Dear Readers,

Internet Week 2020 was held from Tuesday, November 17 through Friday, November 27, 2020. The theme was “Operation Excitement!”. We chose this theme to highlight the spirit of finding exciting things we can do even if we have to give up some things because of the COVID-19 crisis. We were able to hold this event thanks to the efforts of the program committee members and speakers, and convey to you our intention to have a lot of fun even in the midst of adversity. We focus on Internet Week 2020 in Special Article.

All hands-on programs and conferences were held online. During the event, the number of patients infected with COVID-19 in Tokyo rapidly increased. We managed to finish the event successfully though we had to give a flexible response to such a situation. We give an account on this process from the discussion stage to the end of the event.

The online distribution of this event was a success made possible by our volunteer network team. You can read about the activities of the team, who were working behind the scenes to support all of us before and during the event, on our blog at https://blog.nic.ad.jp/2020/5575/.

The highlight of Internet Week 2020 was the session with Mr. Masanori Kusunoki and Ms. Audrey Tang, Digital Minister of Taiwan. This was a very thought-provoking talk on “the Internet and Social Transformation” from the perspectives of “the Internet and Digital Government in the ‘with Corona’ Era”, “Digital Identity and Privacy”, and “Education in the Digital Society Era”. Please check out the YouTube video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3hRYv_qAzU&feature=youtu.be).

In the “Prologue to the Internet: its Technologies and Services”, the “JP29- type-robot “Nic-kun” and Dr. Netson of the Internet research institute explain the development of chat tools. Chat tools have become an essential part of our lives, allowing us to communicate easily with light text and lovely digital stamps. Let's take a look at how chat tools have evolved over the years.

In “Pick Out!”, we introduce featured articles from the JPNIC blog. This time, we feature an article about the results of a questionnaire conducted by JPNIC on the future of the Internet and standardization. How should we be involved in international standardization activities so that we can not only use but also create excellent international services? You can take a look at the results of a questionnaire yourself. For the full text visit https://blog.nic.ad.jp/2021/5805/" !!

“Introducing JPNIC Members” focuses on a particular JPNIC member engaged in interesting activities. This time, we visited Community Network Center Inc., headquartered in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture. They are a general management company of 11 cable TV companies in the Tokai region, who contribute to the development of the region by providing information networks that achieve economies of scale. In addition to broadcasting and network services, they provide business support to subsidiary CATV companies, develop public wireless LANs, and promote e-sports as a new initiative. Though they foster a cozy atmosphere with community-based services, what impressed us was how small the company is compared to the scale of its services. It is composed of a select few individuals with uncompromising technical capabilities and service levels.

“The Internet Loves You” is a corner in which we introduce a person who is active in the Internet industry. This time, we introduce Mr. Hiroyuki Goto, a network engineer at GREE, Inc. He participates in IETF for the discussion on Web-related technologies, and is also active in the ISOC Japan Chapter (ISOC-JP) as a member of the Internet Standardization Promotion Committee. Being interested in how things work, he talks about his career and his reasons for going into the Internet industry.

In our “10 Minute Internet Course” we explore the Label Generation Rules (LGR) for using Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the Top Level Domain (TLD) which provide a step-by-step background for IDNs from their inception to the formulation of the LGR. In order to use non-ASCII characters as IDNs in TLDs, a uniform rule for handling variants is required, and a working group in ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been considering this issue. In response to the work, the root zone LGR for the Japanese language is now under consideration in Japan as well, and the goal is just around the corner.

In addition, you'll also find “Internet Topics,” “JPNIC Activity Reports,” “Statistics,” etc., for the past several months.

If you have any comments or feedback, please feel free to contact us at jpnic-news@nic.ad.jp. Your comments are greatly appreciated!!