Next year, the first URLs made up of non-latin characters will appear on the internet. We give it maybe ten seconds until someone is complaining that the net has become corrupted and lost sight of its original purpose.

New Scientist reports that internet regulatory body the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is currently accepting applications for the first non-latin character URLs following an October recognition of the 1.6 billion online users who use languages outside of the latin base. The first domains are expected to be released in early 2010, and be for Egyptian and Russian characters. We're just happy that this change helps the web live up to that "World Wide" moniker.

2010 preview: The polygot web [New Scientist]