Soon, www will be in your language
Soon, www will be in your language
09:42, October 27, 2009 
Email | Print | Subscribe | Comments | Forum 
The Internet is about to get more accessible for millions worldwide with the imminent approval of a new multilingual address system that uses Asian and Arabic scripts, a global regulator said yesterday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said it would declare an end to the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses on Friday - the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul.
"This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago," Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board in charge of reviewing the change, told a press conference.
Thrush said he expected ICANN's full board to grant approval on Friday - a day after the 40th anniversary of the Internet's birth in a computer experiment by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.
When the change comes into force, it will be possible to use characters from other languages - such as Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese - for a full Internet address, instead of just part of the address now.
Enabling the change, Thrush said, is the creation of a translation system that allows multiple scripts to be converted to the right address.
"We're confident that it works because we've been testing it now for a couple of years," he said. "And so we're really ready to start rolling it out."
ICANN president Rod Beckstrom said the change - designed to serve the growing number of non-English-speaking Internet users - would come into effect in the middle of 2010. ICANN aims to start receiving applications next month.
"It will take some period of time to process the applications and then introduce the successful applications," Beckstrom told the news conference.
"Of the 1.6 billion Internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," Beckstrom said.
"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's Internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the Internet continues to spread."
【1】 【2】
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said it would declare an end to the exclusive use of Latin characters for website addresses on Friday - the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul.
"This is the biggest change technically to the Internet since it was invented 40 years ago," Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the ICANN board in charge of reviewing the change, told a press conference.
Thrush said he expected ICANN's full board to grant approval on Friday - a day after the 40th anniversary of the Internet's birth in a computer experiment by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.
When the change comes into force, it will be possible to use characters from other languages - such as Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Japanese - for a full Internet address, instead of just part of the address now.
Enabling the change, Thrush said, is the creation of a translation system that allows multiple scripts to be converted to the right address.
"We're confident that it works because we've been testing it now for a couple of years," he said. "And so we're really ready to start rolling it out."
ICANN president Rod Beckstrom said the change - designed to serve the growing number of non-English-speaking Internet users - would come into effect in the middle of 2010. ICANN aims to start receiving applications next month.
"It will take some period of time to process the applications and then introduce the successful applications," Beckstrom told the news conference.
"Of the 1.6 billion Internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," Beckstrom said.
"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's Internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the Internet continues to spread."
 |
Special Coverage
60th anniversary of founding of PRC
Major headlines
Editor's Pick
Most Popular
Hot Forum Dicussion
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/6794836.pdf