The International Special Operations Forces conference in Tampa, Florida each year is an extremely exciting place to be for a week. With Special Ops forces from over 60 countries in attendance, it is truly a special conference, which is why our partner vendor wanted to create a very special web site for the occasion. Working with the military who were in charge of the conference, one of the key differentiators for this web site over what other vendors could provide was the ability to have a central virtual meeting place where everyone could speak and understand in their own language.
Merging the LinguaSys translation technology with IBM’s Sametime Advanced server, the web site promoted a “Ask us” chat portal where attending guests could ask anything that they liked, such as “where can I find a good Sushi restaurant within walking distance of my hotel”, or “what day and time is the big amphibian landing demonstration?” What was special about this is that as each user logged into the web site, and chose a native language, they could read previous questions and answers regardless of the language used, as everything would be translated into their native language. Unlike most of the competition, who use English as a pivot language and end up doing two translations to get to the new language, LinguaSys is an “Interlingua”, and goes directly from one language (for example German) directly to the target language (for example, Japanese). Not having to do two iterations of translation creates a much higher quality experience for the user.