ICANN, a non-profit organisation based in southern California, oversees the assignment of domain names and internet protocol addresses that help computers communicate. More than 1500 delegates from 70 countries gathered in Paris for ICANN's meeting last week, where they approved a change that would allow the creation of thousands of new domain names, from .paris to .Pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in internet history. The regulator also voted to allow domain names to be lodged in languages such as Arabic or Mandarin. The overhaul is expected to radically change the way users navigate the internet.

Domain names are real-estate of the Internet and companies have been set up to invest in them.
It has been widely claimed that all the meaningful words and names in the English language have been bought up already. Currently all web addresses fall under one of a set number of top-level domain names.

There are 240 .country or .territory domains, and about 20 generic ones, from .com, .net and .org to .gov, .edu or .aero. Under the new system, the web's 1.3 billion users would be able, from early 2009 to buy an unlimited number of generic addresses based on common words, brands, company names, cities and proper names, according to ICANN.

To avoid chaos, the ICANN also adopted a motion designed to "limit the abusive registration of new domain names. With the stock of available web addresses under the current IPv4 protocol set to run out by 2011, ICANN has been under pressure to find a solution for burgeoning demand.

The popular online trading site eBay is one of the many companies that want to have its own domain name. Broad product groups such as .bank or .car are also likely contenders. Cities could benefit too from this liberalisation, with the German capital hoping for .berlin or New York for .nyc.

Some cities or regions have been bending the rules already to get the domain they want. The city of Los Angeles has for example signed a deal with the Southeast Asian state Laos to use its .la domain.
In theory, an infinite number of new domain names could be born, which would prove a boon for ICANN because it would receive payment for each one. But in reality advanced technical skills and deep pockets would be needed to set up a new name. Industry experts expect the cost – which has yet to be fixed – could reach into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Dance to talk!

What do you do if you are going out to a party but your mobile phone's battery is about to run out? Thanks to a new gizmo, you now just need to face the music and dance.

Gotwind, a firm specialising in renewable energy, has designed a mobile phone recharger powered by dance energy alone. The prototype chargers weigh the same as a phone and are about the size of a pack of cards. Attached to the user's arm, they employ a system of weights and magnets which provide an electric current to top up charge in a storage battery. This can then later be used to recharge the phone. Personally, it's not the sort of gizmo that I will be spending my monthly salary on, but who can blame the bright-sparks who came up with the idea?

Sarcasm… do you think?

Rapper and Rock-star, Kid Rock, wants his fans to steal everything and everything they need. In a video posted on YouTube, Rock tells fans they shouldn't worry about illegally downloading his songs since he's wealthy enough. He also urges citizens to "level the playing field" by stealing anything they need from greedy corporations – including laptops, Tommy Hilfiger jeans, Toyota cars and petrol.

"If you need a new MP3 player or a computer, do you know how much money Apple and Microsoft have?" he asks. "Go in there, get a new laptop, grab it and run. New iPod? Steal it. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they're billionaires; they're not going to miss a couple iPods and a couple of laptops." Of stealing cars from Toyota, Rock says: "It's a foreign car company, so who cares?" The video has been viewed more than 100,000 times so far.