Entry of Big Data into Translation

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Entry of Big Data into Translation
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We are all aware of the fact that with each
passing moment, the amount of accessible data in
our worlds is continuously increasing W.P.
Carey School of Business that all known human
data doubles around every 1.2 years. The term
data here may refer to facts or figures from
both traditional and digital sources it could
be online interactions on social media platforms,
or even product transaction information at a
retail store. It is estimated that by the year
2020, there will probably be four times more
digital data than all the grains of sand on the
earth. What emerges is known as Big Data
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Microsoft founder Bill Gates wasnt exactly
kidding when he said, If your business is not on
the internet, then your business will be out of
business. A study carried out by the Common
Sense Advisory estimated that online consumers
all around the world together have an estimated
spending power of fifty trillion dollars in
figures that is equivalent to 50 followed by
twelve zeroes. Taking into account all the
internet users on this planet, just about
one-third speak or understand the English
language which eventually boils down to this
The spending potential of almost 98 per cent of
online consumers can only be tapped if content in
the English language is translated into 48 other
languages spoken by people all over the world.
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Case Study Lets assume that a company named
X is looking to make it big on the global
front, having consolidated its position
locally. The best way forward for it is this
number one, translate its content into different
languages (based on the language spoken by its
target audience in a particular region) so that
it can put across the message it stands for and
let the audience/consumer know about the
product/service that it is pitching number two,
efficiently manage and prioritize the flood of
global information available to it (read Big
Data) and seek to decipher the needs and wants of
its consumers. This efficient management is made
possible by cloud-driven Big Data
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Now the question arises How does this Big Data
actually help companies? Is it really worth the
time and effort wading into the ever-piling up
details to come up with a few conclusions? The
answer can be summed up thus Big Data is the
next big thing because it can offer a huge
competitive advantage to a company, becoming the
premise for growth and enhanced productivity for
a firm. Summed up in a couple of points, heres
what all Big Data is capable of In
the field of health care, the health outcomes of
widely prescribed pharmaceuticals are being
analyzed to discover both benefits and risks of
drugs. This wasnt possible earlier in limited
clinical trials.
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Be it kids toys or other heavier industrial
products, thanks to Big Data, researchers are
able to use data present in the embedded sensors
of these objects to find out how exactly the same
mechanism can be replicated to design new
products on a larger scale and used to make life
more comfortable in the real world. Nowcasting
which has been made possible due to the
real-time nature of Big Data refers to the
capability to record and analyze metrics such as
consumer confidence, consumer preferences and
intent, and other relevant data along similar
lines related to buyers and suppliers. What could
previously only be carried out in a retrospective
manner can now be tested and predicted in
real-time.
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Jason Silva, co-founding host, Current TV had
this to say, I think Big Data is a new way of
understanding the world, we can measure so much
more than we ever could, and now we are going to
be able to visualize so much more than we ever
could. Although the full potential of Big Data
is still unknown, what has been safely
established is this As more and more accurate
and detailed information is being collected and
stored in digital form (for instance,
transactional data related to customer behaviour
for one), Big Data has the ability to pave the
way for more explicitly tailored products and
services,customized for the needs of a particular
target audience. And in a world which is driven
by this Big Data, it is but a prerequisite for
businesses to be able to translate millions of
words on a continuous basis in order to reach the
masses.
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Herein lies a catch. Agreed Big Data
undoubtedly compounds the challenges faced by
companies which have to keep up with both
translation coupled with the insights provided by
the analysis of Big Data to keep ahead of its
competitors. But then we all know that the most
an expert human translator can manage is around
2500-3000 words per day. Also, even though
machine translations are supposed to be faster,
they have the limitation of having only a limited
number of phrases to draw upon, resulting in
somewhat fragmented translations at times. How
then can the world of translation cope up with
Big Data in tow? The answer lies in cloud-based
platforms, which are still somewhat in a stage of
infancy, but emerging fast.
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Offering access to a large number of translators
at one go, these platforms help build up
translation memory at a rapid pace, leading to an
improved quality of machine translation. No
doubt, considerable human intervention and
intelligence is still a necessity to even out the
inconsistencies (say, between raw numbers and
those that depict actual business value) even in
this case to ensure that the final translations
are up to the mark. But this presently evolving
human-meets-Big Data way of functioning holds
great promise as companies think of expanding
their operations on a global level. As we step
into a machine translation-driven future
controlled by cloud-based tools which manage
translation and Big Data all over the world,
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• Here are two major predictions for the coming
  years from the czars of the translation industry
• As mobile devices and social media continue to
  rule the roost in content creation, a WEM (Web
  Experience Management) system will be the next
  thing to come up
• Predictive analytics, thanks to Big Data-driven
  cloud platforms, will be the next big thing to
  give birth to and build translation memory
  encompassing all kinds of content.
• In the words of Patrick P. Gelsinger, CEO of the
  US cloud and virtualization software company
  VMware, Data is the new science. Big Data holds
  the answers. Are you asking the right questions?

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Thank You...