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Rome MultilingualWeb workshop report now available

2013-05-14T12:52:17+00:00

A report summarizing the MultilingualWeb workshop in Rome is now available from the MultilingualWeb site. It contains a summary of each session with links to presentation slides and more detailed scribing done on site in Rome. Links to video for each session will be posted soon.

With approximately 150 attendees, the Rome Workshop focused on the theme “Making the Multilingual Web Work” and emphasized information about the best practices and standards that help content creators and localizers ensure that the World-Wide Web lives up to its name, across boundaries of language and culture. Attendees heard from a variety of perspectives, with fruitful dialogue between various stakeholder groups involved in trying to expand the multilingual scope of the Web.

Taking place over two days (12 and 13 March, 2013) at the headquarters of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Workshop featured twenty-four conference-style presentations, seven poster presentations, and an “open space” discussion that featured six breakout sessions focusing on key topics that emerged during the Workshop. In addition, it showcased technology implementations of the forthcoming internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 standard.

The Workshop was sponsored by the EU-funded QTLaunchPad project and Verisign. It was run by the MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group.

New article: Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm basics

2013-04-29T19:14:49+00:00

Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm basics is a repackaging of the initial part of “What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup” as a standalone article. It provides a gentle introduction to the behaviour of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm, and helps you understand why bidirectional text in Arabic, Hebrew, Thaana, Urdu, etc. behaves the way it does.

Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 Working Draft updated

2013-04-11T16:32:04+00:00

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published an updated working draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0.

The draft reflects changes since the last call publication 6 December 2012 and asks for feedback on the remaining open issues.

ITS 2.0 provides metadata to foster the adoption of the multilingual Web.

Metadata for the Multilingual Web – Usage Scenarios and Implementations Draft Published

2013-03-07T17:30:36+00:00

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group published a First Public Working Draft of Metadata for the Multilingual Web – Usage Scenarios and Implementations. This document introduces a variety of usage scenarios and applications for the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0

, ranging from simple machine translation or human translation quality check to training for machine translation systems or automatic text analyis. Many of the underlying implemementations will be showcased in the upcoming W3C MultilingualWeb Workshop 12-13 March in Rome.

New Unicode FAQ on Private-use Characters, Noncharacters and Sentinels

2013-03-04T14:30:58+00:00

A new FAQ page devoted to the topic of private-use characters, noncharacters, and sentinels has been posted on the Unicode web site. This FAQ aims to clear up confusion about whether noncharacters are permitted in Unicode text, and how they differ from ordinary private-use characters. The recently published Corrigendum #9: Clarification About Noncharacters makes it clear that noncharacters are permitted even in interchange, and the new FAQ page addresses some of the fine points about their usage and about differences from other types of Unicode code points. The brief mentions of noncharacters in other FAQ pages have also been updated accordingly.

Are you unclear about what Unicode “noncharacters” even are? The new FAQ page also answers basic questions about noncharacters and private-use characters, and provides a bit of history about how they came to be part of the Unicode Standard.

Program published for MultilingualWeb Workshop in Rome!

2013-02-12T09:35:09+00:00

The program has been published for the upcoming W3C MultilingualWeb Workshop: Making the Multilingual Web Work in Rome, 12–13 March 2013.

Mark Davis and Vladimir Weinstein of Google will deliver the keynote presentation, “Innovations in Internationalization at Google”. This will be followed by one and a half days of talks on various aspects of what it takes to make multilingualism work on the Web, plus an afternoon of discussion-oriented breakout sessions that focus on best practices for various aspects the multilingual Web. Speakers will come from organizations like Adobe Systems, SAP, Yandex, the Spanish Tax Agency, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Microsoft, Lionbridge, SDL, the European Commission, and leading universities and research institutions from around the world.

The program will also feature a showcase of implementations of the forthcoming ITS 2.0 specification that will allow attendees to get a sneak peak at how this specification will impact and support multilingual requirements on the Web.

See the Call for Participation for details about how to register for the workshop. Participation in the workshop is free.

Important: The deadline for registration is 8 March, but available attendance slots are filling up fast and are expected to run out before the deadline. So please be sure to register soon to ensure that you can attend.

The MultilingualWeb workshops, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the W3C, looks at best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the multilingual Web. The workshops are successful because they attracted a wide range of participants, from fields such as localization, language technology, browser development, content authoring and tool development, etc., to create a holistic view of the interoperability needs of the multilingual Web.

We look forward to seeing you in Rome!

Breakout session on best practices for Multilingual Linked Open Data at W3C Multilingual Web Workshop, Rome, 2013

2013-01-23T17:26:31+00:00

Linked Open Data has emerged as a critical issue for organizations seeking to make their data more valuable and accessible. However, working with multilingual linked open data (MLOD) poses special challenges that require careful consideration. A special breakout session at the W3C Multilingual Web Workshop in Rome (March 12–13, 2013), facilitated by eight leading MLOD practitioners, will focus on gathering a common set of requirements for implementing best practices in MLOD.

The session aims to crowd-source ideas from the community regarding best practices for MLOD. A number of short lightning presentations will be given, followed by an open discussion with a shared common output. A high level overview of this output will be presented back to the MLW community during the conference with a reference white paper to be published later based on the output of the breakout session. Participants are encouraged to bring their ideas and solutions for discussion.

Participation in this breakout session and the Multilingual Web Workshop is free of charge. See http://multilingualweb.eu/documents/rome-workshop/rome-lod for more details.

Speaker deadline for Rome MultilingualWeb Workshop this Friday (Jan. 18)

2013-01-15T09:27:29+00:00

The deadline for speaker submissions for the 6th MultilingualWeb Workshop (March 12–13, 2013 in Rome, Italy) is this Friday (January 18 at 23:59 UTC).

With a keynote by Mark Davis and Vladimir Weinstein (Google), special breakout sessions on linked open data and other critical topics, this Workshop is set to continue the tradition of excellence set by the previous six Workshops, and will provide an outstanding forum for thought leaders to share their ideas and gain critical feedback.

While the organizers have already received many excellent submissions, there is still time to make a proposal, and we encourage interested parties to do so by the deadline. With over 100 attendee registrations already submitted for the Workshop, we are certain to have a large and diverse audience and stimulating discussion about all of the presentations.

For more information, please visit the Rome Workshop Call for Participation.

Mark Davis and Vladimir Weinstein (Google) to deliver keynote, “Innovations in Internationalization at Google,” at MultilingualWeb Workshop

2013-01-10T14:53:37+00:00

Mark Davis (President and Cofounder, Unicode Consortium, and Software Engineer, Unicode and ICU, Google) and Vladimir Weinstein (Engineering Manager, Google) will deliver the keynote talk at the upcoming 6th MultilingualWeb Workshop in Rome, Italy (March 12–13).

The keynote will discuss how Google supports its ambitious goals of removing barriers to information, in an ever increasing number of languages, through recent innovations in internationalization technology.

The MultilingualWeb workshop series examines best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the Web multilingually. It aims to raise the visibility of existing best practices and standards and identify gaps, with a view to helping content creators, localizers, tools developers, and others meet the challenges of the multilingual Web.

Participation is free. We welcome participation from both speakers and non-speaking attendees. For more information and to register, see the Call for Participation.

Special interactive sessions planned for the W3C MultilingualWeb workshop in Rome, March 2013

2012-12-17T11:03:05+00:00

Led by experts in the field, two special break-out sessions on Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) and Linked Open Data (LOD) are planned for the upcoming MultilingualWeb workshop, to be held at the headquarters of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in the heart of Rome, on 12-13 March. We will also continue the Open Space discussions that have been so popular in the past.

In addition, lunch-time exhibition sessions will showcase the recent work and progress made on implementing the ITS 2.0 specification, a major effort in the W3C to improve support for language- and translation-related processes.

Register soon to ensure you get a place, especially if you are interested in also speaking. See the Call for Participation.

The W3C’s MultilingualWeb workshops bring together approximately 150 implementers, leading developers, localizers, researchers and users of the Web to discuss best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the Web multilingually. One and a half days of presentations will be followed by break-out sessions that will allow attendees to explore additional topics in an in-depth, discussion-oriented fashion.

Participation is free.

If you have any questions, contact the program committee chair, Dr. Arle Lommel (arle.lommel@dfki.de).