The internet regulator has approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses, in a move that is set to transform the online world.
The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.
More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts.
It is being described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago.
The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be in use next year.
Plans for IDNs were first approved at a meeting in June 2008, but testing of the system has been going on for two years.
Technical upheaval
The move paves the way for the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to be changed so it can recognise and translate non-Latin characters.
The DNS acts like a phonebook, turning easily understood domain names into strings of computer-readable numbers, known as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) said the "fantastically complicated technical feature" allowing IDNs would represent the "biggest change" to the coding that underlies the internet since it was invented four decades ago.
BBC technology correspondent Mark Gregory says in the early days of the internet, language posed no problem, as most web-surfers spoke English and those that did not usually wrote in languages based on the Latin alphabet.
But this is no longer true, adds our correspondent.
Icann said it would accept the first applications for IDNs by 16 November, with the first up and running by "mid-2010".
It is likely the majority of early non-Latin net addresses to be approved will be in Chinese and Arabic script, followed by Russian.
Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language.
However, these were not internationally approved and do not work on all computers.
Full story here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8333194.stm
The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.
More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts.
It is being described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago.
The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be in use next year.
Plans for IDNs were first approved at a meeting in June 2008, but testing of the system has been going on for two years.
Technical upheaval
The move paves the way for the internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to be changed so it can recognise and translate non-Latin characters.
The DNS acts like a phonebook, turning easily understood domain names into strings of computer-readable numbers, known as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) said the "fantastically complicated technical feature" allowing IDNs would represent the "biggest change" to the coding that underlies the internet since it was invented four decades ago.
BBC technology correspondent Mark Gregory says in the early days of the internet, language posed no problem, as most web-surfers spoke English and those that did not usually wrote in languages based on the Latin alphabet.
But this is no longer true, adds our correspondent.
Icann said it would accept the first applications for IDNs by 16 November, with the first up and running by "mid-2010".
It is likely the majority of early non-Latin net addresses to be approved will be in Chinese and Arabic script, followed by Russian.
Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language.
However, these were not internationally approved and do not work on all computers.
Full story here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8333194.stm
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