Translation companies are a hot commodity as businesses reach out to the Hispanic market according to HISPANICTrends.com. Hat tip: Common Sense Advisory.

The Hispanic market is hot and the heat is attracting big-money investors according to HispanicBusiness.com.

The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has announced its support for upcoming special events to focus attention on localization and globalization efforts in South America. “We see big opportunities for Latin American translation agencies to take on a bigger role in the worldwide language services business,” says Don DePalma, GALA board member and president of market analyst firm Common Sense Advisory. “An educated work force, European language expertise, and time-zone proximity should make many U.S. companies look southward for translation.”

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Many people (both supporters and critics) say globalization will lead to a homogenization of culture — people around the world, enticed by McDonalds and Hollywood movies, will devalue their local culture and adopt American ways instead. I don’t know if that will happen or not, but some recent articles and studies got me thinking about one way to test this theory.

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The ATA 45th Annual Conference in Toronto is coming up November 14-16. I’ll be there. Will you?

Please submit your resume to hr@linguisticsolutions.com.

I recently gave a presentation on Global Culture at Cardinal Health in Houston, Texas. See the Linguistic Solutions Web site Resources page and the Linguistic Solutions Blog Global Culture category for resources.

My new book, Vacation Spanish: A Survival Guide for Mexico, the Caribbean, Central & South America, is now available through the publisher, Integrity Press, and through Brazos Bookstore.

For an autographed copy of Vacation Spanish send a check or money order payable to Integrity Press Ltd in the amount of $9.95 (Texas residents add 8.25% sales tax) plus $3.49 for shipping & handling to Integrity Press Ltd, 9618 Cannock Chase Dr., Houston, Texas 77065.

Vacation Spanish is also available at Brazos Bookstore at 2421 Bissonnet St., Houston, Texas 77005 or online at BrazosBookstore.com.

Katja Virtanen muses on the importance of an interpreter on the openBC Language and Translation forum.

HispanicBusiness.com reports on 2003 Census estimates.

China Digital News lists the keywords filtered by all Chinese ISPs. Hat tip: Smart Mobs.

Popular devices spread obscenity, authorities say Hat tip: Smart Mobs.

Japanese electronics firm NEC has developed a handheld device that enables a user to chat in another language without memorising any words or phrases themselves, and it is likely to be launched in Japan in the next few months.

The system consists of three components – a speech recognition engine, translation software and a voice generator, and is about the same size of a normal mobile and converts spoken Japanese to English and vice versa.

Spoken English or Japanese is recognised and converted into text by the speech recognition engine. The text is then converted from Japanese to English or the other way by translation software and the resulting text is vocalised by a voice synthesiser, and the entire process takes about one second.

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Special thanks to my friend Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of WordPress, for upgrading the Linguistic Solutions Blog to the latest version of WordPress and for creating a style sheet to match the Linguistic Solutions Web site!

Special thanks to my friend Scott Allen, online business networks guru, for getting the Linguistic Solutions Blog up and running!