The item that prompted me to begin writing about “Why are we doing this?” (WAWDT) was a news report about the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision to rescind authorization for 9 internet providers to provide subsidized broadband …
Category Archives: ICT
Visualizing language, development, education & ICT connections
A few years ago, I came across the following “model of development communication with regard to language(s) and education” by Ekkehard Wolff, a professor emeritus and former Chair of African Studies at the University of Leipzig. It was …
International Decade of Languages?
As we draw to the end of 2008 – which is designated as, among other things, International Year of Languages (IYL) – I wanted to ask what’s next? And to propose the possibility of an International Decade of Languages to …
Mass digitization and oral traditions
In the previous post, I looked at a possible ramification of “mass digitization” of text. But what about the spoken word? And more precisely verbal presentations, performance, and broadcast in languages often described as having “oral …
Can we localize entire libraries?
How close are we to being able to localize entire libraries?
The question is not as crazy as it might seem. Projects for “mass digitization of books” have been using technology like robots for some years already with …
Paradigm shift on machine translation?
The April-May issue of Multilingual, which I’m just catching up with, features seven articles on machine translation (MT). Having a long term interest in this area (which is not to say any expertise) and in its potential for less-widely …