Tatsuo Kobayashi
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese Web architect with his focuses on international standardization.
Born and raised in Tokyo, he studied history and philosophy of science at the University of Tokyo
. After graduating from the university, he joined Shogakukan
Inc. and started working as an editor. In 1989, he moved to JustSystems
Corporation, and got involved in product planning. Setting his goal on the fusion of technology and lingual cultures, he established a supervising committee for promoting ATOK
(Advanced Technology Of Kana-kanji Transfer), which is the trade mark of JustSystems
and is a kana-kanji conversion software.
Representing JustSystems, he has been a regular member at the Unicode
Technical Committee to handle issues related to character sets. Also, as a member of the Japan Committee for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, and the chair of the Japan Committee for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2/IRG, he has been actively working through various international meetings and contributed to formulating ISO.
Born and raised in Tokyo, he studied history and philosophy of science at the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
. After graduating from the university, he joined Shogakukan
Shogakukan
is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...
Inc. and started working as an editor. In 1989, he moved to JustSystems
JustSystems
is a major Japanese software development house. The company is also known as "JustSystem." Its main products are Ichitaro , a word processor, and Hanako, a graphics package that remains competitive in the Japanese market, despite strong and controversial competitive pressures from Microsoft in the...
Corporation, and got involved in product planning. Setting his goal on the fusion of technology and lingual cultures, he established a supervising committee for promoting ATOK
ATOK
ATOK is a Japanese input method editor produced by JustSystems, a Japanese software company.ATOK is an IME with roots from 1983 and DOS, but it now supports a large number of platforms including Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Android, and iOS....
(Advanced Technology Of Kana-kanji Transfer), which is the trade mark of JustSystems
JustSystems
is a major Japanese software development house. The company is also known as "JustSystem." Its main products are Ichitaro , a word processor, and Hanako, a graphics package that remains competitive in the Japanese market, despite strong and controversial competitive pressures from Microsoft in the...
and is a kana-kanji conversion software.
Representing JustSystems, he has been a regular member at the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Technical Committee to handle issues related to character sets. Also, as a member of the Japan Committee for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, and the chair of the Japan Committee for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2/IRG, he has been actively working through various international meetings and contributed to formulating ISO.
Standardization projects
- In 1997, he became Director of the Unicode ConsortiumUnicode ConsortiumThe Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard. Its stated goal is to eventually replace existing character encoding schemes with Unicode and its standard Unicode Transformation Format schemes, claiming that many of the existing...
. - In 1999 he founded Scholex and became an Executive Officer in April 2001.
- In March 2001, he made a presentation for the “Language Diversity in Network Society” held by the French Commission for UNESCO in Paris, and in September 2001, for the “Language in Cyberspace” held by the Korean Commission for UNESCO in Soul.
- Between 2004 through 2010, he took the chairmanship of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2.
- Since 2006, he has been Chairman of W3C Japanese Text Layout Task Force.
- Since 2010, he has been a member of the board of directors at the IVS(Ideographic Variation Sequence) Technology Promotion Council.
- In 2011, he was appointed Fellow of the JEPA (Japan Electronic Publishing Association).
Participating committees
- JSC2 Committee of Information Technology Standards Commission of Japan (ITSCJ) of the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) （ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2 and JTC1/SC2/WG2）
Books
- Unicode Senki (ユニコード戦記) (Unicode war chronicle) (2011/6/10) ISBN 450154970X
- Internet jidai no moji code (インターネット時代の文字コード) (Character Code in the Internet era) (author & editor) (2002/01) ISBN 4320120388
- Tabogurafikkusu (ターボグラフィックス) (Turbo graphics) (coauthor)
- Dennou Bunka to Kanji no Yukue (電脳文化と漢字のゆくえ) (Cyberculture and whereabouts of Kanji) （coauthor）
- Bunka-toshiteno IT Kakumei (文化としてのIT革命) (IT revolution as a culture)（coauthor）