IMUG Past Events Archive

2008 Events

• The LinguaStep Online Language Learning Platform
• Ideographic Variation Sequences: Implementation Details
• San José Software Startup and Small Business Support:
  Business Incubators and Other Help for Growing Your Business Idea

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Past Event Announcements

April 17, 2008, 7-9 PM

San José Software Startup and Small Business Support:
Business Incubators and Other Help for Growing Your Business Idea

Speaker: John Lang, City of San José, Califorina, Office of Economic Development

The City of San José is home to the largest concentration of business incubators in the United States, including the Software Business Cluster. San Jose is also home to a wide range of other government and non-profit economic development and assistance programs to nurture startups from young companies into global powerhouses.

The Software Business Cluster, recognized by the National Business Incubator Assoc. as "Incubator of the Year," attracts up to 25 early-stage software and mobile technology companies at a time. Stars of the program include Agile Software, which has grown from two to 678 employees.

Another example is the Entrepreneur Center, which provides entrepreneurs with a full range of business services, including finance programs, technical assistance, management training, assistance with procurement programs, technology training, and international trade counseling. And another organization, the Software Development Forum, provides software and Internet professionals with a one-stop location in downtown San José for information, connections, and education.

John Lang is a Development Officer with the City San José Office of Economic Development. John will describe these and many other local and international trade programs organized in cooperation with many partners, including the Commercial Service of the US Department of Commerce and the Small Business Development Center.

The City of San José Office of Economic Development is committed to a vital, competitive San Jose economy that increases prosperity for people and companies and enhances city revenues. For more information, see http://www.sjeconomy.com/ or call John Lang at (408) 535-8178.

March 20, 2008, 7-9 p.m.

Vertical Text on the World Wide Web

Speaker: Stephen Zilles, Standards Architect, Adobe Systems

Originally presented at the Internationalization & Unicode Conference in October 2007, this talk will describe some of the features that enable the use of vertical text that have been or are planned for inclusion in the W3C formatting standards, such as CSS, SVG and XSL. The presenter will describe facilities for placing vertical text, aligning mixed texts, such as Western alphabetic or Arabic texts with East Asian texts.

Steve Zilles has been involved with the W3C since 1994 and has been a participant in both the CSS and XSL Working Groups. He has worked for Adobe Systems, Inc since 1992 in areas related to text formatting and rendering. He was active in the design of the ISO print description language and in the use of Postscript and PDF as standards for publishing.

February 21, 2008, 7-9 p.m.

Ideographic Variation Sequences: Implementation Details

Speaker: Dr. Ken Lunde, Adobe Systems

Originally presented at the Internationalization & Unicode Conference in October 2007, this talk will be updated to include the latest news on Adobe-Japan IVS registration.

Ideograph Variation Sequences (IVSes) allow glyph distinctions to be made at the "plain text" level, through the use of the Variation Selectors (VSes) in Plane 14. This presentation thoroughly describes the implementation details for supporting IVSes in the context of OpenType fonts.

In addition to the implementation details for IVSes, the experience of registering the glyphs for the Adobe-Japan1-6 ideographs will be covered during this presentation. Proper handling of IVSes and VSes, from a text-engine perspective, along with real-world application of the IVD and IVSes, are part of the overall picture that is painstakingly painted.

Ken Lunde is a Senior Computer Scientist in CJKV Type Development at Adobe Systems Incorporated, headquartered in San Jose, California. He has been with Adobe for over sixteen years. He is also the author of "CJKV Information Processing" (O'Reilly, 1999), and is currently working on writing the Second Edition.

January 17, 2008, 7-9 p.m.

The LinguaStep Online Language Learning Platform

Speaker: Loren Siebert, LinguaStep

LinguaStep is an online language learning platform that works in conjunction with existing language textbooks.

Meet the developer, Loren Siebert, and hear how an eight-week summer program in Arabic motivated him to develop this innovative language program, first for his Mac and then as an online application. Only one year after that beginning course, Loren became an instructor in Arabic and continued to develop the concepts and coding behind LinguaStep.

Loren, a Marshall Scholar turned entrepreneur, will describe the experience of launching his new online service, for which he has reportedly closed deals with about 30 universities, including Stanford and UC Berkeley.

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