The Unicode Technical Committee would like to eliminate some ambiguity in the assignment of the character properties Script and Script_Extensions and is seeking input from developers.

There are currently a small number of characters whose Script value is explicit (neither Common nor Inherited) and whose Script_Extensions value set has more than one value (a “diverse” value set). These characters are not typical; most characters with a diverse Script_Extensions value set have a Script value of either Common or Inherited. Possible policies and solutions are discussed and outlined in the proposal:

PRI #277 Reconciling Script and Script_Extensions Character Properties

The Unicode Technical Committee is soliciting feedback on pending additions to the draft repertoire of characters, to help discover any errors in character names, incorrect glyphs, or other problems. There is a short window of opportunity to review and comment on the repertoire additions noted below.

• The following draft repertoire from ISO/IEC 10646:2014 (4th Edition), which is in its PDAM stage, is under review: Draft Additional Repertoire for Amendment 2 to ISO/IEC 10646:2014 (4th Edition).

The Unicode Standard is developed in synchrony with ISO/IEC 10646. After ISO balloting is completed on any repertoire additions, no further changes or corrections will be possible. (See http://www.unicode.org/faq/sdos.html for additional information on the stages in ISO standards development.) Advance feedback on these repertoire additions will help inform the UTC discussions about its own contribution to the ISO balloting process.

Please see the PRI page for further details:
PRI #276, Feedback on repertoire for ISO/IEC 10646:2014 (4th Edition, Amendment 2)

Please also see the general instructions for Public Review Issues.

ruble signVersion 7.0 of the Unicode Standard is now available, adding 2,834 new characters. This latest version adds the new currency symbols for the Russian ruble and Azerbaijani manat, approximately 250 emoji (pictographic symbols), many other symbols, and 23 new lesser-used and historic scripts, as well as character additions to many existing scripts. These additions extend support for written languages of North America, China, India, other Asian countries, and Africa. For full details, see http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode7.0.0/.

Most of the new emoji characters derive from characters in long-standing and widespread use in Wingdings and Webdings fonts. Additions to emoji characters include, for example:

Major enhancements were made to the Indic script properties. New property values were added to enable a more algorithmic approach to rendering Indic scripts. These include properties for joining behavior, new classes for numbers, and a further division of the syllabic categories of viramas and rephas. With these enhancements, the default rendering for newly added Indic scripts can be significantly improved.

Unicode character properties were extended to the new characters. The old characters have enhancements to Script and Alphabetic properties, and casing and line-breaking behavior. There were also nearly 3,000 new Cantonese pronunciation entries, as well as new or clarified stability policies for promoting interoperable implementations.

Two other important Unicode specifications are maintained in synchrony with the Unicode Standard, and have updates for Version 7.0. These will be released at the same time:

• UTS #10, Unicode Collation Algorithm — the standard for sorting Unicode text
• UTS #46, Unicode IDNA Compatibility Processing — for processing of non-ASCII URLs (IDNs)

The documents and data for two Public Review Issues have been recently revised. The issues are PRI #272 Proposed Update UTR #36, Unicode Security Considerations and PRI #273 Proposed Update UTS #39, Unicode Security Mechanisms.

We have revised the draft data for UTS #39: Unicode Security Mechanisms (confusables and identifier restrictions) for review. There are also some small changes to the text of UTR #36: Unicode Security Considerations, mostly cleanup in preparation for publication. The most important data files for review are:

• http://unicode.org/Public/security/7.0.0/confusablesSummary.txt
  The number of identified confusables increased from 6,156 items to 6,673, about an 8% gain. The most important characters to review are those that are confusable with high-use scripts. We ask reviewers to pay particular attention to characters confusable with characters from high-use scripts.
• http://unicode.org/Public/security/7.0.0/xidmodifications.txt
  There are very few new allowed characters from 7.0; most are marked as restricted. We ask reviewers to confirm that none of the restricted characters are in high-frequency modern use.

These files can be downloaded from http://unicode.org/Public/security/7.0.0 and diffed against the corresponding files in http://unicode.org/Public/security/6.3.0

The comment period ends July 28, 2014.

The Unicode Consortium is pleased to announce the release of version 2014年05月16日 of the Unicode Ideographic Variation Database (IVD). This release registers the new Moji_Joho collection, along with the first 10,710 sequences in that collection, 9,685 of which are shared by the registered Hanyo-Denshi collection. Details can be found at http://www.unicode.org/ivd/.

The Unicode CLDR Technical Committee is pleased to announce the opening of the CLDR Survey Tool for data submission for Version 26 of CLDR, on May 13, 2014. We plan to allow data submission until June 19, and vetting of the submitted data until July 3. Version 26 is scheduled to be released in September 2014.

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages, and is used by much of the world’s software. Highlights for the CLDR 26 release are:

• Microsoft has joined the CLDR project as a major contributing partner.
• The survey tool user interface has undergone a major overhaul, thanks to the hard work of our friends at Apple.
• Google and IBM have focused on performance of the software, and we’ve also upgraded our hardware.
• New types of fields and structure are added, including many additional types of units.
• The new characters in the Unicode encoding standard (Version 7.0, due for release in July, 2014) are supported.

The CLDR survey tool can be reached by going to http://st.unicode.org/cldr-apps/survey. To view known issues with the tool, see the Known Issues page at http://cldr.unicode.org/index/survey-tool/known-bugs. For example, we are still putting some finishing touches on some of the survey tool documentation.

Anyone is welcome to try out the tool, although only those with accounts will be able to make changes. To get an account, or if you have forgotten your login ID or password, please contact your CLDR TC representative. If you don't belong to a Unicode member organization, and are a native speaker of a language other than American English, you can obtain a guest account.

Any bugs with the tool can be reported to the CLDR committee by opening a New CLDR Ticket at http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/newticket

Thanks in advance for your participation in the Unicode CLDR project!

The Unicode CLDR Technical Committee is pleased to announce the opening of the CLDR Survey Tool for beta testing for Version 26 of CLDR, on May 1, 2014. CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages.

The beta test will give CLDR contributors a chance to try out the new features of the tool, without having to worry about the potential impacts on CLDR itself. If all seems to be going well during the beta test period, we plan to open the survey tool for "official" data submission on or about Thursday, May 8.

We plan to allow data submission until June 19, and data vetting until July 3. Version 26 is scheduled to be released in September 2014.

Highlights for the CLDR 26 release:

• Microsoft has agreed to join the CLDR project as a major contributing partner.
• The survey tool user interface has undergone a major overhaul, thanks to the hard work of our friends at Apple. Hopefully, users will find the interface more intuitive and easier to navigate.
• Google and IBM have also contributed significantly, especially in the area of improving performance. We have also upgraded our hardware, so we are hoping for less down-time and fewer interruptions to your work.
• New types of fields and structure, including many additional types of units. See new features in Version 26​.
• The first version to support the new characters in the Unicode encoding standard, Version 7.0, due for release in July, 2014.

The CLDR survey tool can be reached by going to http://st.unicode.org/cldr/apps/survey.

For known issues in the beta version, see Known Issues.

Anyone is welcome to try out the tool, although only those with accounts will be able to make changes. To get an account, or if you have forgotten your login ID or password, please contact your CLDR TC representative.

If you don't belong to a Unicode member organization, and are a native speaker of a language other than American English, you can obtain a guest account.

Any bugs with the tool can be reported to the CLDR committee by opening a new ticket at http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/newticket

Thanks in advance for your participation in the Unicode CLDR project!

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