SDL and Language Weaver announced a strategic partnership to deliver Language Weaver’s translation software tightly integrated into SDL’s GIM platform and as part of SDL Knowledge-based Translation System (SDL KbTS). Language Weaver automated translation solutions have been deployed for the enterprise and large web properties to deliver translations of digital content. This partnership will give SDL customers the opportunity to deliver effective communication to customers across many more languages. The companies announced that the agreement encompasses a number of different applications of automated translation, including: Translation of content that is otherwise too expensive or time consuming to translate, such as online support content that re-directs customers from expensive call centers to more cost-effective self-service on the web; Integrating automated translation into the translation process for high-quality technical documentation; Providing ubiquitous access to automated translation, through integration into desktop translation technology, SDL Trados, and integration into the translation website http://www.freetranslation.com. Integration with SDL Trados and the addition of new language support within SDL Knowledge-based Translation System are planned for the second half of 2009. http://www.sdl.com/lwsdl
Year: 2009 (Page 23 of 39)
Zoho has announced access and usability enhancements for mobile users of its suite of productivity applications. Until now, Zoho offered mobile access to only a few applications and did not do so in a consistent manner. Each application had a unique mobile access URL and interface. With today’s announcement, all mobile-enabled Zoho applications may be accessed at one location, http://m.zoho.com, and they share a common look and feel.
The following applications are currently available at Zoho Mobile:
- Zoho Mail
- Zoho Calendar
- Zoho Writer
- Zoho Sheet
- Zoho Show
- Zoho Creator
Zoho also announced support for additional mobile platforms. Previously, its mobile applications were available only on the iPhone and Windows Mobile, with limited functionality on the latter. Zoho Mobile is now available for:
- iPhone
- Windows Mobile
- Blackberry
- Symbian
- Android
Palm access is anticipated in a future release.
The text of Zoho’s announcement may be found on the company’s blog.
Ephox announced the latest release of its online rich text editor, EditLive! 6.7. Included in the new version are multiple features to help website authors easily create accessible web content. With EditLive!’s built-in accessibility checking tools, users get detailed analysis of content errors based on the latest standards of the US Rehabilitation Act Section 508 and the W3C. The latest version of EditLive! includes accessibility check as-you-type functionality and makes compliance with web standards as easy as spell-checking a document. Business users receive immediate, visual feedback when they create non-compliant content and are then directed to resources that will help resolve the errors. In addition to the accessibility tools, some of the new features in EditLive! 6.7 include a broken hyperlink report and the ability to open Microsoft Word documents directly within EditLive!. All of the features in the latest release are included in the EditLive! Enterprise Edition which contains advanced productivity, multimedia and collaboration tools like an inline image editor, track changes, thesaurus, and auto-correct. http://www.ephox.com
ISYS Search Software announced the arrival of ISYS:sdk 9, the company’s next-generation enterprise search integration kit for original equipment manufacturers (OEM), independent software vendors (ISV) and systems integrators. ISYS:sdk 9 offers customers several major enhancements, all designed to deliver the performance, scalability and accuracy required for empowering third-party applications with search. Most significantly, ISYS has expanded its core engine’s content mining capabilities using deterministic and reliable methods that help customers better understand their content. Through its Intelligent Content Analysis, ISYS notes key characteristics about a content collection, such as metadata patterns and entities, thus enabling OEMs to leverage these facets for improved search and discovery. ISYS’ Intelligent Content Analysis identifies characteristics can that can be exploited by OEMs to bolster their applications with greater content mining capabilities, an increasingly critical requirement in compliance and ediscovery applications. ISYS’ Intelligent Content Analysis manifests itself in the form of several parametric search and refinement options, all of which are callable from a variety of languages, including C++, C#, VB.NET and Java. The core ISYS indexing engine can be configured to note aspects like entities in the full text (e.g., names, locations); commonly recurring metadata values in semi-structured and database formats; location of files; dates and numbers; and position of words. http://www.isys-search.com
PBworks, formerly known as PBwiki (the company officially announced the name change this week), a provider of hosted collaboration solutions for business and education, announced the launch of PBworks Legal Edition, the first of the company’s market-specific solutions. PBworks Legal Edition applies hosted collaboration to the unique business needs of law firms and corporate counsel. PBworks Legal Edition includes all of the features of PBworks Professional Plus, such as unlimited storage for documents and files, full-text search of document content, Mobile Edition access via Blackberry and iPhone, and 24/7 customer service. The new solution adds complete audit logs of all activity, built-in legal templates that firms can customize for their business processes, and bundled professional services to optimize the rollout and adoption process. PBworks Legal Edition is available immediately at a starting price of $50/attorney-user/month. Licenses for paralegals, legal secretaries, and other staff and clients are included for free. http://pbworks.com/, http://pbwiki.com
iSpeech.org, text to speech software as a service (SaaS) company, announced its services are now available to anyone using the Box.net platform. The integration allows Box customers to instantly listen to documents with a few clicks of the mouse. This software-free feature is available through simple Web menus. The integration marks the first deployment of a text to speech Web service with an online content storage and collaboration platform. iSpeech brings text to speech to over 50,000 businesses currently using Box.net. Business and people can now have instant audio access to any document containing text. The resulting audio files can be used to help employees or students absorb information faster and, “even during their commute”. iSpeech usage is available in various packages ranging from a free ad-supported voice to the use of premium voices for $7.85 per month. Customers are able to try premium voices free for 15 days. The resulting audio files can be downloaded as MP3s, podcasted to iTunes, or embedded. http://www.ispeech.org/, http://www.box.net/
Amazon and Lexcycle announce that Amazon has aquired Ebook Firm Lexcycle, Inc., developers of the iphone eBook reader. Both companies said there are no plans to change the development of Stanza. According to Lexcycle’s founder Marc Prud’hommeau, “We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read ebooks from our many content partners. We look forward to offering future products and services that we hope will resonate with our passionate readers. We are excited to join forces with a company that has innovated on behalf of readers for over a decade and is a pioneer in ebooks. Like Amazon, we believe there is a lot of innovation ahead for ebooks and we could not think of a better company to join during this exciting time”. http://www.lexcycle.com/lexcycle_acquired_by_amazon
Lynn Turner, the outspoken and former SEC chief accountant under Arthur Levitt, is again in the news straight talking about what is wrong in the world of accounting. His straight talk has earned him a reputation as a beacon for clear financial reporting and no non-sense. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Turner in 2002 while speaking as a conference at the University of Northern Colorado. My topic, XBRL, was very new to the entire audience except for Lynn. Then something completely unexpected happened.
In the middle of my talk, Lynn raised his hand like traffic cop and said “Stop”.
The next few words surprised me and stuck with me to this day. Lynn said, “Neal, I’m a believer and supporter of XBRL. In fact, I wrote the speech for Arthur Levitt when he mentioned XBRL back in 2000. But please promise me that whenever you speak in public about XBRL remind people that you must get the accounting right first.”
When the shock of being stopped in mid-sentence by the former SEC chief accountant wore off, I thanked Lynn for his comments and continued with my talk. Later, as I reflected upon what Mr. Turner had said, the idea of putting accounting first began to resonate. You see, XBRL is a unique new way to tell the world about the accounting choices your company has made. Each line item and soon, each numerical value in the footnotes to financial statements will carry additional information about the label, definition and authoritative reference associated with each value. Never before has the accounting behind the numbers been so exposed.
Getting the accounting right will be a process that will evolve over time. For example, I do not expect the newly released 2009 Us GAAP taxonomy to be perfect. Each individual line will require careful review by the management team during the time-compressed close to file cycle. Review processes will be tested and tweeked as the XBRL becomes a critical part of the correctness and timliness of the corporate SEC filing.
Problems are also likely to surface from outside filing companies. The taxonomy will be “stress tested’ when over 500 first phase filings begin this June. I expect to hear reports of missing elements and errors in the taxonomy. We will also hear about cases where the use of the XBRL taxonomy exposes interesting things about corporate accounting that might not be right. As Lynn Turner admonished over seven years ago, companies need to get the accounting right first, then correctly tag the results in XBRL.
