According to new data from GfK, Android has surpassed Symbian as the most popular smartphone OS in Asia.
Smartphone sales in Asia have grown 270 percent year-over-year to 4.7 million units.
In defining “Asia,” GfK uses sales from Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
“Our Q3 report shows that Android has recently overtaken Symbian as the most popular smartphone OS in the context of Asia as a whole, in both value and unit sales. However, it is interesting to note the difference in OS trends when we look at findings in North and Southeast Asia separately,” says the research firm.
Globally, Android has jumped to second place, with over 26 percent share, behind Symbian at around 38 percent.
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Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have become the first three countries to get Internet addresses in non-Latin characters, being approved in Arabic this week by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
Registrations for websites using the new domains will start soon, and Egypt has already given approval to three companies to use the new Arabic suffix.
“Introducing Arabic domain names is a milestone in Internet history,”says Egyptian Communication and Information Technology Minister Tarek Kamel said in a statement. “This great step will open up new horizons for e-services in Egypt as well as boosting the number of online users and enabling Internet service providers to enter new markets by eliminating language barriers.”
Until the recent decision, all websites had to end with “.com” or “.org” among other strings using Latin characters, which could get confusing for nations with no familiarity with the characters.
ICANN noted that the middle east has only about 20 percent on their populations online, on average, a far cry from the over 60 percent seen in most developed nations.
Additionally, a suffix for Russia in Cyrillic is expected to be the fourth new domain accepted soon. By the end of 2010, suffixes for Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, Palestine, Hong Kong, Thailand and Sri Lanka are also expected to be approved.
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The United States has added Canada to its piracy Priority Watch List, calling the nation one of the worst “offenders of copyright piracy.”
Adds the US Trade Representatives (USTR): “In this time of economic uncertainty, we need to redouble our efforts to work with all of our trading partners - even our closest allies and neighbors such as Canada - to enhance protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.”
ESA (Entertainment Software Association) of Canada CEO Michael Gallagher approved of the move adding: “Canada’s weak laws and enforcement practicies foster game piracy in the Canadian market and pave the way for unlawful imports into the US.”
The ESA believes Canada need to strengthen its lax rules on piracy, ban mod chips completely, “provide Customs officials with the authority to seize counterfeit products on the Canadian border” and create “incentives” for ISPs to stop piracy at its source.
“Canada contributes significantly to the development of today’s leading games - creating thousands of high-paying jobs along the way,” Gallagher added. “We are eager to see Canada become a full partner in protecting these products on the way to market.”
The other nations on the Priority Watch List are Argentina, Chile, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela, Algeria and Indonesia.
