29th Internationalization & Unicode Conference to Feature Unicode 5.0, Security Issues and Hot Topics in Internationalization for 2006; Full Program Agenda Available for Conference in March 6-8, 2006, Burlingame, California.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The Unicode(R) Consortium today announced the program for the 29th Internationalization & Unicode Conference (IUC). The conference will take place March 6-8, 2006 in Burlingame, CA, USA. The full conference program is available online at http://www.unicodeconference.org/agenda.

The program committee has created a revitalized program that is relevant and engaging for the internationalization community. The three-day conference will feature keynote presentations by Tuoc Luong, Senior Vice President, Engineering & Technology, Ask Jeeves, Inc., and Charles Bigelow, Vice President, Bigelow & Holmes Inc. The conference includes a full day of tutorials followed by two days of presentations, panels and discussions. There will also be technology exhibits and demonstrations.

This will be the first conference to cover the content of Unicode 5.0, which supersedes all previous versions of Unicode and is synchronized with the latest version of ISO/IEC 10646. It will also be the first to cover the content of LDML 1.4 (used for interchanging locale data) and CLDR 1.4 (the latest version of the Common Locale Data), and the newest events in the area of Unicode security. The conference includes presentations on Microsoft Office 12 and Windows Vista, several talks on ICU topics, as well as an overview and case study on CLDR.

Mark Davis, President of the Unicode Consortium, will speak on the latest Unicode Consortium news. Doug Barbin of VeriSign will introduce the issues of security with a talk on the Digitization of Fraud and Michel Suignard of Microsoft will speak on Internationalized Domain Name support. Peter Linsley of Ask Jeeves will speak on Challenges of Searching the Global Internet and Scott Atwood will give a case study presentation on Paypal's migration to Unicode.

Highlights of the Conference:

--Keynote Presenters:

--  Tuoc Luong, Senior Vice President, Engineering &
            Technology, Ask Jeeves, Inc.

        --  Charles Bigelow, Vice President, Bigelow & Holmes Inc.

--Tutorials in Three Tracks:

--  A three-part tutorial on Unicode 5.0: Characters in
            Action, Fundamental Specifications and Unicode Algorithms;
            An Introduction to Writing Systems & Unicode;
            Internationalization: An Introduction; The Dao of Unihan;
            Web Internationalization - Standards and Best Practices;
            Internationalization Features in XPath, XQuery and XSLT;
            and Advanced ICU Topics

        --  Presenters come from such organizations as Apple Computer,
            ASMUS, Inc., Google, IBM Corp., Quest Software, W3C, and
            Yahoo!

--Sessions in Three Tracks:

--  Sessions cover a range of topics including
            internationalization, globalization, the Web, security,
            and localization to name a few. There will be a mix of
            case studies, panel discussions and technical discussions
            geared towards beginner, intermediate and advanced
            practitioners.

        --  Presenters come from such organizations as Apple Computer,
            Ask Jeeves, Basis Technology, IBM, Microsoft,
            ModernGigabyte, Nagaoka University of Technology, Oracle,
            PayPal, Quest Software, Sun Microsystems, Tavultsoft Pty.
            Ltd., U.C. Berkeley, VeriSign, Inc., W3C and Yahoo!

--Hosted special interest gatherings will be held throughout the conference. Topics include:

--  Language and locale identifiers: What is the impact of the
            revised RFC on the use of XML and HTML?

        --  Meet the Unicode Technical Committees: How do the
            technical committees work? How can you have an impact?

        --  Unicode Text Layout: How should complex scripts such as
            Arabic or Tamil be correctly rendered?

        --  Multilingual Keyboard Layouts: what should the design
            principles be?

        --  Multilingual Geographical Names

The Internationalization & Unicode Conference is the premier technical conference for both software and Web internationalization. Unicode experts, implementers, clients and vendors are invited to attend this unique conference. The interactive format makes the Internationalization & Unicode Conference a great place to meet and exchange ideas with leading experts, find out about the needs of potential clients, or get information about new and existing Unicode-enabled products.

The early-bird registration discount is available until February 1, 2006. To register, visit http://www.unicodeconference.org/registration.htm. Exhibit space is available; for more information on exhibiting contact Sandy Burke at [e-mail] or [phone]. For sponsorship opportunities, contact Nicole Rikkinen at [e-mail]. For all other conference-related questions contact Kevin Loughry at [e-mail], [phone].

The conference is produced by The Object Management Group(TM) (OMG(TM)) and is sponsored by: IBM Corporation (www.ibm.com), Basis Technology (www.basistech.com); media sponsors MultiLingual Computing Inc. (www.multilingual.com), Localisation Research Centre (www.localisation.ie); and organizational sponsors Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) (www.lisa.org) and the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) (www.gala-global.org).

About The Unicode Consortium

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard and related globalization standards.

The membership of the consortium represents a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information processing industry. Members are: Adobe Systems, L'Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Denic e.G., Government of India - Ministry of Information Technology, Government of Pakistan - National Language Authority, HP, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, Monotype Imaging, Oracle, RLG, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, The University of California at Berkeley, VeriSign, Yahoo! and about one hundred Associate, Liaison, and Individual members.

For more information, please contact the Unicode Consortium (http://www.unicode.org/).

About the Event Producer

The Object Management Group(TM) (OMG(TM)) is the new Event Producer for the Internationalization & Unicode Conferences. The OMG is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperable enterprise applications. Our specifications include MDA(R), UML(R), CORBA(R), MOF(TM), XMI(R) and CWM(TM). OMG's specifications are all available for download by everyone without charge.

For more information about OMG, visit us online at http://www.omg.org.

Note to editors: Unicode Standard, Unicode and the Unicode Logo are trademarks of Unicode, Inc. Unicode Consortium is a registered trademark of Unicode, Inc. MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, UML and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, MOF, MDA Logos, Unified Modeling Language and UML logo are trademarks, of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.