Unicode provides a unique number for each characters independant of the language, platform and program .Computers store everything, the letters and other characters as numbers, so some encoding system need to be adapted to convert different characters to numbers. Now in absence of any general encoding system, there exist a lots of different and conflicting encoding system. Like one may assign the same number to different keyboard characters or the same keyboard character may be assigned different numbers in different coding systems.
Why it is necessary?
So it is rather difficult particularly for the servers to support so many coding systems and there is the risk of data loss during a transformation from one encoding system to another.
QUOTE
Unicode enables a single software product or a single website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without re-engineering. It allows data to be transported through many different systems without corruption
How to find a character in unicode?
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For each character defined in Unicode you will find an assigned code point: a hexadecimal number that is used to represent that character in computer data.
Here is a Code Chart.
Who are using it?
Industry leaders who have already adopted unicode systems include Apple, HP, IBM, JustSystem, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys and many others.
Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization originally founded to :
1.Develop
2.Extend
and 3.promote use of the Unicode Standard
The latest version:
The latest unicode version is Unicode Version 5.0.0, it is expected around the last quarter of 2006
Source:
Unicode.org
