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HTML Help has seen widespread deployment with the advent of web based applications. This technical presentation will provide you with everything you need to know about internationalizing HTML Help. And, it will show you how you can save money on localization costs by minimizing NLS quality issues. It is aimed at internationalization and localization professionals, as well as technical writers. The presentation provides guidelines, which are easily implemented even in existing help sets. This presentation will consist of a comprehensive discussion of such topics as: HTML Authoring, Character sets & character entities, Files and Directories and Deliverables & Change Control.
Since documentation files are typically translated late in the development cycle, it is important to address internationalization issues, so that the localization process will go smoothly.
Participating localization and internationalization professionals will be able to convey important details about internationalization of help sets to the documentation teams that they might work with, consequently helping their organizations ship higher quality NLS products and save money in the process.
Rob is a Principal Product I18N Manager in the Tools Division at Oracle Corporation, where he manages the localization of business intelligence and data warehouse products, and advises documentation, development, and product management teams on internationalization and localization issues. Rob has also worked in internationalization quality assurance at Adobe Systems, and in implementing worldwide information systems at British Telecom.
Born in Sweden, and raised in Switzerland, Kerstin completed her education with a Bachelor's Degree in Theoretical Linguistics at UCSC, after attending University in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, where she studied the Mandarin Chinese language. She currently works as a Senior Product Internationalization Manager for Oracle Corporation. Before joining Oracle, Kerstin quit her work as a Senior Globalization Program Manager for Sybase to work as a mother. Kerstin lives in the East Bay with husband and two young children, where she still moonlights as a mom.
Web presentation of multilingual content, is much more than simply translating the content to the desired language. There are cultural issues, context issues, and concepts that do not translate easily.
However, even if all these are handled correctly, there are significant technical issues that are sometimes referred to as "transcoding" issues: There are multiple encoding standards, and these standards are not uniformly implemented even between applications on the same computer!
This presentation describes the process by which multiple applications handle multilingual data in a content management scenario. It illustrates the data transformations that cause problems with the data (transcoding). It then describes how much simpler the workflow becomes when Unicode is implemented correctly.
Finally, some concrete examples of real cases are given where the process has gone well and where it has failed, due to failure to use Unicode correctly throughout the process or failure to follow the fundamental principle of "Globalization First; Localization Second".
James T. Caldwell, Ph.D. is a multilingual computer technology consultant working out of Pacific Rim Connections, Inc. He has worked in the field since the early 1980s, when, as Assistant Director of the Center for East Asian Studies, he helped the Stanford University faculty use computers for their Asian language research and publishing. Later he founded Pacific Rim Connections to simplify multilingual communications using computer technology. His work on a Chinese baby care web site (Yaolan.com) recently led to a one-year adventure during the "dot-com boom" with DAE Interactive Marketing, where he was Vice President for Multilingual Computing. His research and consulting continue to develop in the area of multilingual content management and internet communications.
This month's presentation provides an overview of Apple's new operating system, Mac OS X. Built on UNIX with a new modern Macintosh GUI called Aqua, Mac OS X is a multilingual, multiscript, multilocale operating system, with native Unicode support. Mac OS X is available in two flavors; one supporting English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and the other supporting English, Japanese, French, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian and Brazilian Portuguese.
This presentation covers the basics of the Mac OS X architecture with a focus on the international technologies built in, including multilingual support, locale support, input methods, using the "International" pane of System Preferences to switch languages on the fly, and how to structure an application so that a single binary will support multiple languages. It also discusses the new tools and processes required to localize Mac OS X software, including AppleGlot 3 (text extracting and incremental localization tool) and Interface Builder (UI editor), and the differences between localizing Carbon and Cocoa applications.
Chris Hansten is the manager of the Localizability & Integration team for Mac OS X at Apple. He has worked in internationalization, localization and related areas for 10 years, working on different aspects of Apple's international efforts. He is a graduate of Stanford with a degree in Symbolic Systems.
David Murphy is the manager of the International Software Support team for Mac OS X at Apple, providing localization instructions and localization support to Apple's localization teams across the globe. He has been working in the localization industry for the past six years, in Ireland and Silicon Valley. He is a graduate of Dublin Business University with a degree in Business Administration / Information Systems.
This presentation covers the development of speech recognition software for Japanese and Chinese at Microsoft. We start with an overview of Microsoft's Speech Application Programming Interface (SAPI), which allows speech recognition (SR) and text-to-speech engines to plug into applications independent of language and vendor. We then cover the development of Microsoft's Japanese and Chinese SR engines, starting with early experiments using an English SR engine and phone set. We also discuss techniques used to solve problems specific to these languages including word breaking, tonal analysis, specialized normalization, and pronunciation mutation. Finally, we touch on the high level engine architecture and testing techniques such as usability studies and text throughput measurement.
Avery Bishop is Program Manager for Speech APIs at Microsoft Corporation. He has worked in areas related to speech, natural language, and signal processing for over 25 years, working at Sperry Corporation, MIT Lincoln Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, and since 1994 Microsoft. He has lived in Japan for several years, and holds MS and PhD degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering, respectively.
In his rare spare time Avery likes to play with his grand-daughter and brew beer, but not at the same time.
Speech recognition as a way of inputting text has gained substantial pace in the market in recent years. Several companies now make software of this kind, including IBM, L & H and Dragon System. Considering the huge difficulties in inputting ideographic languages with a computer keyboard, and the slowness of inputting by handwriting, Chinese speech recognition as a means of inputting probably has profound impact in the market where ideographic languages are dominant, such as in China.
Using PenPower's Voice recognition system (the core engine is IBM's Chinese ViaVoice 2000) for demonstrations, this presentation will cover the PenPower Chinese voice recognition system, dictation, command and control. Various applications will be demonstrated and accuracy issues and system compatibility will be discussed. PenPower VoiceWriter Professional version is integrated with handwriting recognition system and Chinese OCR (Optical Character Recognition) systems and many more. PenPower's Chinese Handwriting recognition software and the Qcode number-key-based Chinese inputting system for Apple's MacOS are also introduced in this session.
Sharon Yep is the Sales and Marketing Manager of Alestron, Inc. Before serving Alestron, she was a sales and marketing specialist of Fuji Xerox Asia Pacific in Malaysia for 3 years.
Finding the balance between service and technology, amidst a whirlwind of restructure, rapid change, and high demand, is one of many challenges faced by the growing-pain plagued globalization industry. How do you draw the line between service provider and tool developer? And why draw a line at all? Mark will examine in what ways venture capital, local and global markets, and the high-tech roller coaster have clouded perspective and dictated failure for those brave, or foolish enough to enter the race for globalization tool development. This presentation will offer simple reminders of what technology history has taught us, why a trend lives up to its name, and thoughts on who will survive the impending doom of a finicky marketplace and continuing consolidation.
Originally presented at the Localization Industry Standards Association's Global Strategies Summit in October, 2000, in San Jose, California, this presentation will address many of the original well-remembered, bold, honest, debatable, and controversial ideas about the history and future of globalization technology. So, what have the last six months shown us? How have many of these predictions played out, or been proven wrong? What can we expect next from this ever-changing industry that is racing to create the next level of globalization technology triumphs?
Mark Homnack, President and CEO of SimulTrans, is the driving force behind transforming a simple vision - that started with $50 of "seed capital" from a Ph.D. fellowship in 1984 - into the world's leading independent globalization service company. With offices in ten cities worldwide, SimulTrans has taken a different path than its competitors, choosing to grow the company organically and profitably by focusing solely on satisfying customers and employees. As one of the few founders of a "Top Ten" globalization company still surviving as the C.E.O., Mark has a unique grasp of the globalization industry's history and future. He received his B.A. from Williams College, M.A. from Middlebury College, and Ph.D. (abd) from Stanford University.
Speech recognition is a hot topic with human computer interaction. Mac users have long been interested in speech recognition, but have not had the choices available on other platforms. The arrival of MacSpeech's iListen brings choice back to the Macintosh. Adding the dimension of multiple languages creates interesting situations and solutions.
This presentation will cover MacSpeech's iListen product for speech recognition in both dictation and command and control. Various language capabilities will be demonstrated and the challenge of juggling multiple languages (user, operating system, and application) will be discussed.
Jason Wallace is the International Director for MacSpeech, a Macintosh-only speech recognition developer. He has been involved with international, multilingual Macintosh projects for nearly a decade, starting with a stint as the Apple International Evangelist during the PowerPC transition. He has also helped companies develop international strategies on the Internet.
For the past year, Google has been working on putting the "World" in "World Wide Web". The end goal, creating a top quality search experience in as many languages as possible, has presented a variety of interesting challenges, both process-related and technical. This presentation will start by covering some of the basic issues involved in creating a multilingual web search. Then, a discussion of the development of high-quality localized interfaces will cover lessons learned, as well as a preview of Google's brand new tool-based process. The conclusion will deal with a few practical strategies for managing some of the organizational challenges associated with this scale of effort, particularly in a growing company.
Deb Kelly was introduced to localization issues in a previous position, when her engineering group was challenged with the necessity of getting a US resume processing system to understand international resumes. She joined Google in January of 2000, and has spent the last year working with a bunch of other folks there to make sure that Googlers world-wide can search happily and effectively in their language of choice.
The preparation of products for international markets is more often an afterthought than a planned step in domestic product development. Over the years, James has developed processes and methods to deal with short turn-around requirements and has been able to help companies take their products to market quickly and also integrate localization into their mainstream development process. While we may hold and foster ideals of how products should be localized, there are often times where real-world demands require an abridged approach that meets the demands of specific companies and their products.
James will discuss topics ranging from the structuring the work flow and assembling localization staff, vendors, and contractors, to some specific examples of quick tricks to keep up the quality of a localized product while meeting a tight deadline.
James Tanne was introduced to localization and multi-lingual computing when he took up some Japanese translation assignments in college. He then worked on localization and testing projects at a small electronics company, at Apple Computer, at Adobe, at Global Village, and at Starfish Software. He is now a Senior Project Manager at Geotopia, a company that since 1997 has helped clients such as Alladin, Motorola, HP, FlashPoint, Global Village and others with rapid localization solutions. The company specializes in Macintosh localization, but also works on cross-platform products.
Katsuhiko Momoi and Naoki Hotta present new international features of Netscape 6 Mail, which is a successor to Communicator 4.x Messenger. The new layout engine for Netscape 6, Gecko, has made it easier to support many new features helpful to international users while keeping good features from the earlier version, Communicator 4.x.
New international features include MIME-charset honoring and multilingual header display, per-folder encoding (coming soon), charset override, simultaneous display of attachments with multiple encodings, auto-detection integration, and auto charset for reply messages. Other features include integration with MySidebar, e.g., Instant Messenger.
Netscape 6 Mail supports multiple IMAP, POP, and News accounts. AOL Mail is integrated into Netscape 6 Mail with added features such as Buddy Presence. Multilingual address book also includes features such as auto address collection. Mail Composer is also multilingual and is able to work with input in any language.
These feature discussions will be conducted mainly with demos. Through this presentation, we hope to stimulate discussion on international mail features in general, mail standards, and how Unicode may play a role in the near future.
Katsuhiko Momoi worked initially as Internationalization Evangelist after joining Netscape. He is currently Principal Software Development QA Engineer for the International Client Products Group working on Mozilla/Netscape 6 development covering international mail, writing international user interface specifications and organizing international Mozilla QA volunteers. Beginning soon, he will be assuming a new role of international marketing manager and technology evangelist for web standards and embedding. Prior to joining Netscape, he taught Japanese Language and Linguistics at Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, and St. Cloud State University. He holds a BA from Indiana University and a MA from Pennsylvania State University and completed Ph.D. course requirements at University of Chicago, all in Linguistics. His publications include papers in general and Japanese linguistics, software localization, internationalization, and Asian languages.
Naoki Hotta is a senior software development engineer. He has been the main engineer for implementing Mozilla/Netscape 6 international features and is currently working on the next version of Mozilla/Netscape 6.x Mail as well as handling all the international bugs filed by non-Netscape contributors to Mozilla. Prior to joining Netscape, he worked for Adobe systems (PageMaker, Adobe Type Manager). He holds a BA in Psychology from Rikkyo University.
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