The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) has unveiled an Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) resource site to share information on work progress, achievements and acquired knowledge in the field of IDN. It includes an introduction to IDN, information about related events, standards materials, news, information on national and other IDN developments and a FAQ. more»
The internet is a global revolution in communication - as long as you use letters from the western alphabet. ...According to Kaled Fattal, "People say the net works, but it only works for those communities whose native language is Latin-based. The rest of the world is totally isolated." Fattal speaks perfect English but as chairman and chief executive of the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC), and an Arab, he knows that the majority of the world's population does not. more»
ICANN will start the trial testing of internationalized domain names (IDN) in the Top-Level Domain (TLD) system, in the third quarter of 2006, Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN, told Interfax in an interview Tuesday. Once IDN domain names are implemented Internet sites will able to have domain names in foreign languages, and foreign character sets -- such as Chinese.
"The preparation for the testing is already underway, and it will be a testing on the top of the root," said Twomey. "We are presently moving to introduce the IDNs of TLD, and are much closer to the end for the answer." But the exact date for the launch of the IDN is not yet available. more»