A related evolution that doesn't seem to get as much attention is that of Unicode / ISO-10646 which facilitates use of diverse scripts/writing systems on computers and the internet. In the early days of e-mail one was limited to ASCII (basically the English alphabet characters on a typewriter keyboard) and even accents used in, say French or Spanish, were impossible. Later evolution of expanded the character set but one was still limited to a particular set of Latin-based characters. Or to substituting other characters/alphabets in the limited space available. This led to issues of incompatibility and, among other things, difficulties with multilingual web content.
Unicode is intended to resolve that situation - and the fundamental divide associated with it - and has made great strides. Most computer systems now are built around Unicode and the process of encoding scripts is progressing to less widely used scripts. Next week there is another unicode conference, this one in California (see http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc26/ ). One thing to watch is how the Unicode / ISO-10646 process itself, which like the internet began in the US, becomes more internationalized. Don Osborn Bisharat.net Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > August 30, 2004 > BY ANICK JESDANUN > > > > Thirty-five years after scientists at UCLA linked two bulky computers using > 15-foot gray cable, testing a new way for exchanging data over networks, what > > would ultimately become the Internet remains a work in progress. > University researchers are experimenting with ways to increase its capacity > and speed. Programmers are trying to imbue Web pages with intelligence. And > work is under way to re-engineer the network to reduce spam and security > troubles. > All the while, threats loom: Critics warn that commercial, legal and > political pressures could hinder the types of innovations that made the > Internet what > it is today. > http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-net30.html > > Bonnie Bracey > bbracey @ aol. com > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
