Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Japan disaster sparks social media innovation

TOKYO: As Japan grapples with an unprecedented triple disaster - earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis - the Web has spawned creativity and innovation online amid a collective desire to ease suffering.

Once the magnitude of the March 11 disaster became clear, the online world began asking, "How can we help?"

And for that, social media offered the ideal platform for good ideas to spread quickly, supplementing efforts launched by giants like Google and Facebook.

A British teacher living in Abiko city, just east of Tokyo, is leading a volunteer team of bloggers, writers and editors producing Quakebook, a collection of reflections, essays and images of the earthquake that will be sold in the coming days as a digital publication.

Proceeds from the project will go to the Japanese Red Cross, said the 40-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym "Our Man in Abiko."

The entirely Twitter-sourced project started with a single tweet exactly a week after the earthquake. Within an hour, he had received two submissions, which soon grew to the 87 that now comprise the book.

Quakebook involves some 200 people in Japan and abroad, and the group is in negotiations to sell the download on Amazon.com.

It didn't take long for others to notice. Twitter itself has sent out a tweet about Quakebook, as has Yoko Ono. Best-selling novelist Barry Eisler wrote the foreword for the book.

"I just thought I want to do something," he said in a telephone interview. "I felt completely helpless."

Another project, "World's 1,000 Messages for Japan," is an effort to convey thoughts from around the globe. Writers can leave short notes on Facebook or through e-mail, which a group of volunteers then translate into Japanese. The translations are then posted on Twitter as well as the group's website.

"The news of the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan has mostly been horrifying. But it has also served as a reminder of the strength and resolve that comes out of Japanese culture," said one recent message on the project's Facebook page.

The calamitous events that transfixed people worldwide led to a jump in traffic among social networking sites - typical after recent major disasters elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster that likely killed more than 18,000 people, phone and cellular networks were either down or overwhelmed with traffic.

So people turned to the Internet to track down friends and family, and connect with those who saw the disaster unfold firsthand. In Tokyo, which suffered minimal damage, commuters wanted to know if their trains were running, and whether their neighborhoods would be subject to rolling electricity blackouts due to damage to nuclear and conventional power plants.

Figures released this week show that millions flocked to sites like Twitter following the earthquake and tsunami. Its audience grew by a third to 7.5 million users during March 7-13 compared with the previous week, according to the Nielsen NetRatings Japan.

Video streaming provider Ustream and Japanese video-sharing platform Nico Nico Douga also saw viewership climb. Ustream's audience more than doubled to 1.4 million, driven largely by public broadcaster NHK's channel featuring live coverage online, the report said.

Concerns

The numbers underscore the increasingly valuable role that social media, particularly Twitter, can play in the wake of natural disasters. The microblogging site helped drive fundraising after the earthquake in Haiti last year, and it served as a critical communication tool after the New Zealand earthquake in February.

Twitter was already a big hit in Japan, where more than three-quarters of the population is connected to the Internet. The earthquake convinced even more users of its value as a communication lifeline.

"Many people signed up for Twitter after the earthquake, and that's because they wanted to exchange information," said Nobuyuki Hayashi, a prominent Japanese tech journalist and consultant.

"Twitter played a great role in the first few days" after the quake, he said. He added, however, that the surge of activity also brought to light some of Twitter's shortcomings during disasters.

As helpful as Twitter was after the quake, it also helped propagate a number of unfounded rumours and fears. A post-quake fire at an oil refinery east of Tokyo led to a torrent of tweets that incorrectly claimed the blaze would result in toxic rain.

Some people moved to Facebook "because they can access more trusted information and engage in more topic-based conversation," Hayashi said.

That's something that concerns web designer Qanta Shimizu as well. But he sees a greater good in embracing social media in times of crisis.

In 1995, when a massive earthquake devastated the western city of Kobe, the Internet was in its infancy and the mass media controlled the flow of information. National consciousness of the disaster shifted too quickly, Shimizu said, as the media moved on to new topics.

"Society has changed now, and through the Internet, I wanted to find a way to offer support indefinitely," he said.

Shimizu created a Twitter application to remind Internet users to do their part, however small. Setsudener - a play on the Japanese term for "save energy" - automatically darkens a user's profile picture from 5pm to 8pm, symbolising the need to cut back on power consumption during peak demand.

Japanese web developer Yusuke Wada created Anpi Report to gather and organise information posted on Twitter about missing individuals. Through Facebook and Twitter, he has found more than 200 volunteers to manually sift through tweets to enter into a database.

Anpi Report hopes to expand in the near future by linking its information with Google's "person finder" database for people who are either seeking information about a missing person or have information to provide about someone affected by the disaster.

For others, especially local governments and agencies, simply venturing onto social media has been a big step.

Mitaka city in western Tokyo decided to start a Twitter account after the earthquake. Announcements of the possible rolling blackouts led to a huge spike in traffic on the city's website that it could not handle, said spokesman Shinichi Akiyama.

One of the city's recent posts informed residents that The Tokyo Electric Power Co had called off blackouts for Wednesday - an essential piece of information for businesses and households. The information is posted on the city's website, but putting it out on Twitter enables the city to keep residents informed in real-time, Akiyama said.

"We're using social media a bit differently than what it was probably intended for, like having a conversation," he said. "But it has helped us realise that it's possible to use social media as a tool."

Mitaka's neighbours took note almost immediately. Nearby cities like Musashino and Koganei have also signed up for Twitter, as have numerous municipalities in the hardest-hit areas of northeast Japan. - AP

Facebook to require games to accept its 'credits'

NEW YORK: Facebook will require all games on its site to accept payments through its own virtual currency system beginning July 1.

Although game developers won't have to use Facebook Credits as their only in-game currency, those who do will get special incentives, such as early access to new product features and more desirable targeting for ads, the company said.

Facebook gets a 30% cut when developers use Credits to sell virtual goods and other items. Although Facebook relies mostly on advertisements to make money, the payments system lets Facebook broaden its revenue sources.

Deborah Liu, a platform marketing manager at Facebook, said in a blog post that more than 350 applications from 150 game developers already use Credits. That accounts for more than 70% of all virtual goods transactions on the site.


Facebook users can use virtual currency to buy items such as special crops in FarmVille and virtual deep fryers in Cafe World, both from Zynga. Credits can be purchased through Facebook using PayPal, credit cards or a mobile phone account.

Facebook, which is based in Palo Alto, California, said it plans to work with developers who don't use Credits yet to get feedback and make improvements to the system. - AP

Facebook to require games to accept its 'credits'

NEW YORK: Facebook will require all games on its site to accept payments through its own virtual currency system beginning July 1.

Although game developers won't have to use Facebook Credits as their only in-game currency, those who do will get special incentives, such as early access to new product features and more desirable targeting for ads, the company said.

Facebook gets a 30% cut when developers use Credits to sell virtual goods and other items. Although Facebook relies mostly on advertisements to make money, the payments system lets Facebook broaden its revenue sources.

Deborah Liu, a platform marketing manager at Facebook, said in a blog post that more than 350 applications from 150 game developers already use Credits. That accounts for more than 70% of all virtual goods transactions on the site.


Facebook users can use virtual currency to buy items such as special crops in FarmVille and virtual deep fryers in Cafe World, both from Zynga. Credits can be purchased through Facebook using PayPal, credit cards or a mobile phone account.

Facebook, which is based in Palo Alto, California, said it plans to work with developers who don't use Credits yet to get feedback and make improvements to the system. - AP

Facebook to require games to accept its 'credits'

NEW YORK: Facebook will require all games on its site to accept payments through its own virtual currency system beginning July 1.

Although game developers won't have to use Facebook Credits as their only in-game currency, those who do will get special incentives, such as early access to new product features and more desirable targeting for ads, the company said.

Facebook gets a 30% cut when developers use Credits to sell virtual goods and other items. Although Facebook relies mostly on advertisements to make money, the payments system lets Facebook broaden its revenue sources.

Deborah Liu, a platform marketing manager at Facebook, said in a blog post that more than 350 applications from 150 game developers already use Credits. That accounts for more than 70% of all virtual goods transactions on the site.


Facebook users can use virtual currency to buy items such as special crops in FarmVille and virtual deep fryers in Cafe World, both from Zynga. Credits can be purchased through Facebook using PayPal, credit cards or a mobile phone account.

Facebook, which is based in Palo Alto, California, said it plans to work with developers who don't use Credits yet to get feedback and make improvements to the system. - AP

World IPv6 Day: The Internet is running out of IP addresses

TIME TO CHANGE: A touted solution to the running out of "IP" numbers is to switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

With everything from smartphones to Internet-linked appliances and cars getting online, the group entrusted with organising the Web is running out of the "IP" numbers that identify destinations for digital traffic.

The touted solution to the problem is a switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

"The big pool in the sky that gives addresses is going to run out in the next several weeks," said Google engineer Lorenzo Colitti, who is leading the Internet giant's transition to the new standard.

"In some sense, we are driving toward a wall. We have to do something, and IPv6 is the only real long-term solution."

The pool in the sky is a fast-draining reservoir of IP addresses maintained by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN has been calling for a change to IPv6 for years but websites and Internet service providers have been clinging to the old standard since the birth of the Internet.

"One of the reasons it has taken so long to change is that there is no obvious advantage or killer application for IPv6," Colitti said.

The number of addresses that IPv6 allows for amounts to 340 "undecillion" (followed by 36 zeroes); enough for a trillion people to each be assigned trillions of IP numbers, according to ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom.

"I guess if we could somehow link an IP address to every atom, we might begin to run into problems," Beckstrom said of IPv6 during an interview in his office in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto.

"As far as thinking about the number of objects that humans own and use, we are pretty safe."

With about seven billion people on the planet, the IPv4 protocol doesn't allow for everyone to have a gadget with its own online address.

The situation has been equated to not having enough telephone numbers for everyone.

Once the supply of IPv4 addresses ICANN distributes to the five regional centers around the world are gone, computers and other gadgets might have to start sharing instead of having unique identifying numbers.

"You will start to share with your neighbors, and that causes problems because applications can't distinguish you apart," Colitti said. "If your neighbour ends up in a blacklist, you will too."

"The Internet won't stop working; it will just slowly degrade," he continued, explaining that systems would eventually have trouble handling multiple connections on shared addresses. "Things will get slower and flakier."

Don't worry

New websites or online services stuck with shared IP addresses wouldn't perform as well as pre-existing offerings that have numbers all to themselves.

The effort and expense of changing to IPv6 would fall mostly on Internet service providers, websites and network operators that have to make sure systems can handle the new online addresses and properly route traffic.

Consumers, for the most part, shouldn't notice the switch since complex IP numbers would still appear to them as words and domains, such as ICANN.org.

Some people might need to update routers or modems that connect computers to the Internet.

"It is important that users don't worry," Colitti said, dismissing talk of an 'IP-ocalypse.'

"But, it is important that we as an industry work together," he noted. "It is critical we preserve this extremely precious Internet and allow it to grow."

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8 to let all parties involved check for trouble spots.

"We need to kick the tires on it at a global scale and see if there are some unforeseen problems," Colitti said. "There is really a rallying cry element to it. No single player can do it alone; we need to work together."

World IPv6 Day will start at 0001 GMT on June 8.

In a worst case scenario, running out of IPv4 addresses with no switch to IPv6 would mean new gadgets wouldn't be able to connect to the Internet because addresses weren't available, according to ICANN.

"Ideally, people will see nothing," Beckstrom said of a transition to IPv6.

But, "if enough networks don't move to IPv6," he continued, "people could literally see nothing because they can't connect the next iPad, iPhone, or whatever."

IPv6 allows for seemingly limitless innovation in the Internet as well as addresses enough for sensors in anything from chairs and thermostats to individual bottles of wine in a cellar to signal when vintages peak.

A full shift to IPv6 will take years, with the remaining stock of old IP addresses being allocated to support the transition, according to Beckstrom.

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8.

World IPv6 Day: The Internet is running out of IP addresses

TIME TO CHANGE: A touted solution to the running out of "IP" numbers is to switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

With everything from smartphones to Internet-linked appliances and cars getting online, the group entrusted with organising the Web is running out of the "IP" numbers that identify destinations for digital traffic.

The touted solution to the problem is a switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

"The big pool in the sky that gives addresses is going to run out in the next several weeks," said Google engineer Lorenzo Colitti, who is leading the Internet giant's transition to the new standard.

"In some sense, we are driving toward a wall. We have to do something, and IPv6 is the only real long-term solution."

The pool in the sky is a fast-draining reservoir of IP addresses maintained by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN has been calling for a change to IPv6 for years but websites and Internet service providers have been clinging to the old standard since the birth of the Internet.

"One of the reasons it has taken so long to change is that there is no obvious advantage or killer application for IPv6," Colitti said.

The number of addresses that IPv6 allows for amounts to 340 "undecillion" (followed by 36 zeroes); enough for a trillion people to each be assigned trillions of IP numbers, according to ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom.

"I guess if we could somehow link an IP address to every atom, we might begin to run into problems," Beckstrom said of IPv6 during an interview in his office in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto.

"As far as thinking about the number of objects that humans own and use, we are pretty safe."

With about seven billion people on the planet, the IPv4 protocol doesn't allow for everyone to have a gadget with its own online address.

The situation has been equated to not having enough telephone numbers for everyone.

Once the supply of IPv4 addresses ICANN distributes to the five regional centers around the world are gone, computers and other gadgets might have to start sharing instead of having unique identifying numbers.

"You will start to share with your neighbors, and that causes problems because applications can't distinguish you apart," Colitti said. "If your neighbour ends up in a blacklist, you will too."

"The Internet won't stop working; it will just slowly degrade," he continued, explaining that systems would eventually have trouble handling multiple connections on shared addresses. "Things will get slower and flakier."

Don't worry

New websites or online services stuck with shared IP addresses wouldn't perform as well as pre-existing offerings that have numbers all to themselves.

The effort and expense of changing to IPv6 would fall mostly on Internet service providers, websites and network operators that have to make sure systems can handle the new online addresses and properly route traffic.

Consumers, for the most part, shouldn't notice the switch since complex IP numbers would still appear to them as words and domains, such as ICANN.org.

Some people might need to update routers or modems that connect computers to the Internet.

"It is important that users don't worry," Colitti said, dismissing talk of an 'IP-ocalypse.'

"But, it is important that we as an industry work together," he noted. "It is critical we preserve this extremely precious Internet and allow it to grow."

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8 to let all parties involved check for trouble spots.

"We need to kick the tires on it at a global scale and see if there are some unforeseen problems," Colitti said. "There is really a rallying cry element to it. No single player can do it alone; we need to work together."

World IPv6 Day will start at 0001 GMT on June 8.

In a worst case scenario, running out of IPv4 addresses with no switch to IPv6 would mean new gadgets wouldn't be able to connect to the Internet because addresses weren't available, according to ICANN.

"Ideally, people will see nothing," Beckstrom said of a transition to IPv6.

But, "if enough networks don't move to IPv6," he continued, "people could literally see nothing because they can't connect the next iPad, iPhone, or whatever."

IPv6 allows for seemingly limitless innovation in the Internet as well as addresses enough for sensors in anything from chairs and thermostats to individual bottles of wine in a cellar to signal when vintages peak.

A full shift to IPv6 will take years, with the remaining stock of old IP addresses being allocated to support the transition, according to Beckstrom.

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8.

World IPv6 Day: The Internet is running out of IP addresses

TIME TO CHANGE: A touted solution to the running out of "IP" numbers is to switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

With everything from smartphones to Internet-linked appliances and cars getting online, the group entrusted with organising the Web is running out of the "IP" numbers that identify destinations for digital traffic.

The touted solution to the problem is a switch to a standard called IPv6 that allows trillions of Internet addresses, while the current IPv4 standard provides a meagre four billion or so.

"The big pool in the sky that gives addresses is going to run out in the next several weeks," said Google engineer Lorenzo Colitti, who is leading the Internet giant's transition to the new standard.

"In some sense, we are driving toward a wall. We have to do something, and IPv6 is the only real long-term solution."

The pool in the sky is a fast-draining reservoir of IP addresses maintained by the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

ICANN has been calling for a change to IPv6 for years but websites and Internet service providers have been clinging to the old standard since the birth of the Internet.

"One of the reasons it has taken so long to change is that there is no obvious advantage or killer application for IPv6," Colitti said.

The number of addresses that IPv6 allows for amounts to 340 "undecillion" (followed by 36 zeroes); enough for a trillion people to each be assigned trillions of IP numbers, according to ICANN chief Rod Beckstrom.

"I guess if we could somehow link an IP address to every atom, we might begin to run into problems," Beckstrom said of IPv6 during an interview in his office in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto.

"As far as thinking about the number of objects that humans own and use, we are pretty safe."

With about seven billion people on the planet, the IPv4 protocol doesn't allow for everyone to have a gadget with its own online address.

The situation has been equated to not having enough telephone numbers for everyone.

Once the supply of IPv4 addresses ICANN distributes to the five regional centers around the world are gone, computers and other gadgets might have to start sharing instead of having unique identifying numbers.

"You will start to share with your neighbors, and that causes problems because applications can't distinguish you apart," Colitti said. "If your neighbour ends up in a blacklist, you will too."

"The Internet won't stop working; it will just slowly degrade," he continued, explaining that systems would eventually have trouble handling multiple connections on shared addresses. "Things will get slower and flakier."

Don't worry

New websites or online services stuck with shared IP addresses wouldn't perform as well as pre-existing offerings that have numbers all to themselves.

The effort and expense of changing to IPv6 would fall mostly on Internet service providers, websites and network operators that have to make sure systems can handle the new online addresses and properly route traffic.

Consumers, for the most part, shouldn't notice the switch since complex IP numbers would still appear to them as words and domains, such as ICANN.org.

Some people might need to update routers or modems that connect computers to the Internet.

"It is important that users don't worry," Colitti said, dismissing talk of an 'IP-ocalypse.'

"But, it is important that we as an industry work together," he noted. "It is critical we preserve this extremely precious Internet and allow it to grow."

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8 to let all parties involved check for trouble spots.

"We need to kick the tires on it at a global scale and see if there are some unforeseen problems," Colitti said. "There is really a rallying cry element to it. No single player can do it alone; we need to work together."

World IPv6 Day will start at 0001 GMT on June 8.

In a worst case scenario, running out of IPv4 addresses with no switch to IPv6 would mean new gadgets wouldn't be able to connect to the Internet because addresses weren't available, according to ICANN.

"Ideally, people will see nothing," Beckstrom said of a transition to IPv6.

But, "if enough networks don't move to IPv6," he continued, "people could literally see nothing because they can't connect the next iPad, iPhone, or whatever."

IPv6 allows for seemingly limitless innovation in the Internet as well as addresses enough for sensors in anything from chairs and thermostats to individual bottles of wine in a cellar to signal when vintages peak.

A full shift to IPv6 will take years, with the remaining stock of old IP addresses being allocated to support the transition, according to Beckstrom.

Google, Facebook and other major Internet players will add IPv6 addresses to their systems in a one-day trial run on June 8.

Yahoo! to lay off 600 to 700 workers

NO HOLIDAY CHEER: Yahoo! is preparing to lay off between 600 and 700 workers in the latest shake-up triggered by the Internet company's lackluster growth. - AP

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! Inc's holiday trimmings will include 600 to 700 layoffs in the Internet company's latest shake-up triggered by lackluster growth.

Employees could be notified of the job cuts as early as today, according to a person familiar with Yahoo!'s plans. The person asked for anonymity because Yahoo! hadn't made a formal announcement.

The planned cutbacks represent about 5% of Yahoo!'s workforce of 14,100 employees. It will mark Yahoo!'s fourth mass layoff in the past three years.

The latest two housecleanings have come under the company's current CEO, Carol Bartz, a Silicon Valley veteran hired nearly two years, despite a lack of experience on the Web or in advertising - Yahoo!'s main source of revenue.

This week's round of reductions is expected to be concentrated in Yahoo!'s US products group, which already has been undergoing an overhaul since Bartz hired former Microsoft Corp executive Blake Irving to run the division last spring.

The job cuts won't come as a shock. News of the looming layoffs was first reported last month by two popular technology blogs, TechCrunch and All Things Digital.

Yahoo!'s feeble financial growth, stagnant stock price and recent management defections have raised questions about whether Bartz herself might be shown the door before her contract expires in January 2013.

The company's revenue had edged up by less than 2% to US$4.8bil (RM15.4bil) through the first nine months of the year, reflecting the difficulty Yahoo! has had selling ads while other Internet companies such as Google Inc and Facebook are thriving.

Google's revenue climbed 23% to nearly US$21bil (RM67.2bil) through the first nine months of the year. Privately held Facebook doesn't disclose its results but it is growing so fast that it had to move into larger headquarters earlier this year.

The malaise has spurred speculation that opportunistic buyout firms might put together a takeover bid for Yahoo!, possibly in partnership with another embattled Internet icon, AOL Inc.

Bartz, 62, has repeatedly insisted Yahoo!, which is based in Sunnyvale, is heading in the right direction, although she has cautioned it might be another year or two before there's a significant improvement in the company's financial results. - AP