OpenPress will be a replacement for TeX and LaTeX, and is currently in the design stage. I would like to develop probabilistic algorithms for hypenation and line breaking that are an improvement on the algorithms in TeX. Hyphenation in TeX is not perfect, and is problematic for some languages other than English. Line breaking in TeX produces tight paragraphs, but does not guarantee against "rivers of white". A more flexible algorithm is needed. I am planning on developing a new font format that is an improvement on OpenType using NURBS, as well as a rendering engine for these fonts.
Anyone who has used XHTML/CSS knows how frustrating it is to make a website that looks the same on different browsers, or looks exactly how you would like it to. This typesetter software would be an ideal replacement for XHTML/CSS, with Lua replacing JavaScript. If I added UI and media elements to the document, it could be used for rich internet applications. I will start an SVN repository at CodePlex when the project is sufficiently advanced.
I am learning about incremental methods for constructing minimal acyclic deterministic automata. I will use such an automata to store the symbol list for the parser, and it will be possible to add or remove symbols from this automata. I am also learning about NURBS, and will use them to draw the fonts. So far I have implemented the Bresenham line algorithm for debug purposes.