SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday, March 29th

| Submit Abstract Form |

There has been confusion about whether noncharacters were permitted in Unicode text. The new Corrigendum #9: Clarification About Noncharacters makes it clear that noncharacters are permissible even in open interchange, although their intended semantics may not be interpretable in such contexts. ​The UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 & BOM FAQ has also been updated for clarity​, and other informative text about noncharacters will be revised over time​, including the Core Specification.

Background. There are 66 noncharacters permanently reserved for internal use, typically used for some sort of internally-defined control function or sentinel value. They should be supported by APIs, components, and applications that handle (i.e., either process or pass through) all Unicode strings, such as a text editor or string class. Where an application does make internal use of a noncharacter, it should take some measures to sanitize input text from unknown sources. The best practice is to replace that particular noncharacter on input by U+FFFD. (The noncharacter should not be simply deleted, since that can cause security problems. For more information, see Section 3.5 Deletion of Code Points in UTR #36, Unicode Security Guidelines.)

The Internationalization and Unicode Conference (IUC) is the premier event covering the latest in industry standards and best practices for bringing software and Web applications to worldwide markets. This annual event focuses on software and Web globalization, bringing together internationalization experts, tools vendors, software implementers, and business and program managers from around the world.

Expert practitioners and industry leaders present detailed recommendations for businesses looking to expand to new international markets and those seeking to improve time to market and cost-efficiency of supporting existing markets. Recent conferences have provided specific advice on designing software for European countries, Latin America, China, India, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, and emerging markets.

This highly rated conference features excellent technical content, industry-tested recommendations and updates on the latest standards and technology. Subject areas include cloud computing, upgrading to HTML5, integrating with social networking software, and implementing mobile apps. This year's conference will also highlight new features in Unicode Version 6.1 and other relevant standards published this year.
Reasons to Attend Include:

• Tutorials and sessions for beginners, to train you and your staff on basic practices and implementation techniques for creating international software
• Learn recommended solutions to difficult problems or sophisticated requirements from industry leaders and experts in attendance
• Find help from tool and product vendors to get you to market quickly and cost-effectively

The Unicode Consortium would like to welcome two new board members, Bob Jung and Greg Welch, and a new vice president, Peter Constable.

Bob Jung is the Director of Engineering for Internationalization at Google, Inc. He built and leads the globally distributed team that develops highly scalable technologies and infrastructure used throughout Google to deliver internationalized and localized products. Previously, at Netscape, he built the team that established much of the early work on internationalization for the web and browsers. Even earlier, he helped drive the initial Unix/POSIX internationalization specifications and standards via work with industry consortiums (/usr/grp, Uniforum, Unix International). Prior to Google, Bob worked for Netscape/AOL, Apple, MIPS, Nippon Unisoft and UniSoft.

Greg Welch of Intel Corporation is Director of Strategic Marketing in Intel’s PC Client Group. Among his recent accomplishments has been responsibility for driving the formulation and coordination of Intel’s Ultrabook™ program. Previous positions at Intel include:

• Director, Intel’s Architecture Group, Global WIMAX Organization: responsible for business development relationships between Intel, Clearwire, Best Buy and OEMs to promote the world’s first national 4G network.
• Director of Strategy and Industry Initiatives in Intel’s Software and Solutions Group: drove Intel’s efforts to enable software for multi-core architectures.
• Director of Strategic Planning for Intel's Mobile Platforms Group: oversaw long-range roadmap planning and business strategy for all notebook platform, processor, and chipset products that became the Core® family of processors.
• Director of Brand Strategy: spearheaded the segmentation of Intel’s processor brands including the Itanium® and Xeon® brands for high-end server products, and the Celeron® brand for value PCs.

Peter Constable is Senior Program Manger at Microsoft. He was exposed to challenges of supporting non-Latin scripts in software systems and digital fonts while living in Thailand for five years. He began working on software internationalization in 1996 and became active in work on Unicode and other i18n standards activities shortly thereafter. Since 2003, he has worked for Microsoft on Unicode and support and international text display. He has long been active in the UTC, became a Unicode technical director in 2008, and has been the Unicode liaison to SC2 since 2007.

---

The Unicode Consortium would like to thank Vint Cerf and Harald Alvestrand, who recently stepped down after many years of contributions as members of the board of directors.

Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies and applications on the Internet and other platforms for the company. Widely known as a "Father of the Internet," Vint is the co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton recognized their work with the U.S. National Medal of Technology. In 2005, Vint and Bob received the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes the fact that their work on the software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them "at the forefront of a digital revolution that has transformed global commerce, communication, and entertainment." He served on the board of the Unicode Consortium from 2010 until now.

Harald Alvestrand has worked for Norsk Data, UNINETT (the University Network of Norway), EDB Maxware, Cisco Systems and, since 2006, for Google, Inc. Harald has been active in Internet standardization since 1991, and has written a number of RFCs. He was an area director of Applications and of Operations & Management in the IETF and a member of the IAB before serving as chair of the IETF from 2001 to 2006. He served on the board of the Unicode Consortium from 2001 until now.

---

The Consortium also would like to thank Vice President Eric Muller, and Technical Directors John Jenkins and Mike Ksar, who recently stepped down from their roles as officers of the Consortium after serving for many years. They will continue to work with the Consortium on ongoing technical work.

Eric Muller is the former chair of INCITS/L2, the U.S. committee which coordinates its work closely with the ongoing work of the Unicode Technical Committee. Eric continues his contributions to the technical work of the Consortium through his work with the Unicode Technical Committee. John Jenkins has worked with the Ideographic Rapporteur Group (IRG) for many years, and continues to provide crucial maintenance and updates for the Unicode Database. Mike Ksar has convened ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 for many years, and continues in that capacity.

---

For the listing of current directors and officers of the Consortium please see Unicode Directors, Officers and Staff. See also Former Board Members and Former Officers.

Atom