Plus, um, what? URLs can be written in non-Latin alphabets? This is HUGE!
Also, they warn applicants:
“The usability of IDNs [International Domain Names] may be limited, as not all application software is capable of working with IDNs… It is up to each application developer to decide whether or not they wish to support IDNs.”
*waves arms* Here, me! I will be an application developer and decide to support this! Plus, with the countries that were just approved (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and UAE), it would be a good excuse to finally learn rudimentary Arabic.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia says “internationalised domain names should be converted to a suitable ASCII-based form.” Not so cool. But still, how have I not heard about this before?