I Was Afraid This Internet Thing Wouldn't Last...

From News.CNET.com:

Yesterday marked an important step toward the end of Internet plumbing as we know it.

Specifically, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated two of the last seven blocks of Net eesses that use today's Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). That will trigger the automatic distribution soon of the last five, one each to the five regional Internet registries (RIR) that oversee the distribution of the numbers farther downstream, to the Internet service providers and other companies that actually need the IPv4 addresses.

It looks like the remaining five blocks will be allocated this week, if press invitations involving just about all the central overseers of the Internet are anything to judge by.

IP addresses are required for one computer to send data to another over the Internet. IPv4 allows for 4.3 billion addresses--2 to the 32nd power--but its successor, IPv6, allows 340 undecillion--2 to the 128th power, a vastly higher number. To be precise, 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses.

That new capacity excites network engineers, mobile phone carriers, and others running into IPv4 limits--but unfortunately the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is a difficult one, because the two communication protocols are incompatible.

Experts expect a years-long transition to move fully to IPv6. During that time, Web site operators, Internet service providers, and others will have to gradually shift infrastructure from handling one protocol to handling both.

Or, as Salon.com headlined it:

Internet runs out of IP addresses as devices grow

Internet addresses run low as Asia and smart phones hit the Web. Authorities plan strategy to open up space

Alas, rest easy, downloaders of furry kitten videos and porn! The Bible was wrong (again.) It was the geeks who wound up inheriting the Earth, so we should be good to go.

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The (Dead) Actors Studio

From Jesus Diaz on Gizmodo.com:

According to Mel Smith—friend of George Lucas and director of Radioland Murders—the creator of Star Wars is "buying up the film rights to dead actors." He says that Lucas plans to resurrect them in future movies using 3D technology:

George has been buying up the film rights to dead actors in the hope of using computer trickery to put them all together, so you'd have Orson Welles and Barbara Stanwyck alongside today's stars.

Diaz continues:

Of course, this is the British tabloid The Sun but, knowing the amazing digital 3D actor work in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Tron Legacy, Mel Smith's revelations don't surprise me at all. In fact, the possibility of doing this has been rumored in Hollywood for a while, but, if true, this seems the first actual news of someone buying "film rights" to dead movie stars.

He Had His Game Face On.

He probably yammered on his phone in the beer line, too.

Steve Jobs And The Ballad Of A Better Mousetrap.

iPad: Not Yet.

It looks pretty sweet, but I think I'll wait for the next generation (and Flash):

From Bloomberg:

Apple Inc.’s iPad touch-screen tablet is a winning product that threatens to replace laptops as the dominant format for personal computers, reviewers said.
The iPad, which will begin selling this weekend, is “wicked fast” and has a battery life that’s longer than Apple’s claim of 10 hours, Walt Mossberg, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote in a review yesterday. It can be used as a replacement for a laptop for most data communication and content consumption, he wrote.
“The iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device,” Mossberg wrote. The tablet “has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop.”
Mossberg, Baig and Pogue all said one of the iPad’s drawbacks is not supporting Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash software. The iPad also lacks a built-in Web camera and multitasking features that allow more than one application to run at a time, the reviewers said.
“If you’re mainly a Web surfer, note-taker, social- networker and e-mailer, and a consumer of photos, videos, books, periodicals and music -- this could be for you,” Mossberg wrote. “If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing e-mail, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.”

Apple's New iPad: Sweet.

More here.

Rock N' Roll Animal.

Lou Reed has an iPhone app for your pale blue eyes.