2010 preview: The polyglot web

2010 preview: The polyglot web

2010 preview: The polyglot web

Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don't recognise, from a language you don't speak. It's a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.

Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) - the part of an address after the final "dot". The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.

The first Arabic domain is likely to be Egypt's and in Russia orders are already being taken for the country's hoped-for new TLD. The address HOBЫЙyЧеНЫЙ.pф - a rough translation of "newscientist" with the Cyrillic domain that stands for Russian Federation - can be registered today.

Though they will be invisible to many of today's users, these changes are a bellwether for the web's future. Today Latin-script languages predominate. But before long Chinese will overtake English as the most used language, and web use in other places with scripts of their own, such as India and Russia, is growing fast. The Middle East is spawning new users faster than any other region.

The image below, portraying links between blogs, represents just one facet of the ever-changing shape of the internet. More corrections like the arrival of non-Latin domain names are sure to come as the network underlying everyday life starts to properly live up to its "worldwide" monicker.

New Scientist by Tom Simonite

1 comments:

Ricard said...

True, the article said: before long Chinese will overtake English as the most used language, and web use in other places with scripts of their own, such as India and Russia, is growing fast. The Middle East is spawning new users faster than any other region.

December 26, 2009 7:29 PM

U.S. high-tech work visa application reaches annual limit

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Applications for H-1B, the favorite work visa for high-tech employers in the United States, finally reached the annual cap this week after a slow start in the year because of the economic recession, local media reported on Friday.

There was only light demand for the normally popular visa in April, when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began to take applications for this fiscal year's quota of 65,000.

The USCIS announced this week that after nine months, employers in the country finally used up the annual quota, the San Jose Mercury News said in a report.

In comparison, filling the same quota took only one day the previous year, the newspaper noted.

The low pace of H-1B visa applications this year showed "how weak the American economy has been this past year," said Carl Guardino, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an organization that has more than 200 member companies in the region.

But analysts believed the fact that employers have finally used up the quota may be a good indication for the economy, showing that perhaps high-tech hiring was rebounding.

The H-1B visas are issued to U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming.

The visas, good for three years and renewable for another three, are especially popular with Silicon Valley high-tech companies who use them to attract talent from around the world.

According to Guardino, about 53 percent of engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign born and more than half of the founders or CEOs of new technology companies in the area are also born abroad.

The percentages underscore "the need for talent from around the globe to compete globally," he said.

1 comments:

Ricard said...

It is time to apply China's green cards, more opportunities there now!

December 25, 2009 6:30 PM

10 ways to stop theft of jet engines

10 ways to stop theft of jet engines
QUESTION TIME
By P. GUNASEGARAM

And they will work well for any other kind of thefts, too, from overpriced contracts to dubious conversion of land.

WE HAVE our own Tiger scandal. Of all the bizarre things that have been stolen anywhere, anytime, any place, that of two F5 Tiger fighter aircraft engines worth RM100mil from our air force must rank as among the top of the list.

That hefty pieces of equipment can be quietly squirreled out of a high security Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) base and taken all the way to Argentina complete with documentation is a major embarrassment to the country.

More importantly, it is a serious security breach which is no laughing matter, although the event has considerable satirical possibilities and gives weight to that old saying that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

It takes the spirit of “Malaysia Boleh” to new astronomical heights but for totally the wrong reasons. If only this spirit of ingenuity, innovation and cunning were used for all the right reasons, we would have achieved high-income status a long time ago.

Instead, those engaged in such nefarious and illegal activities seem to be the ones moving up the precarious high-income ladder at a rapid pace, leaving the rest of us gawking up in utter amazement at the means that they have employed to get there.

It materialises too that police reports were made over a year ago — in August last year — even though the engines were discovered to be missing in May.

Why? Only now, after all the publicity, have the police announced that the engines have been traced to Argentina. Why? But we still don’t know if we’ll get them back.

And not only engines were taken away but other aircraft parts. But the avionics equipment — reputedly the most expensive components of a fighter aircraft — is intact. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

Further, it has been announced that a general and 40 others were dismissed from service. Why were they merely dismissed? Is that sufficient punishment for what they may have done? And is there not treason involved when members of the armed forces smuggle out and sell their own equipment?

How is it possible that such a thing can take place even?

Meantime, it was reported that police have released on bail four people, including three low-ranking RMAF personnel, being investigated for the case.

Considering that this involved defence equipment whose new prices are RM100mil, why the hurry to give them bail?

In the wake of all these unanswered questions, we thought it would be useful to enumerate 10 ways to stop the theft of aircraft engines. The methods are good for any other kind of theft too — overpriced contracts, poor contracts, paying for contracts, unauthorised and dubious conversion of land, payment for land conversion — and 1,001 other things you can think of.

In fact, we dare say theft and corruption has come to such a height that it has to be stopped dead in its tracks now — not tomorrow or day after.

Here are our simple, pretty obvious remedies. If only we can find some good men to do it — and it looks like we can’t be sure of getting them even from our uniformed services.

1. Implement a culture of honesty and integrity. The only way this can be done is by example and enforcement. The top must be clean and it must force it down all the way to the rank and file. Honesty must become the norm rather than the exception.

2. Full accountability. Accountability must extend to at least the head of department when widespread and extensive collusion takes place in a department to defraud. Heads must roll and new ones take their place, otherwise you can be sure that action won’t be taken against the culprits.

3. Prompt, fair, efficient, quick investigation and action. There was nothing prompt in this sorry episode except for the speed with which the engines were stolen. The theft was discovered in May last year. By now, the case should have been closed and those responsible should have been severely punished.

4. Stiff punishment. Hopefully from point 3 above, we would have enough evidence to mete out stiff punishment to those responsible befitting the enormity of the crime that they had committed. But let’s not pre-judge. Let’s wait and see who the police charge and how much punishment they get.

5. Openness. We have this tendency to hide our problems. We should tell all sections of government to disclose problems immediately with the threat of disciplinary action if they don’t. Making people wash their dirty linen in public is the surest deterrent to soiling them in the first place.

6. Increasing competency. We need to upgrade competency through all levels of government and put people who are able in charge of all valuable equipment and their upkeep and safe-keeping. Recently, soon after the disclosure of the stolen engines, it came to light that two excavators belonging to a local council are yet to be recovered.

7. Getting good inventory systems. The government should invest in good inventory systems to ensure there is proper tracking and control of all valuable equipment it owns. Of course, following point 7, it must be ensured that there are competent, honest people to run the systems

8. Listen to the Auditor-General. We have heard promises, after the release of the Auditor-General’s Report every year, that those responsible for all that wastage will be brought to book. But unfortunately, we can’t recollect a single case where action has been taken. We still don’t listen to the AG.

9. Introduce whistle-blowing legislation. We must introduce comprehensive whistle-blowing legislation which not only protects those who blow the whistle but encourages people to do so. In fact, it should go beyond that and make it mandatory for all those who know about crime committed to report it to the authorities. If people stood by and watched while thefts were taking place, they should be punished.

10. Check the assets of key people. Police reportedly nabbed some of the offenders in this case because they were living beyond their means. Can’t we do that for a whole lot people? As an aside, we were amazed by a recent case of a former top cop and how his family were fighting over his assets of nearly RM50mil, most of it in cash. A member of the family even said that he amassed his assets because he was an astute investor – in which case he would probably rate higher than Warren Buffett. Should not something like that set alarm bells ringing and police investigating?

If we can follow these 10 measures assiduously, we not only can guarantee that we won’t have another Tiger scandal of our own but we can safely say that we will reduce all other thefts considerably too.

> Like all concerned Malaysians, managing editor P. Gunasegaram is watching to see how this episode ends.

1 comments:

Ricard said...

Ini “Malaysia Boleh”! Innovative? Sighs! Must Learn the right ways lah!