The internet and I both have something in common. We both started in 1973. Of course, back then the internet was a 10 year experiment that was released to the public in 83.
It was thought (back in 1973) that having 4 sets of numbers to make up an internet address would last forever. Four sets of numbers separated by periods.
What am I talking about?
Instead of typing Google.com into your address bar, try typing 74.125.224.72 instead.
You'll still get to Google's search page. 74.125.224.72 is just one of their IP addresses. IP means Internet Protocol. Right now we use IPV4 or internet protocol version 4.
IPV4 provides for 4,294,967,296 unique Internet addresses for the world to use. This is the number of devices we can have connected to the internet. Back when the internet was developed there were less than 4 billion people on the planet. We just topped 7 billion.
On June 6th, the internet is getting upgraded to IPV6.
This will provide us with provide IPv6 with 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 unique addresses. Seems like a lot, but consider that eventually every wired and wireless computer, cell phone, PDA, household appliance, security camera, devices that haven't yet been invented, will each have their own unique Internet address.
Our little internet is growing up. It's not a kid anymore.
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