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1. Introduction

Yasuhide Yamanouchi
Center for Global Communications
Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum started Asia Pacific Open Information Network  (APOINT 21) Project in 1998 considering the influence of information technology and computer network over industrial society in the 21st century.  The  APOINT 21 Project targeted to promote the information exchange among Congresses, Parliaments and Diets among this region in general.  Asia Pacific Font Study Group (APFont SG) at the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), International University of Japan started research from 1997 on the promotions in parliamentary information use and language environment for Internet in cooperation with APPF Japanese Secretary.  This report covers research activities of the APFont SG in 2000.  APOINT 21 Project is unique because international political organization undertook issues in promotion in the Internet use and technical aspects accompany with it.  We consider this research is a case study for the issues on information technology and language in the international politics.  The present members of the APFont SG is as the follows: Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum and the Internet Information Exchange; from 1998 APPF Annual Meeting in Korea in January 1998 undertook the Resolution to initiate APOINT Project.  At the General Secretary Meeting in November 1998 in Peru, APPF TWG Meeting discussed the agenda and progress in the project. The TWG encouraged that each member state decide the role and action plan, which should be reviewed in 2001. The roles and action plans proposed to date are as the follows: Peruvian Congress undertook the support programs for those legislative bodies, which has not opened the web sites to public. According to the Canberra TWG Meeting, The Kingdom of Cambodia and Indonesia set up congressional web sites in 1999 and four countries lacked behind, namely,
Laos, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam. APPF Japanese Secretary decided the contribution in network multi-lingual environment.  Accordingly, the APFont Study Group undertook the following research in year 2000.

AAFont

Institute for the Study of Language and Culture of Asia and Africa has been developing digitalized alphabet characters in the research field. "AAFont" include the following languages:
Arabic (Arabic, Hausa-Ajami, Persian, Urdu, Pashtu, Uighur and Malayan subsets), Traditional Mongol, Thai, Khmer, Devanagari, Bengali, Tibetan, Laotian, Burma-Mhong, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Telugu. APfont SG worked to convert the "AAFont" (bitmap data) into outline-font to make it usable in Internet.

Linux

Considering the importance of the non- MS Windows Operation Systems, APfont SG members participated the standardization activities for the Linux multi-lingual environment.

International Glypf Registration System

APfont SG started the development of the International Glypf Registration System.  This system registers the glyph images as open sources, distribute each glyph unique code for identification, and makes them available on-line.  The AFII (Association for Font Information Interchange) was responsible for the International Glypf Registration (ISO/IEC 10036) but its activity has stopped in several years before.  APfont SG had referred to the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 and received the acceptance of appropriate modifications from this international standardization body.  The APfont SG focuses on the development of the database application in this year for the operation of the Registration System.

In the following two sections this report will introduce the standardization process at ISO/IEC and examples from the AAFont converted from bit map into outline-font.


[ Contents | 2. ]