Is Virtual Reality Language Learning of the Future?

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Virtual reality has become the premiere source of party entertainment in the modern world – but is there scope for this to extend beyond entertainment and into the domain of learning? There are studies that suggest virtual reality can help you to improve your language skills through interactive experiences. Does this really mean that future translation services could be provided by those who have learnt languages through virtual reality?

The main reason this is powerful as a learning method is because it simulates interaction which is proven to be more engaging than traditional methods. You can also practice more extensively without the need of tiring out another human being, as well as saving yourself from the possible intimidation of facing somebody and struggling to communicate.

In the future we will easily be able to simulate life-like scenarios including ordering food in a restaurant, going on a date in a coffee shop or even sitting in an airplane – the potential is limitless. This functional and practical learning method will set language learners up for much more efficient use of language in everyday scenarios and more importantly, let them do it in a fun and deeply engaging way. It is also not a bad tool for kid’s party entertainment either.

For more information about virtual reality and how it can be used in a manner of different ways, you can contact VR Base, a London-based virtual reality equipment hire specialist firm.

How machine translations are being used for good over evil

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We recently brought you a post about how machine translations were used for evil, but today comes a story originally reported on Newscientist.com about how these artificial intelligent assisted translation services can in fact be used for the good.

The development of AI assisted machine translations might not be any use when translating documents, specifically technical ones and they will produce ‘awkward’ real time translations that might get you into trouble, but one area in particular that could see AI translations becoming valuable is for translations of sign language.

Machine translations are being used to help translate sign language into text and then back again into sign language for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. A Dallas, Texas based start-up KinTrans have been trialling this technology in government offices and banks in the United Arab Emirates.

The way KinTrans sign language translator works is by means of a 3D camera which records the hand signs being gestured by the individual using sign language; the hand movements are then translated by the device into text. It can also be used the other way around for those trying to communicate with a deaf person but don’t know sign language, by typing the message in text the translation into sign language will then be shown on screen using an avatar.

KinTrans currently supports American and Arabic sign language with 98% accuracy according to the company’s founder Mohamed Elwazer. Although with an estimated 70 million sign language speakers and over 100 different dialects, they are looking to expand on this in the future with sign language for Indo-Pakistani and Portuguese translation services.

Another company SignAll from Budapest, Hungary along with Gallaudet University in Washington DC, USA has also developed similar technology to aid students who are deaf or cannot hear well. They aim to have the largest database of sign language sentences, as of now it can translate around 300 signs from American sign into English text and the CEO Zsolt Robotka hopes his device will have learned 1000 signs by time they start their trials next year.

Of course like any new technology there will be teething problems and initial issues that will undoubtedly be sorted as technology advances but this is the way in which machine translations can do good for humans and make life easier, who knows we could eventually have these machine translations running perfectly like human translations, American sign language to Hebrew translation services and vice versa.

Image by: langfordw on Flickr

Ever wanted to talk to the animals? You might be able to very soon

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Translation services, whether it is translating a sentence or a whole advertising campaign, it is a very important tool in understanding or getting a message understood in another language. Sometimes to convey your messages to an audience who speak the same language but different locale you need localisation services, for media translations you might need transcription services or if you needed a simultaneous translation the interpretation services are what you need.

Whatever the type of translation service you require you would be pretty well covered by the vast amount of professional translation agencies out there, But how about if you wanted to talk to the animals? Dr. Dolittle comes to mind whenever the idea of being able to communicate with animals is brought up, that the idea is nothing but nonsense some have even argued that if communication between humans and animals was to exist the outlooks and reference points of two different species could be so different that it would be pointless even trying.

Well it turns out that the notion of being able to understand animals through the means of translation services could be realised sooner than you think! We previously talked about the ‘Temptation catterbox’ which aims to translate a cat’s meow into human languages; well now it’s the turn of dolphins.

Swedish language tech company Gavagai AB along with KTH Royal Institute of Technology are working together with the aim of being able to understand the language of dolphins. Gavagai AB has already developed language analysis software that has grasped 40 human languages. They plan to have an understanding of the way dolphins communicate by monitoring bottlenose dolphin using Gavagai’s language analysis software.

Jussi Karlgren the Gavagai co-founder and KTH adjunct professor had this to say when speaking to Bloomberg “We hope to be able to understand dolphins with the help of artificial intelligence technology,” as well as commenting on the complexity of dolphin communications “We know that dolphins have a complex communication system, but we don’t know what they are talking about yet.”

The project will run for four years and they hope to have an understanding on the dolphin communication by 2021. This could be the first real breakthrough in being able to understand animals and have them understand us. Who knows we could have something like dolphin to Romanian translation services or rabbit to German translation services sooner than we think!

Are emoji translations more than a gimmick?

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In a previous post we have already touched to the emergence of emoji’s or emoticons and how they are now being used every day to communicate with one another instead of using actually words. And now in fact there are now emoji to text translation software’s available to download on your phones right now. You could be forgiven by thinking this is all just a gimmick and nothing really more than a novelty that would eventually lose its appeal. But for some people these alternative translation services mean much more to them.

In a story originally reported by VICE’s Motherboard; they tell a story of how a stroke survivors use of emoji to text translation software is having a positive impact for people who have communication problems, helping them to break the barriers.

In 2005, Judy Crane was at the peak of her powers in medical sales when she was diagnosed with aortic dissection at the age of 47. As a result of a complication from the surgery of her aortic valve, she had a stroke she which left with paralysis and aphasia. Aphasia affects the part of the brain responsible for communication. Crane had problems reading, writing, speaking and processing information; this inevitably left her unable to continue her job.

Crane, who runs the Young Aphasia Communications Club, said to Motherboard that all she wanted to do was to get her message across and tell her story and that not being able to convey her message was frustrating as well as isolating and anything that could aide this would be ‘wonderful’.

There are an estimated two million people in the United States alone who suffer from aphasia, according to the National Aphasia Association (NAA) but not enough technology to support them. However Crane did use Dragon’s speech recognition software as well as things such as speech to text and predictive texting via her phone. This is where Samsung’s emoji to text translator ‘Wemogee’ can help improve matters.  Wemogee is an app which is used to communicate through emoji’s, the sender will send their message using an emoji from the library of 140 phrases and the receiver will then get the fast translation of the message written in text. For example a smile and thumbs up emoji sent will be received as “How are you?”

When asked her thoughts on this app for people with aphasia she noted that although she did not really pay attention to emoji’s as such but friends in her Young Aphasia Communications Club will find it useful as sometimes those with this disorder will shy away from communication when it becomes too hard and this app just might be the way to keep them communicating which is vital for individuals with aphasia.

Crane can write, send emails and hold conversations now twelve years after her stroke and she advocates that assistive technology could be better in helping however they can.

Of course this technology is in the early stages so it is understandable there are glitches in the app but it just goes to show the potential in this software and that emoji translations are not as ridiculous as you once thought and who knows maybe one day companies would be offering multi-lingual emoji translations, emoji to Romanian translation services anyone?

Google’s translation services

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In a previous post we brought you the news that human translations trumped machine and artificial intelligence (AI) assisted translations in the translation showdown to end all showdowns, hosted in Korea a couple weeks back. And with all the talk about the ever increasing technological sophistication of AI assisted translations and machine translations and the countless topics of discussions of what effect it will have on translation services and the industry as whole as we know it.

Many have envisioned a future where computers completely replace real human translators, leaving human translators obsolete with only the major professional translation agencies seeing a positive financial translation, others have claimed that machine translations will never be able to match the level of human translators due to the complexities and feeling for the languages that a machine just would not be able to create. Whilst some imagining that rather than humans and computers  competing, there is a thought that maybe machine translators can be used by human translators to make their jobs easier as they have for a number of years now.

One thing is for sure, whatever argument you agree with, machine and AI assisted translations do exist and will be getting better. The majority of the opinion is that machine translations are nothing but basic translations with many grammatical errors, whilst good for one or two lines to get a basic understanding, but when a paragraph is put into a machine translation software, all hell breaks loose.

In a story originally reported by long running Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a reaction to Google’s announcement that as part of the language list that their Google’s neural machine translators (NMT) already worked within, they were adding Arabic and Hebrew to the list; two much more testing languages to translate. So Haaretz decided to test just how good Google’s NMT Arabic and Hebrew translation services were using a passage of a Hebrew written article to be translated into English. The results? Not so good. They commented on the fact that the overall translation was “adequate” with some sentences being acceptable whilst others lost meaning altogether.

You can read the whole story here:  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.781219

Should you ever use machine translation?

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A topic of debate amongst many linguists especially those performing translation services is whether you should use machine translation software to convert text from one language to another. We have discussed earlier some of the implications of using machine translation services in different situations and there is no black and white answer as to whether or not to use this as it all depends on the situation and what you need the translation for.

Take for example you are out and about on holiday in China and need to order food at a local market where the owner only speaks and understands Mandarin. In such a situation because of the informal scenario you are found in surely using translation software such as Google translate to perform the Mandarin translation should do the job? Although as several tests have shown that machine translation is not always accurate and usually translates word for word and is not yet able to digest the feel of the conversation as well as a human being would, it’s worth a try to see what you actually receive after making your order.

On the other hand there are times when a translation is required for professional use usually via legal translation services such as birth certificate translation or marriage certificate translation. In such instances it is imperative to use a qualified translator to perform the translation as this will have a big impact on the decision made by the intended party that requires seeing such documents for various purposes. Another time when the use of professional translation services is imperative is when you require your website translated from one language to another. Yes there are tools online where automated translations of your web text can be done at the click of a button, however you will find that the literal translation of text does not always make sense leaving your website visitors to perceive your business as unprofessional and you may lose out on potential clients because of it.

As much as it is easy to use machine translation one has to assess the situation as to how important getting an accurate translation will be to you. If the answer is yes you are better off finding a qualified native translator or a translation agency to manage the translation process for you.

Image by: Tinou Baou on Flickr

Google’s back in China (well sort of)

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Good news if you are living in mainland China, from last Wednesday US internet giants Google have made a new version of their translation app available to Chinese users without use of virtual private networks (VPN’s). Now this might not seem like massive news to us in the western world because of how easily accessible Google’s translation app is to us so essentially if we ever needed some basic translation services it was always one click away.

But you see in China it has been a different story because back in 2010 Google had to remove their search engine (www.google.cn) and direct all searches to their Hong Kong website (www.google.hk) because of disagreements about censorship as a result from the Chinese-based hacking and cyberattacks on Google. Although Google translate has been available on the Google webite for Chinese users for years, this is the first since the ban on Google that the Chinese have been able to access Google’s ‘fast translation services’ without having to use VPN software’s to bypass China’s censorship firewalls.

Google had this to say on their blog post. “Today we’re releasing version 5.8 of the Google Translate apps for Android and iOS, adding instant visual translation between English and Korean, as well as an improved experience for users in China.” This indicates that Google might be willing to make some big improvements on their relationship with China, which makes sense since China has now the biggest population of mobile users in the world at an estimated 700 million.

But when asked to explain why they have all of a sudden made this app accessible to Chinese users, a Google spokesperson declined to comment on the situation. Although most of Google’s services have been blocked in China, most notably their search engine, Google have been able to keep themselves in the Chinese zeitgeist by aiding Chinese companies operate in foreign territories with services such as localisation services and Mandarin translation services.

But all in all the release of Google’ translation app is definitely a step in the right direction for Google-China relations and with something such as an app offering a less controversial first step as it contains less sensitive information than other Google products due to the lack of data collected.

What are your thoughts on this move by Google?

How a ‘robot’ is offering legal advice to refugees

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You’re probably thinking oh no not another robot story! Well as many seem to think they will become more prominent within human society in years to come virtually performing tasks which today we as humans cannot comprehend a robot performing, we thought we might enlighten you on this story we came across where a robot is able to assist some of the most vulnerable in today’s society. Not all robots are bad and not all robots are here to steal human jobs as some may argue.

This robot developed by Joshua Browder a 20 year old British student currently studying at Stanford University in the US is not necessarily helping refugees through translation services although Browder intends to expand his chatbot from its current functionality through Facebook messenger into more applications like whatsapp and also other languages. For the not so tech savvy readers a chatbot is a computer programme which conversates via audio and text methods. The aim of such programmes is to allow for a human like conversation to take place between actual humans and technology.

Joshua Browder initially created his chatbot DoNotPay to help people challenge parking and speeding tickets having been frustrated with the amount of parking tickets he received since passing his driving test. With over 160,000 successful appeals he expanded his chatbot to help people in need of emergency housing and has now gone on to enable the chatbot to assist refugees and asylum seekers needing help on their immigration applications and funding. Browder’s app was created with the help of lawyers across the UK, USA and Canada and can now help refugees in each of these countries for example assisting UK asylum seekers with applying for financial support.

With many refugees coming in from regions such as the Middle East it may be a challenge for them to effectively use such software as presently the chatbot works in English and is not yet able to offer an Arabic translation service. In the US with many migrants from South America a need for Spanish translation services is valuable and this is something that the chatbot could add on in order to help a wider audience.

It goes without saying that technology is advancing at a fast pace but with inventions like Joshua Browder’s many people will be able to access the help they need much more easily.

What are your thoughts on this? We would like to hear your opinions.

Image: Screenshot, donotpay.co.uk

Should robots be taxed the same as humans?

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We all know how much technology has advanced over the last few decades at a rapid pace that even the fastest man on the planet Usain bolt cannot match! It’s sometimes hard to believe that 10 years ago the majority of us needed to physically go into a shop to purchase mobile phone credit or have to go into a local bank branch to make a payment or transfer money between accounts, friends and family or even more painful sit on the phone for hours waiting to get through to an actual human being whilst listening to the entire Abba catalogue as hold music. Gone are the days of such hassles with features such as mobile banking on 4G networks and WIFI allowing us to perform the same activities we had to leave our warm and cosy homes during the winter mornings which could have taken us a few hours to actually achieve what we intended, to now being able to do the same within minutes and within the pleasure and comfort of our homes.

As much as this type of technological advancement has occurred as with most things in life there is a downside. Many industries have automated their processes and as a result have had benefits such as increased productivity and reduced costs to the expense of human workers. Some reports have even suggested that in the USA robots will eliminate 6% of all jobs by 2021.

With the likes of driverless cars likely to be in full force in the future eliminating jobs for the likes of taxi drivers, drones being tipped to be the new delivery guys and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) software such as computer assisted translation services which will have an impact on the way a translation agency manages its translations, these examples although benefit companies highly pose problems for employees in these positions.

Now that we have discussed touched on the potential threats that technology advancement may have on humans a topic of debate is whether such technology should be taxed the same as humans? Well technically speaking if a robot is replacing a human being who is now unemployed as a result then realistically you would think that the “robot” or the company using the robot should pay some type of tax on that wouldn’t you? It all really depends on the point of view that you are looking at this from.

From a company’s point of view you are more than likely to disregard this notion completely as this will save you money and although some may argue that an increased productivity means more profits therefore more company tax paid, this is not always the case as there are several ways companies enable themselves to pay less taxes as any accountant would tell you. Even the richest man in the world Bill Gates recently stated that he believes robots that steal human jobs should pay taxes, although European Union lawmakers rejected such a proposal in the past.

What are your thoughts on the idea of robots being taxed the same as humans?

Image by: European Space Agency ESA–G. Porter | Flickr

The ultimate translation showdown is here

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As one of the most talked about topics in the language translation and interpreting community, this issue of human translators versus machine translators is still a very undecided issue with some claiming that with all the advancements in technology giving machines the capabilities to translate from language to language without human interaction, that machine translations are the way to go. Whereas others are adamant that computers will not be able to reach the levels of human translators any time soon. If machines were to overtake human translators, what would this mean for the professional translation agency whose businesses are based on providing professional translation services? Or even worse what will happen to all the translators whose livelihoods are at stake?

Well thankfully for the moment at least it is not something we have to really worry about, it is not more than a hot debate in this present time because in truth although machine translations have advanced a great deal in the past couple of years thanks to the development of NMY (“neural machine translation.”), it’s fair to say machines are still somewhat lagging behind their human counterparts. This is because the sheer complexity of languages and even though machines can translate words and sentences in a select number of languages, it is not fluent yet and grammatical errors still occur as well as not taking issues such as localisation services into account, maybe one day it will be the norm but that is for the future.

To prove who is on top at the moment Korea’s International Interpretation Translation Association along with Sejong Cyber University are holding a competition pitting a professional human translator from Ewha Woman’s University against three machine translators in the shape of Naver’s Papago (a Korean translation app specialising in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese), Systran’s machine translation solution (a self-learning hybrid translation software) and Google translate (probably the best known free translation software in the western world).

The big translation showdown will commence on Tuesday 21st February 2017 on the Sejong Cyber University website. Each contender will be given the task to translate two random English articles into Korean and two Korean articles into English with a time limit of 30 minutes per paragraph. The human translator for now is considered as the favourite but in the future machines and AI translations will become more and more prevalent, for example who wouldn’t want their Romanian translation services carried out in a matter of minutes and at a fraction of the cost? But hopefully like any industry the translation agencies and translators can find a way to adapt and live side by side with machine translations.

Robots to Aid 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea

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Winter Olympics who watches that you may ask? It may be a surprise to many but the Winter Olympics may be more popular than you would imagine them to be. The first winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France in 1924 and have since grown to be a popular global event in the sporting world. In truth the Winter Olympics attracts viewer numbers in excess of 20 million across multiple platforms.

Winter Olympics traditionally includes sports that are practiced on snow and ice, sports such as ice hockey and snowboarding. Over the years the Winter Olympic Games have included events such as free skiing on a skip also known as Freestyle Mongul Skiing attracting more countries to participate and as a result increased interest in the sport from a wider audience.

The forthcoming winter Olympics due to be held in PyeongChang, South Korea between 9-25th Feb 2018 are expected to include 2500 competing athletes from 90 competing nations. Usually during these types of events a need for professional translation services or interpreting services are higly valuable to aid good communication for participants and the audience to help avoid embarrassing situations similar to what transpired during the 2015 Women’s FIFA World Cup where a twitter hashtag suggesting “Gonorrhoea for Sweden” was misinterpreted.

Now we know the Japanese are ahead when it comes to technology advancement and this latest reveal does not seem to be slowing them down. Hancom a Seoul based computer software company is set to reveal a new “artificial intelligence (AI) powered robot interpreter” for use at the 2018 Winter Oympic Games according to Korea Times. This human like robot is designed to emulate human-like facial expressions and is to be initially developed to translate 9 languages supporting Chinese translation services, Spanish translation services and French translation services to name a few with plans to expand in the future.

Will this development reduce the need for human translations? Now that is something to debate. Let us know your thoughts?

Image by: YOHNAP NEWS

Instant camera translation services?

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Are you about to go on your travels to experience a whole different culture and way of life but just don’t know the first thing about the language? Have you taken a new job abroad in order to broaden your horizons but have only learnt how to say hello in the native language? Or are you a first generation foreign-born individual who is visiting your parent’s homeland but have never bothered to learn the language of your ancestors? Well you probably should have put some effort into learning these languages but there is some good news for those who don’t have the time or don’t have the patience, these special translation services are perfect for you.

Google have offered us a unique fast translation service for the last year in which all you have to do is take a picture using the camera on your phone of the quote or sentence written in the language you want translated from and then it is instantly translated into whatever language you wish. For example if you were over in China and wanted to order food from a restaurant but had no idea what it was because the menu is written fully in Mandarin. Don’t panic! just whip out your phone head over to Google translate, set your language pairs e.g. Mandarin to English and click the camera icon and just like that you get an English translation and as a result you avoid ordering those prawns you hate. It also works the other way around where you will receive a Mandarin translation from the written English.

Google’s live camera translation feature can be used offline also by downloading the offline translation pack which is around 42MB with Google’s latest update adding the language pairs of Japanese to English and English to Japanese to the growing list of instant image translations. Of course this is never going to replace professional translation services carried out by human translator, but it’s definitely more convenient and useful in certain situations. So if you are ever in Munich reading German directions for some reason, you know you have portable German translation services at your fingertips, Or if you are out in Rome and even though you don’t speak Italian you choose the Italian menu anyway because you know you have Italian translation services in your back pocket.

Image by: Rich DeMuro

 

How translation services changed the world

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The human race; we are a very intriguing race we consider ourselves at the top of the food chain, smarter than the rest of the species on this earth and this is all thanks to our ancestors who always looked at new ways of doing things, always evolving skills and techniques with innovative ideas which is why we have come so far.

We learnt how to make tools to hunt animals that are much bigger and powerful than us, we managed to create and control fire which we used to cook food, keep us warm and protect ourselves amongst other things, we built houses and buildings, we made art, we made cars etc. But one of the most impressive creations we have had is the use of complex languages.

There is such a vast array of languages, dialects and variations in the modern world not counting the amount of now extinct languages right through human history and as more and more languages formed there was bound to be a time where two cultures meet with completely different languages and the need to understand each other is a necessity, this is how translations were born.

These early translation services so to speak enabled the skill of learning a language from a completely alien civilisation which in turn introduced different cultures and encouraged more spreading of populations around the world.

In today’s world learning what something means in another language is not a problem and thanks largely to the internet a fast translation is something that can be done through typing it in on Google.

Alternatively if you wanted an official document to be translated there are professional translation agencies so all the work is done for you. You could even pick which language you wanted to be translated for example Romanian translation services.

Of course due to all the studies and knowledge on languages coupled with the ever increasing globalisation and the internet making the world smaller, translation services are even more in demand as businesses and individuals alike have more of a reason to be in contact from someone across the world.

You don’t even have to know the languages anymore if you wanted to have a basic conversation with someone of a different tongue as advances in technology have made this possible. There are so many ways how translation services have had an effect on the world; these are just some of the ways.

Internet marketing worth it? What entrepreneurs need to understand

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Since the dot com era many companies have managed to use the internet as a means of reaching global audiences at the click of a button. Whether it is tech companies, translation agencies or video production companies, the phenomenon of the internet has enable companies both small and multi-national to boost sales of their products and services by reaching global audiences.

Many of today’s international companies such as eBay were founded by entrepreneurs from their bedrooms. Some successful entrepreneurs like Mashable’s Pete Cashmore started writing blogs as a hobby and did not foresee the success Mashable has translated to date within the social media industry from its humble beginnings, however one thing that stands out and that is common by all such companies or entrepreneurs is their ability to use internet marketing in order to generate sales.

Online marketing has been a growing industry for many years now with expertise earning substantial amounts of money for services such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which involves activities such as link building, directory submission, article writing and social media to name a few. SEO can now also be studied at higher education level in some countries. Over the years this field has grown extensively and pretty much anyone can do this type of marketing by simply learning the basics through published books and online forums. With that has come numerous bad practices in online marketing most notably in the form of spammers. Many are spamming blogs and forums with unnecessary links in the hope to generate traffic. The question is does this pay off?

In the short term maybe! You may boost your companies’ visibility in major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, but for companies with a long term focus, such practices must be avoided. Investing in a good online marketing strategy is what will give companies longevity in search engines and allows the company to be seen as a credible source by its users which will enable the company website to rank even higher on major search engines and provide a competitive edge. This is also where good budgeting comes into effect. As a fundamental rule of marketing strategy it is better to be both effective as well as efficient. Being effective means you have a good strong product or core service to offer whereas being efficient means you have the right team to sell and market your product. Both need to be present in order to achieve optimum success.

With over one billion search queries per day for products and services on Google alone, it is vital that in this day businesses appear in such search engine results. This is a must as this is a major source of traffic to your website. As any online marketing manager will tell you, doing so will ultimately lead to higher revenues.

Internet Marketing VS Traditional marketing

One thing to understand is that internet marketing does not and should not work in isolation. The traditional styles of marketing such as face-to-face or business to business marketing are still valuable in this day in age as they allow companies to have a personalised touch to their service. Having these key principles of marketing work alongside online/internet marketing will lead to positive financial results for your company which proves the value of internet or online marketing as a valuable contribution to business.

Translation agencies around the world have clearly taken advantage of this. By simply typing a keyword such as Slovak translation services or German translation services through Google you will find millions of results to choose from. From this it is usually the top 5 companies appearing in the search results of these particular keywords that will gain the most business from this; another clear example of the value and influence of online marketing and SEO.

Undeniably internet marketing is a competitive industry but is not something that should be vaguely overlooked by companies.  Today over 95% of the most successful companies in the world poses a website; however it is only the businesses that effectively uses internet marketing that pull the most traffic to their sites and so make the most revenues.

Human Translation vs Machine Translation; The Battle Continues

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The ever mounting development of software and mobile applications configured to help people to translate text into hundreds of languages have helped to some extent, but it is still challenging to obtain a perfect translation this way. This task can only purely be done efficiently by human beings! A large number of software’s and applications provide us with rough ideas or near exact elements of our text in a different language however, this kind of translating cannot be wholly relied upon.

In terms of translating documents for example legal documents, immigration documents or documents which call for certified translations, it really is fundamental to use a human translator in order to increase accuracy and quality.

A translation agency is one way to seek out qualified translators. It is usually fast, and easy to obtain a quote. By using this service you are able to save time as well as money. This gives you the opportunity to contact a quantity of companies, get quotes and judge which translation agency to make use of based on your requirements. Another benefit of using professional human translators instead of using automated services is the grammatical accuracy that is included with it. Despite the ever changing and advancement of technology it is still crucial that you proofread documents before they are handed back to a client or professional body. Translating using software programmed services will translate your text word for word; however, it does not think along the lines of the grammatical accuracy. Not yet has there been an invention which has met all these needs. Again from this, one can clearly see where it becomes more reasonable to work with human translators in such occurrences.

Hundreds of languages are spoken globally and with globalization on the rise, companies are investing heavily in markets like India and Brazil.  This has created many opportunities for firms to grow and reach broader horizons. This really is also where the utilisation of a translation agency comes into effect. On account of language obstacles, a superb translation is critical in order to be aware of all of the messages or instructions. This can vary from translating a technical document for only a car manual, translating a legal document for immigration purposes or translating an organizations website into another language. Take for instance visiting any company website on Google that targets the Slovak market and has a website translated in Slovak professionally, also try and use some of the free Slovak website translation tools online and compare the two. There is no doubt that you will spot the difference instantly as websites do not only require translation of words but need to be localised to suit the intended audience.

For businesses seeking to branch out and go global, the use a good translation company is vital in effectively reaching a wider audience with the ultimate goal of increasing sales and revenues.

 

Image by: Prank Sky Media – Flickr

Translation services in a very loud way

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When you think of translation services you would usually think of one or more qualified translators looking at text in one language, comprehending it and then producing the same sentence in a whole  other language, sometimes a different alphabet for example when a translator translates a document from English to Hebrew as part of Hebrew translation services. Or you might envision an interpreter talking after someone to repeat back what they said in another language or maybe you would even think about translations in subtitles as part of a movie or television programme.

How about someone shouting translations in your face? Because that is exactly how Japanese electronic product giants Panasonic want you to see translation services. Just imagine yourself in a foreign land, lost and not able to speak the local language even to get by and just when you are about to give up hope your saviour turns up shouting something in your face that you can actually understand and this is all possible thanks to Panasonic.

This is because Panasonic have come up with a megaphone that is capable of automatically translating about 300 pre-set information and warnings messages from Japanese to English, Chinese and Korean in order to help companies deal with the increased foreign visitors coming to Japan. This really is the definition of retail translation services as Panasonic plan to obtain contracts to produce 10,000 units aimed for 2018.

The megaphone works in a way such as when the user speaks in Japanese into it; the software recognises the phrase and instantly translates into one of the three languages programmed into the megaphone so far, even if the sentences are incomplete. The estimated 300 pre-set sentences includes lines like “Watch your step” and “The train has been delayed,” and can even function with background noise which makes it perfect for places like train stations and airports. Although more phrases can be added through updates.

Panasonic have started offering the megaphone translation for around ¥20,000 ($183) per month based on a three-year contract with organisations such as the police already trialling these services since 2015. Depending on how well this product is received by the public, it could spell a very positive financial translation for the Osaka based company.

We think it is a great idea and something that can potentially expand greatly in the future. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Image by: Jason Hargrove via Flickr

Has Google created its own language?

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Will this lead to the end of human translations?

The Neural Machine Translation or simply ‘NMT’ is the name of the latest technology that Google has employed to help improve their real time translation services. Originally showcased earlier this year in September, Google announced that these neural networks are going to be the process behind Google Translate. Google has already started utilising NMT for some languages within the last month.

Traditionally Google Translate has always been a useful tool if you ever needed to know anything from a word to a phrase in another language and was perfect if you required a fast translation as it is instant. But Google Translates’ translations for anything more would mostly be grammatically wrong and lacked a ‘native feel’ (don’t even think about translating slang words). But now with these improvements in technology Google aims to have more accurate translations as well as the NMT being able to learn more with what Google are calling “zero-shot” translations which could be bad news for the professional translation agency of tomorrow.

The zero shot translation is essentially a translation system that has the ability to translate one language to another without previous experience of translating that language pair beforehand. So for example if the NMT had been taught to translate English into Hebrew and vice versa as well as being taught English to Romanian translations and vice versa; now imagine you were in need of Hebrew translation services from the Romanian language the Neural Machine Translation system would be able to translate without having learnt that language pair before.

So for this to happen there must have been some kind of ‘learning’ process involved from Googles artificial intelligence (AI) which begs the question ‘Has Google created its own language?’ that’s the hypothetical thought Devin Coldewey offered when he wrote an article in which he discussed Google’s NMT and its ability to understand a language pair it hasn’t faced before through connections made from prior knowledge.

In fact he is partially correct with these assumptions as AI researchers have suggested that the zero-shot translation might have been a result of Googles NMT being able to communicate with itself potentially bringing the translation level up to exert level.

This all sounds impressive but in the longer run could this ‘Interlingua’ that this AI possesses be the foundations for something more sinister? We tried to warn you before in our previous posts. But in all seriousness it is the forward step in making language translations easier to obtain.

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Kathryn Decker

Three online marketing strategies new websites must follow

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Setting up a website and maintaining it is no walk in the park. There’s initial brainstorming, choosing which colour scheme you want to use, choosing which widgets go with your product/service or which images to use for your home page etc. Once you have gone past these stages and are ready to launch your website it is imperative to understand that just having a website live is nowhere near enough to get you found online by your intended audience. You have to remember that you are competing with millions of other websites for search engine rankings after all the majority of website traffic for the majority of businesses comes via search engines with Google being the largest. For example you are looking for professional translation services, you most likely will go to a search engine and type your key word and choose which translation agency to go with based on the results you find. Even via word of mouth often times people will browse your website before actually contacting you making your website a powerful first impression for your potential clients.

Below are three must follow online marketing activities you will need in order to rank well online and maximise your website success potential.

Blogging

When it comes to blogging many people have this misconception that blogging is just for individuals who write about their life experiences and occasionally review products they have somehow either received for free or they have been paid to advertise.  Well that’s not the case; if you look at most websites they will have a section that states blog or news. This section can allow you to elaborate on your business activities and keep your customers informed on industry news highlighting your know-how of market trends. Blogging allows you to produce high quality content which is a key player for search engine rankings today.

Social media

Well social media is not just for the Kardashian brand although they are one of the most if not the most popular figures on social media amassing more than 250 million followers between their social media accounts. Social media is a high ranking factor for search engines and is a must to get your business active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and more. These platforms are a great tool to share your website content to reach a wider audience.

Email marketing

When it comes to email marketing many people frown upon this type of strategy because of the bad rep this activity has achieved over the years. Let this not put you off as doing this right can increase your business returns. When you decide to perform email marketing you need to be clever about your approach. One way to do this is to link your other online activities to your email marketing so as to emailing people who have actually shown an interest in your product/service. We all receive junk mail at least several times a day however some so called junk mail is actually relevant to us and we end up reading on and sometimes even doing further research and purchasing a product or making use of the advertised service.

Image by: Sean MacEntee

Are Emoji’s replacing languages?

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How emoji’s are transforming the way we communicate.

In this day in age many of us communicate with one another via technology and the most common being the smartphone. The smartphone allows us to create spreadsheets, record videos and even perform language translation whether that is French translation or Spanish translation. Virtually all adults today own or have access to a smartphone at any given time. Our smartphones have somewhat become like our best friend who carries out our every thought out action in a virtual sense (apart from when your phone crashes). People would risk breaking their hand or leg to save their precious iPhone in a tumble. Our smartphones are used as alarms to wake us up in the morning and sometime put us to bed via listening to soothing music on apps such as YouTube and Soundcloud. Our smartphones virtually do anything we tell or ask them to and even speak back to us via extensions such as Ok Google or Siri.

With new smartphones being released every 6 months or so, there seems to be an increasing wave of different communication tools which have and are making big impacts on how we communicate whether that is the development of language translation apps or speech assisted messaging the latest wave of virtual communication is via emoji’s (emoticons). For those of you who do not know what emoji’s are which the majority of you will, they are the little images you find on your smartphone that help you to describe your mood in the form of an image. If you own an iPhone or Android phone you will notice hundreds of emoji’s to choose from ranging from facia expressions whether happy or sad to birthday balloons and cake. 

Emoji’s are so big right now that even todays celebrities have gone to the extent of cashing in on the craze by creating their own emoji’s. Take Kim Kardashian for example who recently “broke the apple app store” with the release of her ‘Kimoji’ emoji’s in late 2015 which she most likely made a few million $ from and most recently the comedian Kevin hart announced he is to release his own emoji’s on the app store stating “My Emoji App will be the Emoji App of all Emoji Apps”.

Facial expression and body language can overcome any language barriers and that is exactly what emojis have done. Nowadays when you text you almost feel obliged to use some type of emoji to describe how you feel and this has led to some campaigners proposing emojis that reflect women in more professional roles which in the current ‘emoji world’ is dominated by men. The Google employees who backed this stated that “We believe this will empower young women (the heaviest emoji users), and better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world.“

With the emoji craze now being just a normal everyday thing to use, will the need for translation services be gone. Well probably not but they sure will continue to play a big part on how we communicate.

Here’s an emoji filled song that you may recognise. Comment below if you do.

How Facebook’s new translation software will translate slang

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Facebook is one of the most popular and most recognisable social media platforms in the world today with over one billion people from all corners of the world logging onto the social media platform on a daily basis. So it only makes complete sense now that Facebook has decided to integrated their very own automatic translation software to translate posts from one user to another, a move which has seen the need for professional translation agencies and their translation services diminished, well on Facebook at least. Read more

4 Useful Translation Apps For Travellers

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So you have decided to embark on a journey into the unknown, you have packed your backpack and ready to jet off to explore the other side of the world and indulge in rich culture, amazing views and exotic food. Just one thing, you can’t speak the language of the local people. In the past many travellers who went travelling to non-English speaking countries would find it difficult to communicate with local people unless they had some type of access to translation services.

Tasks such as asking for directions would take you maybe 10 minutes just to get through to someone whilst using a tremendous amount of hand gestures as though you were in an aerobics class. Well in 2016 this is a thing of the past. With the ever improving technology we have access to and the ability to access internet even in the most remote parts of the world has helped decrease language barriers which has benefited travellers in many ways. Below are some of the best language translation apps on the market.

  1. Google Translate

Rated 4.4 stars on the android Google play store with over 4 million downloads on the Android play store, Google Translate app must be doing something right in helping people interpret their message from one language to another. Whether it is a Spanish translation you require whilst you visit Spain or South America or perhaps you need to translate your English to Russian, professional translation services google translatethe Google Translate app is easy to use and most importantly free to download on the play store. Google translate is also available to download on the apple app store.

Top features:

  • Translate between 103 languages
  • Translate 52 languages when you have no internet
  • Two way instant speech translation in 32 languages
  • Take a picture and have it translated to text instantly in 29 languages
  1. Lexiphone

Lexiphone is like having your very own interpreter in your mobile phone. The app developers claim it to be the “world’s first automated phone interpreter”.

Key points:professional translation services lexiphone

  • The app supports Chinese translation, French translation and Polish interpreti
    ng to name a few.
  • This app however does not come free but for a fee you can easily call more than 100 countries and translate your conversations into 16 different languages in real time.
  • The app is available both on Google play store and the Apple App Store.
  1. Trip Lingo

Their motto says it all “helping international travellers stay safe, productive and savvy during trips abroad”.

Key features:

  • The app has a voice translator feature so you don’t have to always type what you are looking for
  • The app also includes safety tools such as how to call emergency services when you are abroad or how to tell someone you have a particular food allergy
  • Included in Trip Lingo is the ‘phrasebook feature that includes slang, formal and slang options for over 2000 phrases per language.professional translation services trip lingo
  • Not only does the app help you to translate between languages its cool Wi-Fi Dialer feature allows you to make free international calls when connected to Wi-Fi.
  • Having only been around for about 2 years this app is promising and is worth to keep an eye on to see how many other cool features arise.
  • Trip lingo can be downloaded on both Google play store and the Apple App Store.
  1. iTranslate Voice

This app is handy especially for travellers who require a fast and easily accessible translation feature.

Key features:professional translation services itranslate

  • iTranslate Voice allows you to speak into the app which automatically translates your speech and reads it out in one of the 42 languages compatible with the app. This allows you to get the real pronunciation if words in different languages.
  • Includes a dictionary feature so you can understand the meaning of each word.

How translation services failed Roy Hodgson ahead of Euro 2016 clash

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Translation services play a major role in football as football is played all over the globe by many different players from different countries and therefore is translated into numerous languages.

Translations in football is no more evident than at a major tournament, be it the biggest stage in football which is The World cup; the pinnacle of European national football, the European championships which features a plethora of languages across Europe; the Copa America which consists of mostly Spanish countries from South America as well as Brazilian Portuguese and English (If USA and Jamaica are invited); the African cup of Nations which includes diverse nations from the whole African continent; the AFC Asia Cup which includes Asia and Australia and the European Champions League final which is probably the world’s biggest club football final. 

So with football being such a global event, the need for language to language translations is prevalent and essential. It would have not been possible to stage The FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany without some form of German translation services.

The same goes for The European Championships of 2004 which was hosted by the nation of Portugal so therefore good Portuguese translation services were needed in order to make the event run smoothly for everyone involved. Of course without these services how would fans know how to get around from place to place if the language is not familiar to them?

So with translation services being utilised so much in these big events it is bound to produce a fail now and again. This is exactly what happened to England manager Roy Hodgson ahead of England’s Euro 2016 first group stage clash against Russia. After comments from the Russian manager Leonid Slutsky about Wayne Rooney not being the same player he once was, the Manchester United striker and England captain was answering some tense questions alongside Hodgson at a pre-game press conference.

A Russian journalist started to direct a question at the pair in his native Russian tongue. It was at this point Hodgson reached for his headphones in order to get a Russian to English translation only to be bamboozled by the headphones in which he then claimed didn’t cover his ears. Rooney then began to laugh at his manager’s misfortune which cut the tension at the conference. Hodgson managed to get himself sorted whilst looking a bit embarrassed by the whole commotion.

Forget Iron Man, Student’s smart gloves translates sign language into speech

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When it comes to technology in the 21’s century it is almost as if the moment you blink, some type of a new technology has been invented. Nowadays it is not only professional software engineers working in labs that are able to come up with new inventions such as creating sophisticated mobile phone apps or hardware for appliances. Everyday people can now create ground-breaking technology from the comfort of their homes thanks to the many tools we have online that help with researching information. Something that has recently got people talking, a pioneering creation in the world of translation services in which has seen an undergraduate duo of Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor who are studying business administration and aeronautics and astronautics engineering, respectively at the University of Washington recently invented gloves that translate sign language into text and speech.

Their invention which is called ‘SignAloud’ is designed to translate sign language in a simultaneous way as if professional translation services were being used minus a human interpreter which aims to help break communication barriers between sign language users and non-sign language users. As the University of Washington reports; ‘each glove contains sensors that record hand position and movement and send data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a central computer’. If the data matches a hand gesture then the related phrase or word is vocalised through the computer. The gloves are currently targeted to American Sign Language (ASL) users or learners of ASL but could also be commercialised to work in other fields such as medical technology to monitor stroke patients during rehabilitation as well as provide support to the ever growing world of virtual reality as the University of Washington reports.

As a result of their efforts Pryor and Azodi won $10,000 for the 2016 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize from a pool of students from over 77 universities in the US.

Watch the video below to see the SignAloud gloves in action.

Has this company gone a step too far?

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A lesson in how not to advertise or retail a translation device today, coming from a story reported on BBC trending. A promotional video was released for a new portable translation device and the video in question has sparked cries of sexual harassment and outrage. The advert for the device depicts a young Englishman named “Dean” who goes around to random women in Japan using the device in order to break down the language barriers and communicate with them, doesn’t sound too disturbing right?

The only problem is he wants a kiss, a move which has seen the advert and the actor himself widely criticised and been branded as ‘creepy’ and claims that the actor in the video is ‘sexually harassing’ the local women. This is after it appears in the video that some of the women did not react well to his advances with one even running away and another hitting him with her hand bag. Although not all the women seen in the video were afraid some actually responded well with giggles and one even reciprocating his advances and gives him a quick kiss in the final scene.

But all this outcry of harassment of these unsuspecting women have been shut down by the translation gadgets CEO who told BBC trending it was all an act and in fact all of the women involved in this video, seen as tasteless by some were all in on the act and were all paid actresses. The pressure of the negative reaction has seen the video now have a disclaimer saying everyone involved in the video are all paid actors. That however hasn’t stopped criticism of the advert to which some think is very low brow and degrading to oriental women and some even claiming that it adds to the stereotype that if you are European in Asia you can do as you like.

Whatever your views on this advert you cannot deny the fact that it has garnered much attention albeit which has seen it go viral and received more than five million views online. As the saying goes ‘All publicity is good publicity.’

What are your views?

Top five trending topics of 2015 according to Google

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So as we wrap up another year, 2015 has been an eventful and hectic year that has seen a lot of changes happen in the world which has witnessed exciting, happy, sad and sometimes scary moments that have affected our lives. Either way, it was a year to remember and something we could use to build upon for the next year. Google has recently released their annual review of just what exactly had us Brits searching for on the Google search engine, translation = Britain’s top five trending topics of 2015.

 

1 – Cilla Black

The number one most searched topic of 2015 in Britain was the sad news of the passing of the widely adored TV and showbiz legend Cilla Black. The much loved Liverpudlian singer, real name Priscilla Maria Veronica White whose singing career spanned several generations passed away at her Spanish home earlier this year on 1st August 2015 much to the nations shock, her untimely death was met with tributes from all walks of life, she was 72.

Credit: Andy Butterton/PA Archive/Press Association Images

Credit: Andy Butterton/PA Archive/Press Association Images

2 – Lady Colin Campbell

She is one of the stars from the 2015 edition of the hit ITV show ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out Of Here!’ But the Jamaican born socialite and royal family biographer was not popular amongst her campmates, but that did not stop our fascination of 66 year old as she was one of the most searched people by Britons in 2015. She exited the programme due to medical reasons.

3 – Rugby World Cup

There were many sporting highlights for us to salivate over this year, the premier league which saw this seasons relegation candidates Chelsea crowned as champions the season before, high profile boxing fights such as the long awaited Mayweather vs Pacquiao and a somewhat renaissance in British Boxing with the likes of Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Kell Brook all finding success. But even in a year where the England cricket team retained the Ashes, there was one sporting event that had Britain searching for that was The 2015 Rugby World Cup. Hosted in England for the first time since 1991, Stuart Lancaster’s men were humbled as they were knocked out in the group stages. Stuart Lancaster as well as some of his underperforming stars were axed from the squad thereafter.

4 – Jeremy Clarkson

The enigma that is Jeremy Clarkson, you either love him or you hate him but you can’t doubt his charisma. One of the most highly paid people of the BBC and the face of popular motor vehicle/entertainment program Top Gear, the often controversial Clarkson found himself briefly out of work for a period; why? The BBC decided against renewing his contract as he was embroiled in an incident in which a ‘punch’ was thrown by Clarkson which led to him being suspended, dropped then axed completely. This event subsequently led to co presenters Richard Hammond and James May also leaving the program before all three were signed by Amazon for a rival program. Chris Evans will present Top Gear next year.

5 – Paris

The final most trending topic was that of the Paris attacks in which 130 people lost their lives. The devastating attack on the French capital was the worst attack made on the European continent for 10 years. The news spread around the world so fast translations of the story were reported in a matter of minutes.

So there you have it these are the top five stories that spiked our interests in 2015 according to Google. What has 2016 got in store for us? Hopefully more positives, one thing left is to wish everyone a happy new year!

Let us know your thoughts

You can read more trending topics of 2015 Telegraph.

Why is this young Nigerian man making waves in Japan?

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The name Ufot Ekong Junior is a relatively unknown name, but is definitely a name you should remember. “Why should I know this name?” I hear you ask. Well for those of you who do not know or haven’t heard yet, Ufot Ekong is the name of a young Nigerian student currently making waves in Japan.

What is it that is so impressive about this young man from Nigeria? Well, Ufot Ekong Jnr, 24, who had studied at Tokyo’s Tokai University, a private university which was established in 1942 by Shigeyoshi Matsumae, has rather spectacularly managed to achieve the highest grades at the prestigious university and universities nationwide in Japan, for the last 50 years, a record which has stood since 1965.

Ufor Ekong

Not only has Ufot Jnr succeeded in breaking the 50 year old record for highest grades achieved in the private Japanese university, he is also credited with solving a previous ‘unsolvable’ maths equation which had stood to see many unsuccessful attempts for the last 30 years. He managed to solve the quizzical equation amazingly in his first semester at Tokai University.

EkongThat wasn’t all for Ufot Jnr’s achievements, throughout his university career, through dedication and hard work he immersed himself in his work and managed to earn a staggering 6 academic excellence awards. In the end he graduated with a first class degree with honours in electrical and electronics engineering.

He had no need for a translator or translations as such, as Ufot Jnr is fluent in Japanese seeing that previous to enrolling himself on the electrical and electronics engineering undergraduate course, he studied Japanese for a year and a half. He is also fluent in English, French and Yoruba; it wouldn’t be surprising if he added Hebrew to this list of languages.

All of these wonderful achievements in academia for a man so young and in a country not of his mother tongue and perhaps the most amazing this is that he is completely self-funded and managed to put himself through the respected university by working 2 jobs whilst studying with no financial aid. He is currently studying for a master’s degree at the same university with a view to pursuing a PHD in the future.

Whatever Mr Ufot Ufot Ekong Junior goes on to achieve in his life, his story should be used as inspiration and himself and individuals like him should be celebrated.

Photo credits: Ufot Ekong Twitter

6 steps to supercharge your sleep and wake up refreshed

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We have all been there, alarm clock blaring, phone buzzing, family or partner constantly nagging, cat/dog jumping on you, ok maybe that last one was an exaggeration, all this just to get you up and out of bed. Sound familiar? For most of us this is the start of our daily routines.

Waking up early in the morning is hard enough on the best of days, so it doesn’t help that the reason most of us have to drag ourselves out of our slumber is to make that dreaded daily commute to a job we have no feelings for and in many cases a job we hate, and what makes it harder is when you are living in a country like the UK when most days are as miserable as your face when you are forced to get out of bed! Many of us already know that good sleep and a good start to the day translates into productivity, but why are we so reluctant to wake up?

Well what if you were told there is an easier way? A way where you would be able to jump out of bed with a smile on your face and an abundance of energy, instead of hitting the snooze button every 5 minutes and end up feeling worse.

“I’m just not a morning person”, you say. Well the truth is there is no such thing and excuses won’t help, but with these 6 tips you will see just how you can get a good night’s sleep and become an early riser.

tired-guy

Don’t be this guy

Step 1

Set clock 15 minutes earlier incrementally

Ever been rushing around trying to get ready for work wishing you had more time? Wondering why you didn’t get up early? Well use this tip. For example if you usually wake up every day at 7am and would like to wake up an hour earlier at 6am, it seems daunting to try that the next day probably with little success too. So set your alarm just 15 minutes earlier and every couple of days another 15 minutes earlier until you reach your target time and make it your habit, before you know it you’ll be waking up with your alarm.

Step 2

Put down any electronic devices 1hr before going to bed

This is for most of us especially the younger generation, put down your phone! The fact is we shouldn’t actually be using any type of electronic devices, whether it is a laptop, tablet, television etc. Technology is new and our bodies have yet to evolve long enough around it. We are nocturnal creatures so any type of light, be it from our phones, TV or even room light will keep us awake and alert as well as distracted. So a good rule of thumb is to put down the devices at least an hour before bed. Instead do a bit of light reading, preferably a book or kindle (something that will keep you away from the urge to check your Facebook or Snapchat updates), meditate, do whatever to relax and go sleep.

Step 3

Do exercise. Jump out of bed

Exercise, there are countless benefits of exercise and staying active. One benefit is that exercising keeps us healthy, calm and relaxed. You could do some light exercise a couple of hours before you go to bed to burn any excess energy leaving you with a nice peaceful night’s sleep. You could also jump straight out of bed when you wake up and start doing exercise to get the blood flowing and the brain going as part of your morning ritual to help kick off a productive day. Just don’t forget to stretch.

Step 4

No snooze will power

The snooze button, to most of us is our best friend, the one thing that saves us from our nagging alarm and gives us that priceless extra sleep time, but the only problem is when we are semi-conscious we need to know when to stop pressing it. Constantly snoozing the alarm is actually one of the worse things you can do when trying to wake up refreshed as it disrupts the sleep cycle over and over again. The best thing you can do when you wake up is to get up straight away; sounds pretty straightforward right? But in actuality when you are in sleep mode it’s harder than it sounds and I’m sorry to tell you this but this will require a great deal of will power especially for heavier sleepers to train yourself to make it a habit. So the next time you hear your alarm, open your eyes, take a deep breath and stretch it out.

Step 5

Give enough sleep time

This tip is the very basic. Get enough hours of sleep, it’s obvious isn’t it? But the fact is a lot of our sleep problems stem from not getting enough shut eye. In a world where there is too much happening and not enough hours in a day some of us sacrifice our sleep to tend to other tasks. It’s time to take a step back and fulfil one of our most basic needs. Studies show we need around 7-9 hours of sleep every night and anything less will create a sleep deficit, so make sure you are getting yours.

Step 6

No caffeine/stimulants/big meals

If you want to wake up every day with energy it is imperative that you avoid eating big/heavy meals, and avoid drinking any type of caffeinated or alcohol drinks. Not eating heavy before bed seems obvious but the problem is in our society we tend to have our biggest meal of the day for our dinner. What we all need to understand is that our bodies take a while to digest food in particular heavy meats and carbs which could be detrimental to energy levels, leaving you feeling tired and groggy in the mornings. If this is true for you try to adjust your diet or eat a couple of hours before you go to bed and if you really feel peckish an hour before you head to bed try having something light like yoghurt or fruits. Just like food, caffeine and alcohol are very good at disrupting our sleep, completely avoid any drink with these substances or you’ll be left in a light, interrupted sleep.

As we all know acquiring and getting rid of a habit takes a while with some researchers concluding that it takes 21 days or perhaps up to 30 days to develop a new habit depending on who you ask. Try some of these tips and see how that works out for you. Feel free to leave a comment and let us know your progress.

Are robots more harmful than we think?

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We have all seen the movies, read the books and even heard things from the weirdo at the back of the bus saying robots will take over the world and enslave the human race one day. Most of us will usually not take any notice or even laugh it off as a sign of paranoia, but do the movies; books and weirdo all have a point? Do they know something we don’t? Is there more to these artificial beings than just a way to aid the human race? Are robots more harmful than we think?

To decide whether these lifeless beings pose a threat to the human race we must first understand where robots came from. The original idea of artificial beings stems from the ancient world, although it wasn’t until the age of the industrial revolution that through the introduction of electricity made it possible to power machines using electric motors. Therefore in the early 20th century the modern concept of humanoid robots were conceived. The term ‘robot’ was coined in the 1921 science fiction play R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Capek whose brother Josef created the word from Czech word “robota” which roughly translates into servitude or job.

Of course not all robots are bad; robots are actually very beneficial to us. They help us with everyday menial tasks, the machine robots have helped us advance as a race by basically being the automotive, manufacturing and engineering industry by mass producing on a major scale because without robots we would have not seen demands met. Robots have taken humans out of dangerous and health hazardous jobs and probably saved a lot of human lives in turn. You can find robots anywhere from the retail industry to the entertainment industry but one of the most important jobs robots are conducting right now are in the medical sector. Robots are utilised within the pharmaceutical side of mass producing medicines for all types of medical conditions as well as preforming potential lifesaving surgeries on patients through human controlled robot surgeons. Of course as technology moves on there are more and more autonomous robots being created with a view in mind to make our lives easier, for example auto vacuum cleaners, self-driving cars and so on. But could this be making us too complacent? In short, not really but we could well be weakened as a race.

When discussing robots and their effect on the human race it is hard to deter from the topic of whether all these advantages of robots in the work place can be a disadvantage in the long run and lead to displacing humans in the workforce altogether? Could we be at the start of industries looking to invest in artificial intelligence for more than just laborious tasks, leaving more of us unemployed? It remains to be seen whether the bleak vision of current trending Hollywood films of a future of a globalised world filled with mass poverty, disease, and unemployment is true, where artificial intelligence is put in place to work for the rich whilst strictly controlling the poor. As more and more money is being used to fund the type humanoid robots that mimic human and even animal movement, we could be witnessing the actualisation of scenes straight out of the Terminator series. Adding to the fact that robots have the potential to be stronger, faster and more ruthless than humans. If the movies are true and robots develop their own agenda then we don’t stand a chance.

So are robots more harmful than we think?

Right now, no. In fact robots have been responsible for a lot of good and advancement for the human race; they have made our lives easier and maybe made us lazier, also robots do not have the capacity to feel emotions, to love, hate, envy etc. So they are only as smart as the human they are taking orders from. There is a lot of sensationalism about robots and what they have the potential to become and of course there is a potential for them to fall with the wrong people to utilise them in a wrong way and if we are not careful, things could become depressing like the films but one thing that is for sure it is in our own hands for now.

Will Skype Translator be all it’s cracked up to be? How will human translation be affected?

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In mid-2014 Microsoft announced its plans to release the anticipated Skype Translator and now in late 2014 a new video has been released to support the campaign. The video shows two school children one in America and one in Mexico conversing over skype with real time audio translation. Similarly to Apple and Google’s speech recognition software the Skype Translator is able to convert speech into text but with a twist, the speech is then translated into a different language in real time and fed back to the other party. So far the application is able to offer English to Spanish translation and vice versa in audio form and in around 40 languages in text form.

What impact will this have on learning languages?

Some may argue this is the end of learning languages. Would one want to go through the effort of studying a new language, watching countless videos, reading numerous books, understanding new dialects and having to emigrate and live in a new country just to learn a new language, when one can easily communicate in real time with someone who speaks a totally different language to them with just access to internet connection and a mobile or laptop device. This is a debatable topic one left to individual preference.

Although this new technology is ground-breaking it is highly unlikely to deter people from travelling and wanting to learn new languages the old fashioned way and surely that is not what Microsoft intended when they first brought the idea into development. In fact it would probably encourage people to travel and learn new languages as people have been for years.

Privacy issues

As reported in the Guardian one controversial factor which has stood out with the new Skype Translator is the fact that Skype will record conversations in order to continually improve the translation, voice recognition services and train the system to better learn each language. Ask yourself would you be happy for your private conversations being recorded by Skype or is this a breach of privacy not worth the use?

Overall the Skype Translator has its benefits when it comes to convenience when communicating with someone who speaks a different language to you. The application could even go as far as being a cost effective way of using translation services, however the fact that the translation is not 100% accurate like many other machine translation platforms it is highly unlikely to replace human translation anytime soon. Apart from some privacy and accuracy issues it is likely to capture a great following and be a great addition to machine translation.

The world’s first ever smartphone celebrates 20th anniversary

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On Saturday 16th August 2014 the world’s first ever smartphone, the IBM Simon celebrated the 20th anniversary of its release to the public way back in in 1994. The London’s Science Museum, has added a display in their new ‘Information Age’ gallery, to commemorate the 20th year since it was released.

The gallery’s overseer Charlotte Connelly explained “The Simon wasn’t called a smartphone back then, but it had a lot of the features we see today. It had a calendar, it could take notes and send emails and messages and combined all of this with a cell phone.” The IBM Simon was only released in the United States of America and only had network coverage in 15 states, so there was no need for any translation services because it didn’t penetrate most local states in America let alone international markets.

The IBM Simon was the first of its kind to combine computing features and mobile phone technology. Although it was ahead of its time in terms of technology and innovation, it was a far cry from what we are used to in today’s modern smartphones dominated by the Apple’s iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy range and HTC. In terms of sheer size and weight, the comparisons between the IBM Simon and say the Samsung Galaxy S4 is like comparing an elephant to a mouse and not the type of mouse with big ears and white gloves that you might find in Disneyland either!

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Modern day smartphone – Samsung Galaxy S4

With the IMB Simon weighing a whopping, not so pocket friendly 500g (1.1lbs) compared to the Samsung’s featherlike 130 g (0.3lbs) and a battery life of just one hour compared to the S4’s 17 hour talk time battery life. With the tiny battery life coupled with the fact that it weighs nearly as much as a small child and that hefty black box look, it is no wonder the IBM Simon wasn’t very successful.

As Charlotte Connelly describes “It looks like a grey block but it’s not as big as you’d imagine,” she said. “It had a stylus and a green LCD screen, which is similar in size to the iPhone 4. In fact, it’s not a bad looking thing.”

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IBM Simon with Stylus

Although attracting members of the business community because of the gap in the market for a portable device with the capabilities of a computer and despite having some impressive software applications such as the ability to link up to a fax machine. The IBM Simon never made an impact and eventually disappeared into the abyss just two years after it was released with just 50,000 sales probably owing to its substantial price tag and the fact it was truly ahead of its time. Ms Connelly says “It only had an hour’s battery, it was $899 and there was no mobile internet at the time. So it wasn’t very successful,” said Ms Connelly.

Now 20 years later the IBM Simon is finally being celebrated and appreciated, which often seems to be the way with a lot of retro technology. The IBM Simon will be displayed in October along with more than 800 other objects of retro technology highlighting how much technology has evolved in the last 200 years. Without innovative technology such as the IBM Simon the world would have never become so globalised and connected as it is now, there would be many more barriers in international relations and a lot of things would get lost in translation. Ms Connelly describes the exhibition as a reminder of a different time. “It does remind us of that time. I definitely enjoy getting away from things and deliberately disconnecting myself, there’s something quite nice about that.”