Via Quico Llach's blog, I just learned about Google no longer hiring independent translators to work on their many web applications. Since Quico was hired by them to do their Catalan translators, a few millions of users have been benefitting from his very professional work in Google's most used services: mail, maps, search...

Like Quico, I really hope they already have deals with translation companies to take care of minorised and minority language translations. When Catalan translations were made by random volunteers, I remember the results were quite... unsatisfying, as each one of them used their own glossary and style. When Quico took over, the interfaces were normalised using the Guia d'estil and everything improved dramatically (this problem is something people involved in Rosetta as a developer, translator and team leader know well, and is tricky to solve). Having Google suddenly drop Catalan as a “supported” language would be a huge step back for Catalan on technology. Either way, we'll find out soon.