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MultilingualWeb Limerick workshop report now available

2012-02-08T14:59:26+00:00

A report summarising the MultilingualWeb workshop in Limerick is now available from the MultilingualWeb site. Alongside the summaries are links to slides, video recordings, and the IRC log for each speaker and the discussion sessions.

Entitled “A Local Focus for the Multilingual Web”, the workshop surveyed and shared information about currently available best practices and standards that can help content creators and localizers address the needs of the multilingual Web. Attendees also heard about gaps that need to be addressed, and enjoyed opportunities to network and share information between the various different communities involved in enabling the multilingual Web.

This workshop also included a half-day Open Space discussion session run by Jaap van der Meer of TAUS, where attendees split into breakout groups to discuss topics of their own choosing.

You can also find links to videos, slides, etc as well as links to social media related to the event on the program page of the workshop.

Preparations have now begun for the next workshop, to be held in Luxembourg, on March 15-16. It will be hosted by the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission. See the Call for Participation to register.

Unicode version 6.1 announced

2012-02-01T11:24:20+00:00

The Unicode Consortium has announced the release of Version 6.1 of the Unicode Standard, continuing Unicode’s long-term commitment to support the full diversity of languages around the world. This latest version adds characters to support additional languages of China, other Asian countries, and Africa. It also addresses educational needs in the Arabic-speaking world. A total of 732 new characters have been added.

List of changes • Code charts

This version of the Standard also brings technical improvements to support implementers. Improved changes to property values and their aliases mean that properties now have easy-to-specify labels. The new labels combined with a new script extensions property means that regular expressions can be more straightforward and are easier to validate.

Over 200 new Standardized Variants have been added for emoji characters, allowing implementations to distinguish preferred display styles between text and emoji styles. For example:

26FA FE0E TENT text style
26FA FE0F TENT emoji style
26FD FE0E FUEL PUMP text style
26FD FE0F FUEL PUMP emoji style

Among the notable property changes and additions in Unicode 6.1 are two new line break property values, which improve the line-breaking behavior of Hebrew and Japanese text. Segmentation behavior was also improved for Thai, Lao, and similar languages.

Two other important Unicode specifications are maintained in synchrony with the Unicode Standard, and have updates for Version 6.1. These will be finalized in February:

UTS #10, Unicode Collation Algorithm
UTS #46, Unicode IDNA Compatibility Processing

W3C Workshop, Call for Participation: The Multilingual Web – The Way Ahead

2011-12-09T14:37:40+00:00

15 – 16 March 2012, Luxembourg. Co-located with the European Commission’s Language Technology Showcase Days, and hosted by the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission.

The MultilingualWeb project is looking at best practices and standards related to all aspects of creating, localizing and deploying the Web multilingually. The project aims to raise the visibility of existing best practices and standards and identify gaps. The core vehicle for this is a series of four events which are planned over two years.

After three highly successful workshops in Madrid, Pisa, and Limerick, this final workshop in the series will continue to investigate currently available best practices and standards aimed at 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, see the Call for Participation

Slides and IRC logs for Limerick MultilingualWeb workshop now available

2011-09-30T17:17:35+00:00

The MultilingualWeb Workshop in Limerick was once more a success, thanks to the efforts of the excellent speakers and the local organizers, but also thanks this time to the participants themselves who enthusiastically took part in the Open Space discussion organized by TAUS. This will hopefully lead to some longer term initiatives, and most groups are already planning to continue their discussions in Luxembourg, next Spring. We had around 90 attendees.

The program page has now been updated to point to speakers’ slides and to the relevant parts of the IRC logs. Links to video recordings will follow shortly.

There will also be a page pointing to social media reports, such as blog posts, tweets and photos, related to the workshop. If you have any blog posts, photos, etc. online, please let Richard Ishida know (ishida@w3.org) so that we can link to them from this page.

A summary report of the workshop will follow a little later.

Registrations are filling up for the MultilingualWeb workshop in Limerick, 21-22 Sept.

2011-09-08T14:58:50+00:00

Participation in the workshop is free, but spaces are limited. We have another great program in place.

The keynote speaker will be Daniel Glazman, of Disruptive Innovations, and co-chair of the W3C CSS Working Group. He is followed by a strong line up in sessions entitled Developers, Creators, Localizers, Machines, Users, and Policy. On the morning of the second day Jaap van der Meer of TAUS will facilitate “Open Space” style discussion sessions, where workshop participants themselves will choose topics to discuss in several breakout groups.

There will be a dinner reception on the evening of 21 September (free of charge, workshop registrants only).

The MultilingualWeb workshops, funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the W3C, look 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.

This workshop is co-located with the 16th Annual LRC Conference, and hosted by the LRC (Language Research Centre) and the University of Limerick.

We look forward to seeing you in Limerick!

Initial program published for MultilingualWeb Workshop in Limerick

2011-07-29T12:48:06+00:00

An initial program has been published for the upcoming W3C MultilingualWeb workshop in Limerick, Ireland, 21-22 September 2011. (Co-located with the 16th Annual LRC Conference.)

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

We look forward to seeing you in Limerick!

Updated Working Group Note: Working with Time Zones

2011-07-05T18:42:04+00:00

An updated version of Working with Time Zones has just been published as a Working Group Note.

Date and time values can be complex and the relationship between computer and human timekeeping systems can lead to problems. The working group has updated this version to contain more comprehensive guidelines and best practices for working with time and time zones in applications and document formats. Use cases are provided to help choose an approach that ensures that geographically distributed applications work well. This document also aims to provide a basic understanding and vocabulary for talking about time and time handling in software.

Editor: Addison Phillips, Lab126.

MultilingualWeb workshop, Limerick, speaker deadline approaching!

2011-07-04T12:12:13+00:00

This is reminder to register for the upcoming W3C MultilingualWeb workshop in Limerick, Ireland, 21-22 September 2011. (Co-located with the 16th Annual LRC Conference.)

See the Call for Participation for details about how to register for the workshop and propose a talk. Participation in the workshop is free.

We look forward to seeing you in Limerick!

MultilingualWeb Pisa report now available

2011-05-26T11:32:29+00:00

A report summarising the MultilingualWeb workshop in Pisa is now available from the MultilingualWeb site. Alongside the summaries are links to slides, video recordings, and the IRC log for each speaker and the discussion sessions.

Entitled “Content for the Multilingual Web”, the workshop surveyed and shared information about currently available best practices and standards that can help content creators and localizers address the needs of the multilingual Web. Attendees also heard about gaps that need to be addressed, and enjoyed opportunities to network and share information between the various different communities involved in enabling the multilingual Web.

The page dedicated to outcomes of the Pisa workshop also points to the program and items in the social media related to the workshop.

Preparations have now begun for the next workshop, to be held in Limerick, Ireland, on September 21-22. It will be co-located with the 16th Annual LRC Conference. See the Call for Participation to register.

W3C Workshop, Call for Participation: A Local Focus for the Multilingual Web

2011-05-12T13:00:38+00:00

21-22 September 2011, Limerick, Ireland. Co-located with the 16th Annual LRC Conference and hosted by the University of Limerick.

After two highly successful workshops in Madrid and Pisa, this workshop will continue to investigate currently available best practices and standards aimed at 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, see the Call for Participation