Language industry

• Lookout, Inc. , the endpoint-to-cloud security company, today announced it has been named a Major Player in two new IDC MarketScape reports: the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Network Edge Security as a Service (NESaaS) 2023 Vendor Assessment1 and the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) 2023 Vendor Assessment2.
• The IDC MarketScape recognized Lookout as a Major Player in NESaaS for the Company’s security service edge (SSE) product, the Lookout Cloud Security Platform , which converges SSE and endpoint security to protect users and data wherever they reside.
• Services in the platform include Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security (mobile threat defense), Lookout Secure Private Access (ZTNA), Lookout Secure Internet Access (secure web gateway) and Lookout Secure Cloud Access (cloud access security broker).
• “To be recognized as a 'Major Player' in the IDC MarketScapes for NESaaS and ZTNA is an important milestone for Lookout because it further validates our ongoing commitment to cybersecurity innovation and to our customers’ continued success.”
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• Leveraging their state-of-the-art AI automated Telephone Interpreting (TI) platform, thebigword has been able to connect 98% of TI platform users to a qualified interpreters within 22 seconds.
• This revolutionary technology empowers clients with access to on-demand language services, connecting them to thousands of professional interpreters proficient in an array of languages - all in real-time.
• thebigword's TI platform delivers a service level of over 98%, guaranteeing high-quality and reliable language interpretation services, irrespective of time and the client's requested language.
• The platform swiftly connects clients with qualified interpreters in 22 seconds, significantly reducing wait times and streamlining communication processes.

• CIBC Innovation Banking announced today that it has provided €12m in debt financing to Phrase, a global cloud-based localisation software provider, headquartered in Prague, that helps brands localise and translate content more efficiently and manage the end-to-end process at scale.
• Phrase will use the funds to further develop the next generation of AI-driven language technology.
• Georg Ell, Phrase CEO, said: “CIBC Innovation Banking’s financing will help us take our localization technology to the next level as the latest innovations in AI and machine learning continue to take off.
• The CIBC Innovation Banking team is looking forward to supporting Phrase on their next stage of growth.”

• Research also shows that people make different decisions depending on whether they are thinking in their first or second language.
• The problem is that much of the published research about multilingualism is not conducted in the world’s most multilingual societies.
• Our recent study provides new empirical evidence of the geographic bias in multilingualism research published in high-impact scientific journals.
• The reverse is also true: the most multilingual regions are massively understudied in research on multilingualism.

A glaring mismatch

• The mismatch that emerged in our research is neatly illustrated in this map.
• The top panel presents a world map of the most common sites of multilingualism research; regions that are more commonly studied appear in darker colours.
• The map shows that North America and Western Europe are the primary locations of research on multilingualism.

Geographic bias is detrimental

• This geographic bias is not unique to multilingualism research.
• In this case, however, the underrepresentation is particularly detrimental.
• These include the unequal distribution of resources (like research infrastructure and research funding), as well as bias in the academic publishing system, which is dominated by global north institutions and publishing houses.

Tackling the problem

• In the meantime, we are pleased to see the smaller steps that are already being taken.
• One is increasing the visibility of the research that is being conducted in the global south.