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Egypt Gets First Arabic URL, Is Twitter the 'Person of the Year?'

by Warren Riddle on November 16, 2009 at 11:20 AM

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines....
  • Time's '[Blank] of the Year' issue draws near, and the honoree could be everyone's favorite micro-blogging site. Wired writes that Twitter may be in the running for the yearly accolade, because the mundane musings of Ashton and Miley are significantly more newsworthy than record-high unemployment rates. [From: Wired]
  • Ya Hala! ICANN, the organization which regulates Web addresses, decided last month to end Net segregation by allowing non-Latin alphabet characters in domain names. Egypt will apparently pioneer the integration movement, as it plans to establish the first Arabic language domain with ".masr," which translates to ".Egypt." Unfortunately, the site will immediately be thrust into conflict when it has to fight Israel's new domain for the rights to ".Gaza." [From: The BBC]
  • Google's recently announced SPDY protocol could significantly speed up how we surf the Web. According to a Google spokesperson, the site may also start basing search results on the time it takes for a page to load, meaning that the fastest loading sites will appear first. [From: Download Squad]
  • In Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Cray Jaguar raced past the IBM Roadrunner to claim the title of world's fastest supercomputer. We'd tell you exactly how fast, but if you're unfamiliar with Linpack, petaflops, or six-core Opteron processors, just know that it's really fast. [From: Engadget]
  • Apparently, Obama's lauded tech knowledge doesn't carry over to Twitter. Even though the Barack Obama account has issued 418 tweets and amassed over 2 million followers, the President has yet to actually tweet. The President made the not-so-startling admission while advocating an open Web in China, where access to many sites, including Twitter, is restricted. [From: Tech Crunch]
  • During a recent CNBC special with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, Gates fielded a question about Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Gates effusively praised the work Jobs has done, saying he has been "an incredible force in doing good things" -- heavy praise considering Gates' significant philanthropic accomplishments. [From: The Huffington Post]

Tags: morningxtra, top

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