Every available Internet protocol address has now been spoken for—which could mean huge trouble down the line.
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The problem is that the current system for IP addresses, IPv4, uses numeric addresses that are 32 bits long—giving a total of just over four billion potential numbers, which must have seemed like a lot when IPv4 was introduced in 1981. But there are now seven billion people on Earth, and more and more of them—and their devices—are going online all the time. Fortunately, engineers realized the limitations of IPv4 a long time ago and lined up a successor, called IPv6, in 1998.
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For ISPs, it’s a straightforward business dilemma: the two addressing schemes are not directly compatible, which means it would take a significant investment to let IPv4 users connect to IPv6 services. And having relied on the same system for as long as 30 years, they may not feel the need to change.
science
$1 Million is yours … if you can prove that Homeopathy works
To win $1 Million all you need to do is to prove to the James Randi Educational Foundation that Homeopathy actually works. That sounds like easy money, because obviously it works … surely it must, it can’t be a con. Think about it now, almost all pharmacies sell Homeopath remedies, in fact the UK has … Read more
Flu breakthrough
Every year I take time off to make a trek to a local clinic for a flu shot (OK, so this year was different, I did honestly intend to go, I just never got around to it). So why do I keep doing this most years (when I remember) , why can’t I just do … Read more
Exercise Improves Memory and Brain Health
That old book of fables, the bible claims, “Bodily exercise profiteth little”, science has now yielded further information that clearly demonstrates this is simply not true at all. A new study shows that one year of moderate physical exercise can increase the size of the brain’s hippocampus in older adults, leading to an improvement in … Read more
Could the Net become self-aware?
The question, “Could the Net become self-aware?” is one that I would normally dismiss quite quickly. If your source for good science is simply ripping off the plot from Terminator, then god help us if you ever moved beyond that and watched the Matrix. The question has indeed come up (well of course it has, … Read more
BBC Horizon – Science Under Attack
A copy of BBC Horizon is up on YouTube that you should check out if interested in science. This is the one in which Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse examines why science appears to be under attack, and why public trust in key scientific theories has been eroded – from the theory that man-made … Read more