Some 65 GALA member companies attended the Localization World Bonn conference in June, which attracted more than 330 localisation professionals.

This fall's conference in San Francisco (November 15-17, 2004) will focus on how the localisation process must respond to the convergence seen throughout the business world with the theme of "Convergence in the Localization World".  Special emphasis will be given to customer support and issues involved in Asian localisation.  The conference has issued a call for papers with a deadline of August 31, 2004. 

SDLTermBase Online 2004 Now Available

SDL International, a provider of translation services and technology solutions, has released SDLTermBase Online 2004. SDLTermBase Online provides secure, web-based access to a centralised terminology repository (TermBase), thus enabling organisations to add control and precision to multilingual communications.

The new release provides a user portal that is accessible from any Web browser and is customisable by individual users to show only the desired information. All TermBase fields can be searched, and terms can be sorted by language and field value. SDL TermBase Online offers integration with SDLX 2004 and with common terminology formats. It offers the option to deploy SDLWorkFlow 2004 and the SDL Knowledge-based Translation System as an integrated component.

Translating & the Computer 26 Conference: Organised by ASLIB

ASLIB is a world class corporate membership organisation with members in some 70 countries around the world. It works with a wide range of organisations worldwide, promoting best practice in the field of information management. It is holding its 26th Translating & the Computer conference from 18-19 November 2004 at 1 Great George Street, London, UK. Registration forms and a call for papers are available at: http://www.aslib.com/conferences/

26th Internationalization and Unicode Conference

The 26th Internationalization and Unicode Conference, entitled: Internationalization and Web Services, will be held in San Jose, California, USA from September 8-10, 2004. This is the premier technical conference for software and Web internationalization and a great source for the latest information on standards, best practices, development tools and advances in the globalization of software and the Internet.

The Internationalization & Unicode Conference features a number of presentation formats including tutorials, workshops, lectures, and panel discussions to support different learning styles.

TRADOS reduces localisation costs for VERITAS

TRADOS Inc., a provider of globalisation management solutions, has announced significant results from its deployment with VERITAS Software Corporation. VERITAS saw more than a 50% reduction in localisation cycle times. Moreover, TRADOS enabled the company to increase its global web sites from 29 to 45 with the same resources and cut costs by 25% in Europe to start. VERITAS has also reported a more consistent customer experience across markets as well as enhanced visibility to better manage and unify complex localisation processes.

An important requirement in VERITAS' engagement with TRADOS was to successfully integrate TRADOS globalisation software with its existing Interwoven TeamSite content management system.

Language Masters launches telephone interpretation service

Language Masters, a foreign language communications company, has begun to provide multilingual telephone interpretation services in response to increased demand. For a flat per minute fee, clients are greeted by a live multilingual operator who connects the caller with an interpreter trained to facilitate communication between English and foreign language speakers. Language Masters' services employ certified interpreters in more than 130 languages. Users are assigned a code that they give to the operator when calling the 800-number to request an interpreter for a particular language.