The article The byte-order mark (BOM) in HTML was updated significantly to reflect the fact that the byte-order mark in UTF-8 is less problematic now than it used to be, and that it has a higher precedence than the HTTP header for character encoding detection.

The article was largely rewritten, and now incorporates the relevant information that used to be in the article “Display problems caused by the UTF-8 BOM”. That article has now been decommissioned.

German, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian translations need to be updated. Translators, please contact Richard Ishida (ishida@w3.org) for the source text.

Minor editorial changes have been made to Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages to fix one typo (“accent” to “acute” in Table 3.1) and update references to the Unicode Standard in the Introduction and References section.

Substantive updates are currently on hold, pending final decisions relating to new developments to be introduced with HTML5.

This document is simultaneously published by the Unicode Consortium as Unicode Technical Report #20.

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.

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 (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.

Responding to requests, the editorial committee has created a modestly-priced print-on-demand volume that contains the complete text of the core specification of Version 6.2 of the Unicode Standard. This 692-page volume may be purchased from Lulu.com for $17.24, plus shipping (prices are available in some other local currencies).

Note that this volume does not include the Version 6.2 code charts, nor does it include the Version 6.2 Standard Annexes and Unicode Character Database, all of which are available only on the Unicode website.

Comments are requested on the following proposed update of the article The byte-order mark (BOM) in HTML prior to final publication. NOTE THAT the article is in a temporary location, and will be moved to its final location after the review.

The majority of the article has been rewritten, with the aim of reducing the previous warnings against using the BOM for UTF-8 documents. Also taken into account is the change to the HTML5 spec that raises the precedence of the BOM versus the HTTP header in terms of character encoding declaration.

Please send any comments over the next two weeks to www-international@w3.org (subscribe).

We hope to publish a final version at the beginning of the New Year.

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).

This document defines data categories and their implementation as a set of elements and attributes called the Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0.

ITS 2.0 is designed to foster the creation and localization of multilingual Web content, focusing on HTML5, XML based formats in general, and to leverage localization workflows based on the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), and language technology applications like machine translation or named entity annotation. In addition to HTML5 and XML, algorithms to convert ITS attributes to NIF is provided.

Last Call means that the MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group feels that ITS 2.0 is ready to move to recommendation. If you have comments on the document, please send them to the list mentioned in the document status before 10 January.

Håndtering af tegnkodninger i HTML og CSS (Handling character encodings in HTML and CSS)

This article was translated into Danish thanks to Çiğdem Küçük (Copypanthers). This is the first translation into Danish of an Internationalization Activity article.