General
Google Language Tools for the Industry
Google Language Tools have been around for a long time now, along with other machine translation tools. Are they useful to the translation industry? The answer is indisputably, "Yes!", though possibly not in the way you'd think. First of all, the tools are essentially useless for production level text. The kind of gibberish they produce can glean basic information of what the... »
Truly Awful Chinese
Some translated works should never, ever see the light of day. No matter who does them, they are just too awful to mention. I'm an American football fan, and my favorite player is Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts. Imagine my surprise to see him speaking Chinese in a TV commercial! Thank God, there were subtitles! I did not recognize a... »
E3 Expo
Yes, we will be at E3 this year. Looking forward to a return to the old show! We'll have some work on display too - look for it here in the next couple of... »
CityCentre Las Vegas
CityCentre Las Vegas is an impressive construction site. Taking up virtually the entire Southern Strip north of Excalibar, this collection of buildings has been described as the biggest construction project on the planet (though I think that Dubai would have some issues with that). From our visit this last week, I would tell you that Vegas is doing just fine. The... »
Easter Holiday
Easter Holiday in Las Vegas. Will monitor email for urgent or continuing projects. Big things happening in the next couple of weeks - stay tuned! Until Monday then, see... »
Walking Around GDC
Walking around the Expo floor at GDC is always interesting. What's the hot new thing? What's old that's different? What are the new trends that companies are trying to push? First of all, there are too many motion capture companies. Everywhere you turned, there was a model or two dancing on the floor with their actions mimicked onscreen in realtime behind... »
Game Localization Award
At the GDC Localization Summit, there was an extended discussion about having a Localization Award. After all, we all want to have great localizations, and we need something to promote good work, yes? As discussed, the problem comes from several angles: Who is going to judge for the award? While we may have a few individuals competent to judge three, four or... »
GDC Localization Summit 2009 Quick Notes
Back home in Southern California. Ahh, it feels good to be home—the right coffee mug, comfortable office, wicked-fast internet connection, hard-wired to the company server. Ahh, the good things of life! Not to mention family and friends! Today, I'm going to scribble down a few of the general overview notes on the GDC Localization Summit. I may get a few things... »
Still at GDC
I'm still at GDC. Meetings, dinners, conferences, walking the expo, talking to people—life is busy! I'll get to posting about this next week, once I have had a chance to process... »
GDC Localization Summit
The Localization Summit is over. 75 of the biggest names in game localization in one room. Pretty cool! The keynote speech was by Jaime Gine, Vice President of International Development Services for Electronic Arts. This man is in charge of EA's $50 million annual budget to localize their games. And he does. I saw his work in Hungary last year, where... »