InternetAddresses
Latest
Kansas duo sues IP mappers for putting them through 'digital hell'
Imagine the exact center of the United States, somewhere in the middle of rural Kansas. There lies 360 acres of farmland rented by the Arnolds, a couple and their two sons who moved there in 2011. Within the week, law enforcement showed up looking for a stolen vehicle, the first in a deluge of visits from local, state and federal forces investigating crimes. Why show up at their farm? Because the IP address mapping company MaxMind made those coordinates the default location for users when they don't know where they are in the US. Now the Arnolds have filed suit against them for all the trouble that comes with being the first place cops look when criminals try to mask their area.
ICANN set to allow non-Latin characters in domain names, half the world rejoices
In the name of cultural and linguistic diversity, our loyal comrades over at the ICANN are about to approve availability of domain names in non-Latin alphabets. That's right, Chinese and Japanese folks will finally be able to address their websites in their native tongue, as will fans of Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek or Hindi scripts. Basically, linguists of every type are finally invited to the interwebs party, a move described by ICANN chairman Peter Thrush as "the biggest change technically to the internet since it was invented." This follows an extensive two-year testing period for a translation engine that can convert your lazy Latin scribblings into the refined hieroglyphics of modern Cantonese. Pending approval this Friday, the first new domain names will start coming out in 2010, when we can expect a whole new wave of internet land grabbing. [Via Switched]
