ZipDX Multilingual Presentation to IMUG408 at Adobe HQ

The January 2016 gathering of the International Multilingual User Group (IMUG408) was hosted by Adobe at their Silicon Valley headquarters in San Jose, CA. On this particular occasion the group enjoyed a presentation on “Simultaneous Interpretation for Virtual Meetings” given by David Frankel and Professor Barry Slaughter-Olsen of ZipDX.

The presentation introduced the audience of language professionals to simultaneous interpretation over-the-phone, as embodied in ZipDX multilingual conferencing. It also leveraged the service, engaging remote participants to provide a live demo of a multilingual conference in action.

The ZipDX conference was setup in English and Spanish, with Barry Slaughter-Olsen interpreting for the initial portion. Participants, whether remote or local, were able to join the conference on ZipDX by telephone. Once connected by telephone, they could move between the floor, English and Spanish channels, gaining some first-hand insight into how the system works.

The audience was both attentive and enthusiastic, expressing great interest in SI over-the-phone as a way to extend the opportunity for multilingual engagement when physical meetings are not possible. After the formal presentation was over, there was an animated round of Q & A.

A big thank you to IMUG for the opportunity to address this gathering! The experience was immensely enjoyable. We constantly find the community of interpreters, and other language professionals, to be an inspiring group of people. Their enthusiasm for connecting people across the chasm of languages is positively infectious. It’s part of what drives us to continue enhancing ZipDX’s multilingual capabilities.

Introducing Slide Show

This event also marked the first public use of our new Slide Show feature. Slide Show is a tool for leveraging slides in support of a conference call in a coordinated fashion. Slide Show allows the conference host to upload a set of slide images that can be associated with a conference. In the case of a multilingual conference, the host can upload a set of slides in each of the required languages.

When the conference is underway, participants connecting to the Web Share see the slide presentation in the language corresponding to the language that they are hearing.

The presenter retains control of the position and pace of the presentation. The audience can view the Slide Show using any web browser on any computer, tablet or mobile phone. The presentation goods are viewed on-the-fly, never being distributed to the audience in a persistent form.

For this IMUG gathering, the presentation included both English and Spanish slides, mirroring the language settings for the conference. At Adobe HQ, the local audience saw both sets of slides projected onto two large displays. Remote participants could view the slides via the web.

David ran the presentation from a laptop, viewing the English slides and advancing when appropriate. Each change in the English slides was instantly matched by a corresponding move in the Spanish slides. The two sets of slides stayed continuously in-sync throughout the presentation.

When remote participants selected a specific language channel, they were automatically shown the slides in the corresponding language.

Conference Recording

Similar to the existing WebShare capability, the Slide Show feature is integrated with conference recording. Post-conference, the audience can be given access to the recording via a simple web link. When played back online, the slides are replayed in-sync with the recorded audio.

We’re pleased to offer the recording of the IMUG presentation to illustrate both ZipDX multilingual conferencing and the new Slide Show capability. There are separate web links for the recording of the floor, and each specific language channel.

• Floor Channel – Whoever had the floor, in their own voice; no interpretation
• English Channel – English speakers in their own voice; Spanish speakers via interpreter
• Spanish Channel – Spanish speakers in their own voice; English speakers via interpreter

Regardless of which language you hear, you can toggle between language versions of the slides. To listen to a different language channel, you must use the appropriate link. A control along the top of the viewer allows you to jump to different points in the recording.

This recording runs just over two hours, from start to finish. Only the first 24 minutes of the presentation were interpreted.

At 19:05 in the recording, there is an appearance by Paulina Rodriguez, a professional interpreter who participated remotely, in Spanish, from Toronto, Ontario.

At 22:30, someone from the local audience joined using their mobile phone to be able to engage in Spanish via the interpreter.

For more information about any aspect of ZipDX, including multilingual conferencing or Slide Show, simply get in touch. We’re here to help!

Photos courtesy of IMUG, Copyright @2106, Tex Texin