The 29th Internationalization & Unicode
Conference drew a good crowd from diverse
backgrounds who were eager to network and
exchange ideas. The tutorials on Monday were
well attended and the technically sophisticated
audience challenged the presenters with
excellent and thoughtful questions, leading to a
lively discussion. The exchange of ideas
continued during the breaks and at the first
packed conference reception, sponsored by
Google. The evening was rounded out by
birds-of-a-feather special interest gatherings.
Kicking off the first day of general
sessions, Tuoc Luong, Executive Vice President,
Engineering & Technology, Ask Jeeves, Inc. gave
the keynote presentation, “Going Global with a
Search Engine.” (Keynote presentations will be
made available on this website.) During the
second and third days of the conference,
attendees learned about such diverse topics as
“Microsoft Office 12 - Internationalization
Expanded,” and “A Case Study in Web
Internationalization: Using the CLDR Online With
PHP.”
The attendees mingled in the exhibit area for
the conference reception on Tuesday night,
featuring exhibits by Gold Sponsors Google,
Translations.com and Basis Technology, as well
as Silver Sponsor IBM, Media Sponsors
Multilingual Computing and the Localisation
Research Centre. Organizational sponsors LISA
and GALA joined exhibitors Business Search
Technologies Corporation, Idiom Technologies,
Microsoft, PDFlib GmbH and Tavultesoft. In
between bites of California sushi, spinach puffs
and scallops wrapped in bacon, attendees saw
technology demonstrations and picked up some
cool conference goodies (the lighted pens from
Microsoft and the blinking Google pins were
particular favorites along with the tee-shirts
provided by Translations.com). Attendees were
also able to preview the forthcoming book on
Unicode 5.0 and get copies of the Unicode guide.
The second day began with a keynote
presentation by Colonel Daniel L. Scott,
Assistant Commandant, Defense Language Institute
Foreign Language Center on “Unicode as a
‘Unifying Force’ in Language Education,” and
continued with a plenary presentation by Charles
Bigelow, Vice President, Bigelow & Holmes Inc.
on “The Effect of Unicode on Type Design.” A
full afternoon of presentations followed.
The Program Committee for the 30th
Internationalization & Unicode Conference will
be issuing a call for participation shortly.
Please stay tuned for more information and we
hope to see you in the fall. |