TAUS-Archive

An extensive category-by-category map of the translation technology landscape—TM tools, TMS, GMS, MT platforms (rule-based, statistical, neural), QA tools, captioning, and speech-to-speech systems—framed as a reflection of the industry’s decades-old “gig economy” and a guide for buyers, investors, and newcomers alike.

A tour of consumer translation gadgets riding Google Translate’s coattails: QR Translator’s barcode signs, Panasonic’s real-time translating megaphone for Tokyo’s airport, SayHi’s voice app, and wearables like Ili and Waverly Labs’ earpiece—all raising the question of whether convenience is killing language learning.

Does the translation industry have its own billion-dollar “unicorn”? Tracing EU funding cuts, the Convergence Era, and contenders like Gengo, Unbabel, and Translated SRL, the piece concludes the industry may be better suited to Caterina Fake’s “cockroaches”—steady, cost-conscious growers—than flashy disruptors.

Recap of TAUS’s May 2016 Barcelona roundtable, where speakers tackled data sharing, quality measurement, minority-language MT, and API-driven business models. Key voices included Jaap van der Meer on the “Convergence Era” and CA Technologies’ challenge to LSPs: automate end-to-end localization or risk becoming obsolete.

What does a buyer actually get when acquiring an LSP? Using In Every Language’s sale to Paragon and TransPerfect’s forced sale as case studies, let’s break down tangible versus intangible assets—staff, client lists, technology—and ask whether the industry undervalues its own innovation compared to tech peers.