Major Enhancements to the Unicode Standard:
Enabling International Domain Names, Expanding Worldwide Accessibility, and
Reducing the Digital Divide
Mountain View, CA, August 27, 2003 -- The Unicode® Consortium and
Addison-Wesley announce publication of Version 4.0 of the Unicode Standard.
Unicode is the fundamental specification for the representation of text, at the
core of all modern software, programming languages, and standards, including
Windows, Java, C#, Perl, XML, HTML, DB2, Oracle, and many others.
Unicode is also central to the new internationalized domain names, which allow
everyone in the world to have URLs in their own languages. This is yet another
case where Unicode opens the door to more of the world's different cultures,
helping to break down the digital divide.
Version 4.0 strengthens Unicode support for worldwide communication, software
availability, and publishing. The text has been extensively rewritten, and
incorporates specifications that were previously only available as separate
documents. The clarified specification of conformance requirements incorporates
the most highly developed character encoding model in existence, encompassing
the wide variety of types of characters needed by the world's languages, and
permitting compatibility with all modern computer architectures.
Record-breaking character content
Version 4.0 encodes over 96,000 characters, twice as many as Version 3.0, and
includes two record-breaking collections of encoded characters. The largest
encoded character collection for Chinese characters in the history of computing
has doubled in size yet again to encompass over 2000 years of Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese literary usage, including all the main
classical dictionaries of these languages. Version 4.0 also encodes the largest
set of characters for mathematical and technical publishing in existence. The
character repertoires of Version 4.0 and International Standard ISO/IEC 10646
are fully synchronized.
Reducing the digital divide
To meet the needs of all linguistic communities, the Unicode Standard and
associated standards are continually being extended, not only in terms of the
addition of characters, but also in specifying *how* those characters work,
such as:
- how text sorts or matches in different languages
- how text behaves for East Asian languages (e.g. vertically) or in Middle
Eastern languages (from right to left)
- how text should upper- or lowercase
- how text breaks into lines or words
- how text behaves in Regular Expressions (a key tool used in a vast number of
web servers)
Small linguistic communities all over the world have the opportunity to get
mainstream software working right out of the box, instead of waiting years for
special adaptations that may never come.
For more information on the scripts encoded in the Unicode Standard, see
http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/
Version 4.0 is published by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-321-18578-1), and is
available from the Unicode Consortium or through the book trade. The text and
code charts of Version 4.0 are also available on the Consortium's Web site
www.unicode.org.
About the Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend
and promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of
text in modern software products and standards.
Members of the Consortium are a broad spectrum of corporations and
organizations in the computer and information technology industry. Full members
are: Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Government of India
(Ministry of Information Technology), Government of Pakistan (National Language
Authority), HP, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, Oracle, PeopleSoft, RLG, SAP, Sun
Microsystems, and Sybase.
Membership in the Unicode Consortium is open to organizations and individuals
anywhere in the world who support the Unicode Standard and wish to assist in
its extension and implementation.
For additional information on Unicode, contact the Unicode Consortium,
650-693-3921
About Addison-Wesley
Addison-Wesley (www.awprofessional.com) is the leading publisher of quality
computer science and engineering books and software for technical
professionals, developed and authored by the world's leading technology
experts. It is a unit of Pearson Technology Group, the world's largest
provider of consumer and professional computer, information technology,
engineering and reference content. Pearson Technology Group is an operating
unit of Pearson Education, the world's leading educational publisher.
Pearson Education is part of Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO), the international media
company.
For more information on The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0, see:
http://www.awprofessional.com/titles/0321185781
Corporate Sales and Press Information:
Heather Mullane
617/848-6531
heather(_dot_)mullane(_at_)aw(_dot_)com
