From tex at i18nguy.com Fri Aug 8 19:47:29 2003 From: tex at i18nguy.com (Tex Texin) Date: Fri Aug 8 18:48:32 2003 Subject: [I18n-sig] 24th Unicode Conference - Last week to $SAVE with early-birdrates! Message-ID: <3F342881.B2EB1F04@i18nguy.com> REGISTER THIS WEEK AND SAVE ON EARLY-BIRD CONFERENCE AND HOTEL RATES! Are you falling behind? Version 4.0 of the Unicode Standard is here! Software and Web applications can now support more languages with greater efficiency and lower cost. Do you need to find out how? Do you need to be more competitive around the globe? Is your software upward-compatible with version 4.0? Does your staff need internationalization training? Learn about software and Web internationalization and the new Unicode Standard, including its latest features and requirements. This is the only event endorsed by the Unicode Consortium. The conference will be held September 3-5, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia and is completely updated. ************************************************************************ Twenty-fourth Internationalization and Unicode Conference (IUC24) Unicode, Internationalization, the Web: Powering Global Business http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24 September 3-5, 2003 Atlanta, Georgia, USA ************************************************************************ NEWS > Visit the Conference Web site ( http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24 ) to check the updated Conference program and register. To help you choose Conference sessions, we've included abstracts of talks and speakers' biographies. > Attend the Showcase to find out more about products supporting the Unicode Standard, and products and services that can help you globalize/localize your software, documentation and Internet content. > Be an Exhibitor! Show off your product at the premier technical conference worldwide for both software and Web internationalization. See: http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24/showcase.html > To find out about, and register for the TILP Breakfast Meeting and Roundtable, organized by The Institute of Localisation Professionals, and taking place at the same venue on September 4, 7:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m., See: http://www.tilponline.org/events/diary.shtml or http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24 ************************************************************************ KEYNOTES: Keynote speakers for IUC24 are well-known authors in the Internationalization and Localization industries: Donald De Palma, President, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., and author of "Business Without Borders: A Strategic Guide to Global Marketing", and Richard Gillam, author of "Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer's Guide to the Encoding Standard" and a former columnist for "C++ Report". TUTORIALS: The redeveloped and enhanced Unicode 4.0 Tutorial is taught by Dr. Asmus Freytag, one of the major contributors to the standard, and extensively experienced in implementing real-world Unicode applications. Structured into 3 independent modules, you can attend just the overview, or only the most advanced material. Tutorials in Web Internationalization, non-Latin scripts, and more, are offered in parallel and taught by recognized industry experts. CONFERENCE TRACKS: Gain the competitive edge! Conference sessions provide the most up-to-date technical information on standards, best practices, and recent advances in the globalization of software and the Internet. Panel discussions and the friendly atmosphere allow you to exchange ideas and ask questions of key players in the internationalization industry. WHO SHOULD ATTEND?: If you have a limited training budget, this is the one Internationalization conference you need. Send staff that are involved in either Unicode-enabling software, or internationalization of software and the Internet, including: managers, software engineers, systems analysts, font designers, graphic designers, content developers, Web designers, Web administrators, technical writers, and product marketing personnel. CONFERENCE WEB SITE, PROGRAM and REGISTRATION The Conference Program and Registration form are available at the Conference Web site: http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24 CONFERENCE SPONSORS Agfa Monotype Corporation Basis Technology Corporation ClientSide News L.L.C. Oracle Corporation World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XenCraft GLOBAL COMPUTING SHOWCASE Visit the Showcase to find out more about products supporting the Unicode Standard, and products and services that can help you globalize/localize your software, documentation and Internet content. Sign up for the Exhibitors' track as part of the Conference. For more information, please see: http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc24/showcase.html Exhibitors to date: Agfa Monotype Corporation ASET International Services Corporation Basis Technology ClientSide News L.L.C. LingoPort, Inc. Multilingual Computing, Inc. The Symbio Group The Institute of Localisation Professionals Venturi Technology Partners CONFERENCE VENUE The Conference will take place at: DoubleTree Hotel Atlanta Buckhead 3342 Peachtree Road Atlanta, GA 30326 Tel: +1-404-231-1234 Fax: +1-404-231-3112 CONFERENCE MANAGEMENT Global Meeting Services Inc. 8949 Lombard Place, #416 San Diego, CA 92122, USA Tel: +1 858 638 0206 (voice) +1 858 638 0504 (fax) Email: info@global-conference.com or: conference@unicode.org THE UNICODE CONSORTIUM The Unicode Consortium was founded as a non-profit organization in 1991. It is dedicated to the development, maintenance and promotion of The Unicode Standard, a worldwide character encoding. The Unicode Standard encodes the characters of the world's principal scripts and languages, and is code-for-code identical to the international standard ISO/IEC 10646. In addition to cooperating with ISO on the future development of ISO/IEC 10646, the Consortium is responsible for providing character properties and algorithms for use in implementations. Today the membership base of the Unicode Consortium includes major computer corporations, software producers, database vendors, research institutions, international agencies and various user groups. For further information on the Unicode Standard, visit the Unicode Web site at http://www.unicode.org * * * * * Unicode(r) and the Unicode logo are registered trademarks of Unicode, Inc. Used with permission. From v-magdad at microsoft.com Wed Aug 27 07:11:25 2003 From: v-magdad at microsoft.com (Magda Danish (Unicode)) Date: Wed Aug 27 09:27:25 2003 Subject: [I18n-sig] Major Enhancements to the Unicode Standard: Enabling International Domain Names, Expanding Worldwide Accessibility, and Reducing the Digital Divide Message-ID: <3BE1AD256EC3E24485A10A13452778C70BA0BCB8@svc-msg-01.northamerica.corp.microsoft.com> Major Enhancements to the Unicode Standard: Enabling International Domain Names, Expanding Worldwide Accessibility, and Reducing the Digital Divide Mountain View, CA, August 27, 2003 -- The Unicode? Consortium and Addison-Wesley announce publication of Version 4.0 of the Unicode Standard. Unicode is the fundamental specification for the representation of text, at the core of all modern software, programming languages, and standards, including Windows, Java, C#, Perl, XML, HTML, DB2, Oracle, and many others. Unicode is also central to the new internationalized domain names, which allow everyone in the world to have URLs in their own languages. This is yet another case where Unicode opens the door to more of the world's different cultures, helping to break down the digital divide. Version 4.0 strengthens Unicode support for worldwide communication, software availability, and publishing. The text has been extensively rewritten, and incorporates specifications that were previously only available as separate documents. The clarified specification of conformance requirements incorporates the most highly developed character encoding model in existence, encompassing the wide variety of types of characters needed by the world's languages, and permitting compatibility with all modern computer architectures. Record-breaking character content Version 4.0 encodes over 96,000 characters, twice as many as Version 3.0, and includes two record-breaking collections of encoded characters. The largest encoded character collection for Chinese characters in the history of computing has doubled in size yet again to encompass over 2000 years of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese literary usage, including all the main classical dictionaries of these languages. Version 4.0 also encodes the largest set of characters for mathematical and technical publishing in existence. The character repertoires of Version 4.0 and International Standard ISO/IEC 10646 are fully synchronized. Reducing the digital divide To meet the needs of all linguistic communities, the Unicode Standard and associated standards are continually being extended, not only in terms of the addition of characters, but also in specifying *how* those characters work, such as: - how text sorts or matches in different languages - how text behaves for East Asian languages (e.g. vertically) or in Middle Eastern languages (from right to left) - how text should upper- or lowercase - how text breaks into lines or words - how text behaves in Regular Expressions (a key tool used in a vast number of web servers) Small linguistic communities all over the world have the opportunity to get mainstream software working right out of the box, instead of waiting years for special adaptations that may never come. For more information on the scripts encoded in the Unicode Standard, see http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ Version 4.0 is published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-321-18578-1), and is available from the Unicode Consortium or through the book trade. The text and code charts of Version 4.0 are also available on the Consortium's Web site www.unicode.org. About the Unicode Consortium The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of text in modern software products and standards. Members of the Consortium are a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information technology industry. Full members are: Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Government of India (Ministry of Information Technology), Government of Pakistan (National Language Authority), HP, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, RLG, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and Sybase. Membership in the Unicode Consortium is open to organizations and individuals anywhere in the world who support the Unicode Standard and wish to assist in its extension and implementation. For additional information on Unicode, contact the Unicode Consortium, 650-693-3921 About Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley (www.awprofessional.com) is the leading publisher of quality computer science and engineering books and software for technical professionals, developed and authored by the world's leading technology experts. It is a unit of Pearson Technology Group, the world's largest provider of consumer and professional computer, information technology, engineering and reference content. Pearson Technology Group is an operating unit of Pearson Education, the world's leading educational publisher. Pearson Education is part of Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO), the international media company. For more information on The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0, see: http://www.awprofessional.com/titles/0321185781 Corporate Sales and Press Information: Heather Mullane 617/848-6531 heather.mullane@aw.com