First non-Latin web addresses go live

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Arab nations are leading a “historic” charge to make the world wide web live up to its name. Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called “country codes” written in Arabic scripts. Marco Werman has more. Download MP3

• BBC coverage
• Icann
• Egyptian Ministry of Technology (Arabic script)

Tech Podcast 268: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Returns!

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Tons of fun in this week’s podcast. The highlight is the return of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Eoin Colfer, who you may know as author of the Artemis Fowl series, has taken on the task of writing Book Six of Three in the H2G2 universe. It’s called And Another Thing… and we’ve got an interview with Colfer on this week’s podcast! We also hear about expert windmill builder, William Kamkwamba.

• Download WTP 268
• Enhanced WTP via iTunes
• Give to WTP via PRI

Understanding Chinese, birds and Glaswegians

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We select our top five language-related stories from the past month. Among them: Some birds develop distinct dialects based on the decibel levels of their habitats; Companies doing business in Glasgow are offered interpreters to translate the local dialect; And Chinese expats do battle over which script U.S. schools should use to teach Chinese – traditional characters, favored in Taiwan and Hong Kong, or simplified characters, used in mainland China.

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Tech Podcast 265: “Internet’s” birthday, 40 years of modulated anarchy

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This week, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Internet. We hear from UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock (pictured), and others who worked to send that first message between two computers, hundreds of miles apart. We get the international perspective from Chinese blogger and activist Isaac Mao. And we also hear about the ‘Net’s next step, Internationalized Domain Names.

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Dot YU

Today’s Geo Quiz is about “.yu.” “.yu” is the Internet country code assigned to Yugoslavia. The country no longer exists. The name hasn’t even been used officially since 2003.