Internet Goes Multicultural with Internationalized Domain Names

In what has been heralded as a step forward into the future ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has initiated applications for IDN's (Internationalized Domain Names). In the past only Latin characters have been used for web addresses and now different scripts will be available as part of the address after the dot such as com, net or org. Hence say Thai or Chinese will be usable as part of the end of the domain name.
With estimated billion and half users in the world, it's estimated that more then half of these have native languages that are not made up of Latin scripts. With applications rolling in the first addresses are set to debut in 2010 and now moves the web into what was borne mostly out of Western enterprise into a larger global playing field.