Change in Internet Addresses

Rather big news has just been announced by Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers: Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Currently, all domain names must be written using the Latin alphabet, meaning that most of the world is entering URLs in their non-native language. Presumably, if you’re reading this, you’re comfortable with English; Now just imagine if every time you went online you had to type URLs in Chinese, Arabic, or Russian! Well, that’s going to change over the next year, as support for domain names in those three languages (to start) will be added to DNS (Domain Name System). This is a significant and welcome change. For more information, see the Icann site or this article at the BBC.