Today I read a news article about how ICANN is pushing for the ability to use non-Latin characters for domains. It saddened me once I finished this article, not for the fact that the gentleman who wrote the article seemed slightly less then willing to accept the fact that the internet belongs to the world, and that there are other countries in this world that use the internet whose primary spoken language is not English, but for the fact that this gentlemen does raise two points that I find very valid that are completely over-looked because of his…..America should be supreme? sounding point of view? None the less, he is completely attacked in the comments of this article. They speak as if his raise of concern about security is outrageous based on the fact that the title of the article has to do with the addition of characters in which we are unable to type. I feel like a little more thought should be put to this. Say you’ve found this nice shipping page with nice items that you want to buy (example: http://nicestufftobuyonline.ru (.ru being for Russia and FYI I have no clue if that’s actually a site, click at your own risk)) The items on here are nice, and the pricing converts to an amount that you find more then fair (even including shipping) Upon further reading you find that this website only accepts payments from Paypal, and being a Russian company, they want you to use http://paypal.ru. (Once again this is all hypothetical; don’t click links until after the story is over) You think that the “P” looks slightly different, but you chalk it up to the fact that you had to use Google to translate the page ( there used to be an English one but since the addition of Russian characters, there hasn’t been much call for the page so it was closed down). You click the link and go and sign in to your Paypal account to go and make a payment for your stuff. Payment made, address and everything good to go, you close the browser and go on your merry little way. Days later, you’re looking at your bank/credit card statement wondering when the hell you bought that John Deere tractor in Moscow. Then, like a sandbag hitting you upside the head, you realize that the Paypal site you didn’t think twice about was really a phishing site to get your account info. All because ICANN allowed those characters so you can make domains with similar looking letters, but going completely different ways.
The other thing this gentleman covers is the idea with this new character set, that people who originally would post on English forums and what have you, might back away from this because it would be easier for them to do the same thing in their native language. Even though not everyone on the internet speaks the English language well, they do make a heavy attempt at getting their idea across (lets face it, English is not the easiest of languages.) With the internet being what I consider, the place where lazy people go, I don’t see people continuing with this effort. My concern here is, will this take something that over 40 years has made communication across the world simpler, and divide us up again based on what our native tongue is?
Here’s the article for you to read if you would like
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/181094/icann_approves_domain_names_we_cant_type.html
Get this, Microsoft, who was sponsoring a Seth McFarlane and Alex Borstein special, pulled out of the deal due to the potentially offensive choice of comedy. Who didn’t see this coming? The original idea was for Microsoft to pay for the special to be commercial free, but to have various subtle hints at Windows 7, Microsoft’s latest operating system which was released this past week. After hearing jokes about the deaf, the Holocaust, and incest, (has anyone at Redmond ever watched an episode of Family Guy?) Microsoft decided that the show “was not a fit with the Windows brand”. Who did not question this from the word go? With this you have 2 options; Microsoft partnering up with one of the most offensive duos in animated comedy, or them to bail out. With the way Microsoft has been concerned with their public image lately, I was completely shocked to see this partnership. Fox still plans to air the special on November 8th with a yet-to-be named sponsor taking over for Microsoft
Today with the announcement of the PS3 being able to stream netflix next month, Best Buy’s brand bluray dvd player, Isignia, took a price cut to $99 (The NS-BRDVD3. Another model exhists (NS-WBRDVD) Which costs about $50 more but allows for wireless connection). This will require a firmware upgrade to the DVD player to use the streaming feature.
In other Bluray news, the Playstation 3 next month (November) will carry the abillity to stream movie and tv episode choices through this entertainment system. Previously, this was only available on the xbox 360 system with a gold status xbox live membership. Unlike the 360, the ps3 will initially require a disk from netflix (i belive you can order one from 
