Welcome to the future: IPv6 launches tomorrow
Do we have flying cars, robot servants, jetpacks and time travel machines yet? Nope, not yet... but tomorrow we will be getting a lot more IP addresses when IPv6 launches.
As Google points out in its official blog, tomorrow the wizard that runs the Internet from behind a red curtain in the Emerald City will expand the amount of IP addresses it allows by an insane amount. Currently, the Internet allows for about 4.3 billion IP addresses. Tomorrow, it will allow 2^128 addresses. Essentially, the Internet likely won't need to be upgraded in a similar capacity ever again. This is important given there are over 7 billion people in the world, 2.8 billion of which use some 11 billion Internet-enabled devices.
Last year, the organization which oversees the allocation of IP addresses, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, ran out of IP addresses to give. This created a problem, as Internet users would have to begin sharing IP addresses if a new Internet Protocol weren't put into place. Such a situation would have resulted in the potential breach of private information between Internet users. Now, however, there will be plenty of IP addresses to go around, with companies and services such as AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Microsoft Bing, Time Warner and others participating in the deployment of IPv6.
