been set up by the LINGLINK Project as the springboard for access to Language
Technology resources on the Web: information, news, downloads, links, events,
discussion groups and a number of specially-commissioned studies (e-commerce,
telecommunications, Call Centres, Localization, etc.).

The Multilingual Application Interface for Telematic Services (MAITS) is a
consortium formed to specify an applications programming interface (API) for
multilingual applications in the telematic services. A number of telematic
applications, such as X.500, WWW, X.400, internet mail and data bases, is
planned to be enhanced to use this i18n API, and products are planned to be
implemented using the API.

FRANCIL (Reseau francophone de l'ingenierie de la langue) (Francophone Network
in Language Engineering) is a programme launched in June 1994 by the Agence
universitaire de la francophonie (AUPELF-UREF) (University Agency for
Francophony) to strengthen activities in linguistic engineering, particularly
for automatic language processing. This quickly-growing sector includes research
and development for text analysis and generation, and for speech recognition,
comprehension and synthesis. It also includes some applications in the following
fields: document management, communication between the human being and the
machine, writing aid, and computer-assisted translation.

5.4. Internationalization and Localization

"Towards communicating on the Internet in any language..." Babel is an Alis
Technologies/ Internet Society joint project to internationalize the Internet.
Its multilingual site (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and
Swedish) has two main sections: languages (the world's languages; typographical
and linguistic glossary; Francophonie (French-speaking countries); and the
Internet and multilingualism (developing your multilingual Web site; coding the
world's writing).

The Localisation Industry Standards Association (LISA) is a main organization
for the localization and internationalization industry. The current membership
of 130 leading players from all around the world includes software publishers,
hardware manufacturers, localization service vendors, and an increasing number
of companies from related IT sectors. LISA defines its mission as "promoting the
localization and internationalization industry and providing a mechanism and
services to enable companies to exchange and share information on the
develop