Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) today announced the launch of the new Tarjim service, which allows mobile users to receive translations between Arabic and English of words or phrases.

Users send a phrase or word to a number in one of the languages and receive the translations on their phone. This service is offered in partnership with Sakhr Software Co., operators of www.ajeeb.com, one of the most popular online translation resources in the region.

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As Georgia’s Hispanic population continues to soar, more emergency-service providers are learning Spanish.

And buying into translation services to bridge language barriers that can easily pop up in a life-or-death situation.

From crash-course classes in “Survival Spanish” to pay-by-the-minute translators who work in tandem with 911 operators, Georgia’s first responders are seeking ways to assist the state’s fastest growing minority population during times of crisis.

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Bangalore, the capital of India’s technology sector, has become one of the world’s fastest growing software hubs, offering foreign companies a winning formula comprised of a large number of skilled software engineers at a very cheap price. The combination of quantity, quality and low cost is so attractive that Israeli companies should start preparing themselves for a reality in which it won’t be economical anymore to keep some of their activities in Israel.

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The Nebraska Supreme Court Friday reiterated that police do not have to give an exact translation when reading Miranda rights to Spanish-speaking suspects.

The high court cited earlier rulings that said Miranda rights do not have to be given verbatim.

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Advertisers spent an estimated $3.1 billion in 2004 to market their products to U.S. Hispanics, up 11 percent from last year, according to U.S. Hispanic Media Markets Report, released by Hispanic Business Inc.

The report predicts that Hispanic market advertising expenditures in the U.S. will reach $3.6 billion by 2007. Spanish-language radio is predicted to garner the largest percentage of growth by 2007—gaining 21 percent.

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It is 8:30 p.m. and it’s time for commercials on prime-time television. A Target ad flashes on the screen. A family digs through their stockings, about to open presents, to a danceable tune that sounds like “Joy to the World,” but you can’t quite understand it.

That’s because it’s in Spanish.

Marketers increasingly are going beyond foreign language TV stations to reach a diverse customer base. Target Corp., General Motors Corp. and Major League Baseball have all recently aired ads in Spanish on network television. Locally, the Wayne County Community College District ran a recruitment ad in the general market in Spanish with English subtitles and another in English with Arabic subtitles.

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Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business may be the only university in Texas, and one of a few in the country, to include an Hispanic Marketing course in its MBA curriculum. Despite the phenomenal growth of the Hispanic market to over 40 million and a buying power approaching $700 billion, all too often marketing executives are not prepared to make effective decisions that are based on factual information about Hispanics. The course is intended for corporate executives and business majors who are likely to have a role in making marketing decisions related to Hispanic consumers. Business schools may begin to follow suit, but out front on this effort is SMU’s Cox School of Business.

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Big laughs erupted in Buenos Aires, as moviegoers heard a local radio sportscaster’s voice dubbed in as one of the animated characters in “The Incredibles,” the latest Disney/Pixar hit, reports Wailin Wong in a Dow Jones Newswires dispatch. The locally familiar voice was that of Matias Martin, in the role of “the villainous Syndrome,” as voiced by Jason Lee “in the original version.” Not only did Sr. Martin lend his well-recognized sportscaster’s pipes to the part, but also “some of his trademark sports expressions and inside jokes about co-hosts.” He actually was just one of a number of local actors, singers and other celebrities cast in the Argentine version of the film, and “throwing round local slang and referencing Buenos Aires locations.”

This extra Argentine effort was a first for Disney, which “began dubbing specific versions of its films for Mexico, its fifth largest market,” only two years ago. The studio also began dubbing “two additional versions in ‘neutral’ Spanish, one for Central America — including Colombia, Venezuela and Peru — and another for the Southern Cone countries of Argentina, Uruaguay, Paraguay and Chile.”

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Hat tip: Going Global

Raising the level of internationalization of universities is not merely the current consensus among schools; it has also become one of the standards by which colleges are assessed, to the exclusion of all other subjects. More and more schools and departments are now teaching specialized courses in English. But many students are calling foul. They feel that not only does this approach do nothing to increase their English proficiency; it may also prevent them from mastering professional knowledge. It is, they claim, a case of putting the cart before the horse.

To keep pace with “globalization”, and to attract foreign students at the same time, in recent years the [Taiwanese] Ministry of Education has encouraged and assisted universities to teach more courses in English.

The People’s Republic of Computers is ready to invade the USA. At least, that’s the spin being put on the $1.75 billion IBM-Lenovo deal by many mainstream journalists concerned by the acquisition of IBM’s storied PC unit by a relatively unknown Chinese competitor. Given IBM’s role as a creator and developer of the modern PC business and the strength and popularity of models such as the IBM ThinkPad, it is natural that some might view the company’s move to sell its PC unit as yet another victory for globalization and a sign that the U.S. tech industry continues to be mired in a permanent malaise of low single-digit growth rates.

For IBM PC users around the world, it certainly feels like an end of an era. Perhaps it is — but it is also the beginning of a new era in which U.S. tech companies are no longer content to watch the growing commoditization of entire industries — they are moving aggressively into higher-margin businesses such as IT services and scrapping entire product lines that are not growing fast enough.

As for concerns about declining global competitiveness — the IBM ThinkPad still boasts one of the great brands in the tech world, proving that IBM still possesses a fearsome R&D capability. Since its launch nearly 12 years ago, the ThinkPad has consistently been at the forefront of innovations such as color displays, 14-inch displays and removable hard drives. Lenovo, as the New York Times pointed out, is not after IBM’s PC business as much as it is after the IBM brand, which is associated with quality and innovation and all the good things that comprise competitiveness. While Lenovo is the world’s 8th largest PC manufacturer and the fastest-growing PC maker in the world, it is also realized that it would be unable to penetrate the global PC market without the cachet of a U.S. brand.

At a time when many tech companies are merely looking to survive the downward pressure on prices caused by globalization, IBM is instead making a bet that it can continue to migrate into higher-margin business lines by focusing more on services, less on machines. If anything, IBM no longer stands for International Business Machines — it now stands for Increasingly Bigger Margins. IBM is not the only major PC maker considering new strategic directions. Anyone notice that Apple is now becoming almost as well-known for its iPods as for its computers?

When IBM unveiled the ThinkPad marketing campaign using the tagline “Where do you do your best thinking?” it was a way of encouraging customers to consider new ways of using the ThinkPad in everyday business. Years later, that same marketing tagline may offer an unintended insight into how U.S. tech giants such as IBM will survive and prosper during the next round of globalization. The power of the “Think” brand is a continual reminder that when it comes to innovation and know-how, the world still does its best thinking in the U.S.

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Note: My first PC was an IBM ThinkPad.

Hispanic attitudes survey probes the differences between Hispanics who consider themselves white and those who say they are of some other race.

Hispanics who view themselves as white are more likely to be better educated, earn more, register to vote and vote Republican…

Regional differences

…in California, only 42 percent of U.S.-born Mexican-Americans identified themselves as white, compared with 63 percent of their ethnic counterparts in Texas.

For instance, 81 percent of Puerto Ricans living on the island identified themselves as white in the 2000 census, while only 46 percent of those living on the U.S. mainland did so. And among Cubans, those living in Florida were much more likely to say they were white than those living in California.

Latin American culture

In many Latin American countries, race is a flexible concept and can change with a person’s status in society. Historical and contemporary evidence shows that a Latin American strain of racism favors lighter-skinned over darker-skinned people, but as an old Caribbean proverb says, “Money bleaches.”

U.S. Hispanics

In the United States, Hispanics are an ethnic group made up of people of different races, often mixed, and from a variety of ancestral homelands. In the 2000 census, they mainly selected two racial categories to describe themselves. Forty-eight percent identified themselves as white, and 42 percent chose “some other race.”

Hispanics who perceive themselves as white appear to feel that their place in American society is more secure, the report found.

…Hispanics who said they were white were more likely to describe themselves as American than those who said they were of some other race.

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The explosive increase in the U.S. Hispanic population coupled with its increasing purchasing power has advertisers jockeying for a larger market share of this largely untapped market. Overall advertising spending increased by more than 45 percent since 2000 while spending in the top 10 DMAs experienced an increase of only 26 percent, suggesting that advertisers are targeting smaller markets such as Atlanta and Denver in an attempt to increase their advertising reach. HispanTelligence estimates that Hispanic market advertising expenditures will increase to about $3.65 billion by 2007.

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Advertisers spent an estimated $2.79 billion in 2003 to market their products to U.S. Hispanics, a 13-percent increase from last year.

HispanTelligence estimates that Hispanic market advertising expenditures will surpass the $3 billion mark by 2005.

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SelectWisely has expanded its food translation card offerings to address the needs of travelers who are lactose intolerant. Visitors to their Web site can create a card specific to their travel plans. Each wallet-size laminated card translates the phrases ,“I am allergic to milk and all milk products”; and “Does this food contain milk or any milk products?”, into any of 12 different languages, including both forms of Chinese, Portuguese and Greek

SelectWisely offers cards in:
– 12 different languages. (French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, German, Russian, Polish, 2 forms of Chinese, 2 forms of Portuguese and English)
– 40 different foods. (Meat, fish, shellfish, pork, poultry, etc., as well as common allergy-producing foods such as nuts, milk, shellfish, and eggs)
– 7 different types of cards. (Single language and multiple languages/foods per card)

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From my hometown’s Baltimore Sun:

The Hispanic market alone in the United States will see its annual buying power grow from about $686 million currently to more than $1 trillion by 2009, said Jeffrey M. Humphreys, an economic forecaster at the University of Georgia.

“By 2009, the buying power of Hispanics in this country will exceed the economy of Canada,” he said. “It’s going to represent an increasing portion of your new customers. And since Hispanic, black and Asian households in the United States significantly lag behind whites in homeownership, the potential is even greater.”

Surette predicts Hispanic homeownership rates will quickly top the 50 percent mark from about 47 percent currently.

“Nearly a third of all the growth between now and 2010 is going to come from Latino-headed households,” he said. “Almost 90 percent [of Hispanics surveyed] want to become homeowners.”

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