Latest news

[Z]

Inspired by the humor thread in the GG board and the 'news' thread in the PS3 section, I thought the tech board should have a 'news' thread as well for all those little news that may not be worth having their own threads. We see some topics without any replies at all.

Let's see if it works out. I'll post the first news:

Internet addresses set for change

The internet regulator has approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses, in a move that is set to transform the online world.

The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese and other characters in what is being described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago.

More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts.

John Sudworth reports from Seoul. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8333469.stm

THere is an accompanying short vid that reiterates the same thing in the link.

I always wondered why they didn't allow that from the beginning.

[Viper]

Finally.

I can understand why it was limited in the early days but this hasn't been a real issue for a long while.

[jaxmkii]

how is moving away from a unified laungage a good thing?

[curryking1]

Not everyone cares about using Latin characters jax. Billions of people speak other languages natively which use other types of characters.

[iSDK]

Originally Posted by curryking1

Not everyone cares about using Latin characters jax. Billions of people speak other languages natively which use other types of characters.

Exactly, it isn't like standard v. metric...

[masonite]

It might be harder for you to check your favourite uzbek porn sites, but it makes it easier for everyone else that doesn't use western characters.

In fairness though, Jax raises a point - for the first time since it's inception, we're going to have websites that can't really be accessed via a standard keyboard - sure, the content of websites could still potentially be undecipherable - but for the first time we could potentially see segregation amongst the information out there due to not even being able to type in the address.

Also, what does this mean for search engines like google? are they going to have to factor in support for other character sets in order to make those results displayable?

[Z]

More options are always welcomed. Watch the linked vid; for many people Latin characters are an obstacle. The narrator in the video says is nicely;" imagine you having to type Korean every time you enter a URL address."

[Z]

- Motorola Releases Droid Specs, Photos Online. Looks like an awesome smart phone.


- Facebook Wins $711 Million From Spammer . Great; I just HATE spammers! Of course, they aren't going to see any of that money (read for why not) but hopefully it'll act as a deterrent to some extent.

[jaxmkii]

Originally Posted by curryking1

Not everyone cares about using Latin characters jax. Billions of people speak other languages natively which use other types of characters.

Originally Posted by iSDK

Exactly, it isn't like standard v. metric...

drop the carebear BS and think about it...

the best longest lasting contrabution to humanity from the roman empire possibly the entire world was mandating the adoption of a unified langage for all its people Latin. because of this scientist today all speak the same langage and almost every culture from sweden to egypt ireland to budapest have atleast a basic comonality among them. 2000 years ago it was possible for all men from all the known world to communicate. it was a key to the success of rome to last as long as it did.

the internet by nessecity was creating a doorway to a unified world langage and now were just going to shit on that. imagine the world if all could talk and listen to each other without the help of politicains and news media. how many in this very forum have learned english just to talk on the internet?

our ablity to communicate is what makes humanity stronger than any other animal. and there are those who would shove us back into the middle ages of iliteracy and stupidity by segmenting our abiltus to communicate by clutering up the worldwide communications networks with hundreds of imcampatible code systems all based on everycorner of the worlds langages.

need an example?

I go into homedepot ( a major US chain hardware store ) i look at box containng a gas furnace. on the box there is a place where all information of the product used to be posted. but now half the info is there a smaller vage compressed and dumbed down version with half the info. WHY? becuase the box furnace manufature had to make room for the same vage info in spanish to be placed in the same space.

in the end the spanish and english speaking consumer gets shafted. this is the future we are working to. and just one small example of why multiligual cultures suck.

[Z]

Ah, you are talking about a unified future or language. That does raise a good point, but we are merely talking about web addresses that already are in every language out there. They just added the suffixes in those languages as well.
To build a web page, you still need to use ENglish for the programming codes and languages- AFAIK.

Personally, I think we are heading towards a unified culture with one language. I think it is inevitable.

[Viper]

Jax, the web pages those foreign sites are written is not English so the fact the URL has Latin letters does very little to unify the languages at all. It's not as though the whole of the Internet was in English and is now diversifying. It's just the URLs.

Z, you might be right but few people understand that unified language is quickly becoming Chinese....not English. They have 3 times as many honor role students as the US and UK have total students.

[Z]

No, the most spoken language isn't necessarily the candidate to be a lingua franca. English is the most probable one- and it is in several cultures.
Chinese has a problem of having a too complicated of a writing system to make it mass-adopted. I heard an expert Chinese language educator make a statement in an international summit for 'world languages'- or something about that- and she said she would love to have Chinese as the lingua franca but it just isn't practical. She gave an example in cataloging and organizing. Her phone book is cataloged using English alphabet because it would be a real headache to try and do that in Chinese.
Also, have you seen Chinese and Japanese keyboards? It is impossible and extremely impractical to fit in their entire characters on one. So they use use english to type how the letter is pronounced the a popo-up on screen comes up with the similar possibilities. They do that because they are forced to. They don't have a set of letters but combinations using many, many main characters.

And that is the key' the writing system. Any language can be learned for speaking, but it is the writing that makes a language a success or not and candidate it for world adoption. Latin languages have an easy and fairly simplistic writing systems. Sure, English has fucked up spelling due to its history of creation, but maybe something could be done about that later on? Why not, Webster did it at one time releasing a book for the 'American' version of English where he sorted out a number of spelling rules. He didn't address all of it and he wasn't consistant either, but at least he mae some things easier.

But again, that could happen automatically as the US version of English is becoming the world standard variety of the language. It used to be British English, but that changed a while back.

Sorry to go on like that, SLA (second language acquisition) i my field of expertise.

[Z]

On other news:
Apple Pitching $30-Per-Month iTunes TV Service: Report

New app turns your iPhone into a public-radio DVR

Speaking of iPhones, I love how thin they are and how responsive is the touch screen, but I hate some stupid design and function decisions with it. I am waiting for when they release a better offer. the 3GS is a good start.
Also, why the hell hasn't any other phone maker made a device that is as thin? everything else seems bulky in comparison or has a tiny screen...

[masonite]

Originally Posted by Z

No, the most spoken language isn't necessarily the candidate to be a lingua franca. English is the most probable one- and it is in several cultures.
Chinese has a problem of having a too complicated of a writing system to make it mass-adopted. I heard an expert Chinese language educator make a statement in an international summit for 'world languages'- or something about that- and she said she would love to have Chinese as the lingua franca but it just isn't practical. She gave an example in cataloging and organizing. Her phone book is cataloged using English alphabet because it would be a real headache to try and do that in Chinese.
Also, have you seen Chinese and Japanese keyboards? It is impossible and extremely impractical to fit in their entire characters on one. So they use use english to type how the letter is pronounced the a popo-up on screen comes up with the similar possibilities. They do that because they are forced to. They don't have a set of letters but combinations using many, many main characters.

And that is the key' the writing system. Any language can be learned for speaking, but it is the writing that makes a language a success or not and candidate it for world adoption. Latin languages have an easy and fairly simplistic writing systems. Sure, English has fucked up spelling due to its history of creation, but maybe something could be done about that later on? Why not, Webster did it at one time releasing a book for the 'American' version of English where he sorted out a number of spelling rules. He didn't address all of it and he wasn't consistant either, but at least he mae some things easier.

But again, that could happen automatically as the US version of English is becoming the world standard variety of the language. It used to be British English, but that changed a while back.

Sorry to go on like that, SLA (second language acquisition) i my field of expertise.

Isn't french easier to learn though? English has a whole host of punctuation and pronunciation features that aren't even indicated in the spelling - french has those little things around the letters (can't remember what they're called) which indicate it, along with many other latin character languages. And are you sure US is becoming standard? At least in science circles I always though it was british. In any case, I refuse to drop the U from "colour" even with a gun to my head.

[frosty]

English has a whole host of punctuation and pronunciation features that aren't even indicated in the spelling

I can't see how you could say a language that doesn't pronounce half the letters in it's words could be easier than english to learn. English can be tricky, but get a person who has never heard or read french to pronounce cest la vie or laissez les bon temps rouler properly just by reading it... good luck with that one. At least I can read german or spanish and get the pronunciation correct most of the time.

I personally support a unified Latin based net language, as we've been using it for 40 years (therefore most of the people online are familiar with it), and many of us won't even be able to type in some of these new web addresses. How will search engines cope with it? It raises a lot of questions.

[Z]

Originally Posted by masonite

Isn't [X language] easier to learn though?

We could discuss which is 'easier' coming form a number of angles, but the point is, Latin based languages are more accessible and practical to use in written form than some of the Far East languages- especially ancient ones like Chinese. Do you know that Traditional Chinese hasn't changed much in more than a millennia? You can actually find ancient scripts out of a thousand year old tomb or something and give it to an average Chinese guy on the street and he'll probably read it for you. There is very little change. The big change they did was the Simplified Chinese which they use in the education system now. Those students can't read Traditional Chinese at all. They can't even try. Simplified Chinese was only introduced in 1956.

And are you sure US is becoming standard? At least in science circles I always though it was British.

Australian English uses more of a British form in Parliament and in scientific publications due to back-history. Europeans traditionally used the British variety for similar histories and logistical reasons. But that is changing. I am looking at the global picture; if you pick a random guy from Korea, Chile or any other corer of the world, they would probably speak English with an American variety or at least be more familiar with it. It has to do with how the US has a more global influence than Britain- especially in the entertainment industry.

Originally Posted by frosty

many of us won't even be able to type in some of these new web addresses. How will search engines cope with it? It raises a lot of questions.

Like what was mentioned int eh article, video and what Viper reiterated; the ONLY thing that is changing is the final little suffex that comes after the dot in the address URL. The entire URL is in the native language. The website content itself is in that language as well. it is just that final '.com' that will change. You won't find an English URL with a foreign suffix.

[curryking1]

Originally Posted by jaxmkii

drop the carebear BS and think about it...

the best longest lasting contrabution to humanity from the roman empire possibly the entire world was mandating the adoption of a unified langage for all its people Latin. because of this scientist today all speak the same langage and almost every culture from sweden to egypt ireland to budapest have atleast a basic comonality among them. 2000 years ago it was possible for all men from all the known world to communicate. it was a key to the success of rome to last as long as it did.

the internet by nessecity was creating a doorway to a unified world langage and now were just going to shit on that. imagine the world if all could talk and listen to each other without the help of politicains and news media. how many in this very forum have learned english just to talk on the internet?

our ablity to communicate is what makes humanity stronger than any other animal. and there are those who would shove us back into the middle ages of iliteracy and stupidity by segmenting our abiltus to communicate by clutering up the worldwide communications networks with hundreds of imcampatible code systems all based on everycorner of the worlds langages.

need an example?

I go into homedepot ( a major US chain hardware store ) i look at box containng a gas furnace. on the box there is a place where all information of the product used to be posted. but now half the info is there a smaller vage compressed and dumbed down version with half the info. WHY? becuase the box furnace manufature had to make room for the same vage info in spanish to be placed in the same space.

in the end the spanish and english speaking consumer gets shafted. this is the future we are working to. and just one small example of why multiligual cultures suck.

Where on Earth do you get this nonsense from? Incompatibility...? I haven't seen this attitude in a while.

Seriously, like iSDK said, this isn't Metric vs Imperial. I mean that difference costed NASA billions of dollars on space missions. That's an interconversion everyone can do without.

If I applied what you just said to Canada I'd have to guess our country had fell into anarchy and disappeared off the map years ago.

When I go to a Chinese restaurant or an Indian restaurant there's two languages on the menu, English and a Chinese or Indian dialect. And no, I don't lose any information.

Wouldn't you figure, as would probably make sense, that the area for information on the box would just be larger? On the box of products the font is usually smaller and the info areas required to be larger to accomodate everything, but the same feature information is still provided. Trust me, there's enough room on any box of PC hardware or box for a drill from Home Depot. Just use a bit more of that space where all the fancy graphics are provided. It's not like boxes are losing space to fit on an official language. They don't put every language on a box.

When the package is too small and it's a trivial item, usually only the most major language is on the bag or box or whatever.

Oh, btw, when I buy games I get a French and an English manual. Yep, ever since my first Playstation game, all my games have two manuals. When you buy a product (like whatever you're buying at Home Depot) that needs a manual with special information the manual is LONGER. So no, you don't lose essential information on the box or in the detailed manual.

Care bear BS? Really?

Great info btw Z and Viper.

[iSDK]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to curryking1 again.

Exactly.

Besides when was the last time you bought a big ticket item w/out doing your research? Anymore I can take a photo of either the item or UPC and my iPhone gives me all the info and more on it.. never mind where to buy it cheeper.

[Smokey]

Originally Posted by masonite

I refuse to drop the U from "colour" even with a gun to my head.

im with you there masonite & a whole host of other "shortened" words

[Garfunkel]

@Z. Yes, you still need to code in English (Latin) for syntax and stuff (can you imagine how hard it would be to make cross-language compilers and interpreters?) but that doesn't matter all that much because most of that standard "if", "while", "body", "head" stuff is understood by everyone regardless of language, or the words are the same in their language anyway. For variable names and whatnot, many languages can use any unicode characters (java, although i despise java). Some don't.

As for the global language. Most scientific journals and stuff I've read seem to use British English regardless where they come from. I guess it's mainly historical. I don't know how the legal profession does it. Most programming languages however use US English for things like Colour and whatnot though. Which is highly annoying. I hate myself every time I have to spell something intentionally wrongly, and so does my compiler.

Originally Posted by Smokey

im with you there masonite & a whole host of other "shortened" words

I would rather not dumb language down words like 'colour' just for the few who can't speak English properly.