[smc-discuss] 'Mandate Tamil support for devices sold in TN'

[manoj k]

മലയാളനാട്ടില്‍ ഇതൊക്കെ എന്ന് നടന്നുകാണും ? ഇതിനേക്കാള്‍ മുന്‍ഗണനയുള്ളവ
പോലും ആരും ശ്രദ്ധിയ്ക്കുന്നില്ലെന്ന യാഥാര്‍ത്ഥ്യം വിട്ടുപോകുന്നൊന്നുമില്ല.

ഗവണ്‍മെന്റ് പോളിസി തലത്തില്‍ ഇത് കൊണ്ടുവരാന്‍ നമുക്ക് സമ്മര്‍ദ്ദം
ചെലുത്താനാവില്ലേ ?

Any gadget — be it a computer or a smartphone — sold in the State should
support Tamil out of the box, a group of Tamil scholars and computing
experts have asked the State government to mandate.

Only such State support in ensuring the Tamil script is displayed properly
and available for input in all devices will lead to widespread use.

The ramifications of getting manufacturers to enable the devices in Tamil,
or whatever the local language, cannot be undermined, especially if we are
to bridge the digital divide, according to the participants of a seminar
organised by Tamil Virtual Academy in the city this week.

One instance where government mandate helped immensely, according to Mani
M. Manivannan, chair of Tamil Unicode Working Group of the International
Forum for Information Technology in Tamil, is when the Singapore government
mandated the requirement of Tamil support for all computers it procured for
its libraries.

This ultimately led to Apple introducing Tamil fonts on its Mac range of
computers. “It also meant Apple quickly ported Tamil support to its mobile
devices… the iPhone and the iPad. The government mandate eventually helped
a lot of Tamil users,” said Mr. Manivannan.

In their draft recommendations to Tamil Nadu government’s IT secretary,
Tamil scholars and IT experts have suggested all modern devices — of
computing, communication and entertainment, including phones, game consoles
and computers — be mandated to support Tamil out of the box, with
government-recommended fonts and input method editors with sufficient
technology, to render Tamil correctly.

Muthu. Nedumaran, a pioneer in the field of Indic language input method
editors, is of the view that Tamil and other Indian languages can be easily
enabled on devices by manufacturers themselves, but they have never had any
compulsive reasons to do so.

The scenario is a lot different even in South-East Asian countries. In
Vietnam or Thailand, for example, almost all devices have been enabled in
local languages for several years now.

He said even the Bangladesh government had mandated by law that all mobile
phone sellers in the country must include Bengali compulsorily as an input
option.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/mandate-tamil-support-for-devices-sold-in-tn/article5757826.ece
http://archive.is/tXaWv


Manoj.K/മനോജ്.കെ
www.manojkmohan.com
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