How Do You Say "Dot Com" in Urdu?

Sometime next year, for the first time, an internet domain name without any Latin characters will go live.

ICANN, the organization in charge of domain name and IP address registration, among other tasks, voted on Friday to permit domain names composed of nearly 100,000 different characters, beyond the 37 currently-permitted characters you see on your keyboard. Hindi and Chinese, Greek and Hebrew, Russian and Arabic characters will all be allowed in top-level domains.

The hope is that this change in policy will bring the internet within the reach of yet more people. It will certainly make the internet a more viable tool for children learning to read in languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. It's not an earth-moving event, perhaps, but it's a small step that recognizes the global, boundary-free nature of the internet.

If you're into this kind of thing, here's a hopelessly sappy video from ICANN celebrating the change: