Update: New Tutorial Added, Bird-of-a-Feather Topics Announced for 29th Internationalization & Unicode Conference; March 6-8, 2006, Burlingame, California.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The Unicode(R) Consortium today announced that it has added an additional tutorial to the program for the 29th Internationalization & Unicode Conference (IUC). Additionally, three birds-of-a-feather hosted special interest gatherings have been confirmed. 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.

Thomas Milo, Director, DecoType, has been added to the tutorial program and will be giving an "Abridged Arabic Tutorial." The tutorial will cover a global conceptual framework, while at the same time serving as an introduction for the uninitiated. Topics to be covered include: the structure of Arabic script and its historical origin; graphic assimilation; the calligraphic dimension; script analysis & synthesis; font technology; graphemes, and more. For a full listing of all the tutorials being offered at IUC 29, visit the conference-at-a-glance page: http://www.unicodeconference.org/agenda.

Confirmed birds-of-a-feather hosted special interest gatherings include:

--Language and Locale Identifiers

This session allows participants interested in language identifiers ("language tags") and locale identifiers to discuss the latest issues involved, including: RFC 3066 and its successor; the differences between locale and language identifiers; and best practices for these identifiers.

--Unicode Committee

This session gives participants the opportunity to meet some of the members of the Unicode technical committees, to find our more about how they work and what issues they face. The Unicode Technical Committee is the committee responsible for the Unicode Standard, and related software globalization standards and documents; the CLDR Technical Committee is responsible for locale data, and related localization standards and documents.

--Design Principles for A Regional, Multilingual Keyboard

This session will discuss ways to provide an open-ended, international "Unicode" keyboard layout for a maximum repertoire with a minimum number of pre-allocations, yet still be tailored for a particular region.

If your organization is interested in holding an additional birds-of-a-feather gathering, please contact Kevin Loughry at [e-mail], [phone].

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. on Going Global with a Search Engine; Col. Daniel Scott, Assistant Commandant of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center on Unicode as a "Unifying Force" in Language Education; and Charles Bigelow, Vice President, Bigelow & Holmes Inc. on The Effect of Unicode on Type Design. 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.

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 hotel discount registration deadline is Monday, February 13, 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: Gold Sponsor Translations.com (www.translations.com); Silver Sponsors 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. OMG and Object Management Group are trademarks, of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.