Charlie Bit My Finger

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The internet as we know it is reaching its limits.

Within 18 months it is estimated that the number of new devices able to connect to the world wide web will plummet as we run out of “IP addresses” — the unique codes that provide access to the internet for everything from PCs to smart phones.

“The internet as we know it will no longer be able to grow,” Daniel Karrenberg, chief scientist at RIPE NCC, the organization that issues IP addresses in Europe, told CNN.

“That doesn’t mean it will cease to function, but entry could be limited to new devices.”

Some estimate that by September 2011 the last large batches of addresses will be issued, meaning that months after that date there will be no new addresses available.

But while this sounds like a complete disaster — another Millennium Bug — it need not be, and there is a solution, if we all act quickly enough.

Currently the internet is built around the Internet Protocol Addressing Scheme version 4 (IPv4), which has around four billion addresses — and they’re fast running out.

Four billion no doubt seemed a huge amount when the system was designed in the 1970s, but few then could have predicted how the internet would take off, and how many billions more connections would be needed.

However, there is a replacement, IPv6, which has trillions more addresses available and ready to go. The problem is that businesses are proving slow to adapt their technology to IPv6, leaving experts fearful that we might be heading for a crunch within 18 months.

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According to Gartner, Nokia’s flagship N900 handset has failed to get much in the way of mainstream traction, with less than 100,000 sold during it’s first five months of availability.

While the N900, with it’s chunky look-and-feel, slide-out keyboard and touch-screen might have won the hearts of small number of hardcore hardware geeks, the handset has failed to ignite much interest amongst mainstream users.

Compare the fewer then 100,000 N900’s sold over five months with the 8.75 or so million iPhones sold between January and March alone.

Alberto Torres, head of Nokia’s solutions business, remains upbeat, claiming that “Sales have substantially exceeded expectation.”

The N900 is no slouch either. It’s powered by a 600MHz Cortex-A8 processor, offers 1GB of application memory and 32GB of storage, which you can augment with a microSD card. It also features a camera, GPS and other features you’d expect of a smartphone. It’s based on the Maemo 5 Linux platform, which offers plenty of tweak-appeal but it’s not Android, and it’s not iPhone, and that’s an automatic black mark against the device. Shame, because the N900 is a pretty good handset.

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It wasn’t an hour after a pressed “publish” on my story about a reader’s speculation that the Apple TV would get a refresh at Apple’s WWDC on June 7 that I saw this post on Engadget about just that.

According to its sources, Apple TV will indeed get a major refresh at WWDC, actually it’s more like a completely new product. The story goes like this: the new Apple TV will be based on iPhone OS and will include an A4 chip, 16GB of flash memory, cloud storage and 1080p high-definition output. Word is that the new device will only have two ports, power and video out.

Storage will be on the cloud, but it remains to see how Apple will charge for it. I sincerely hope that Apple doesn’t plan on charging $100 per year for storage (like it does with MobileMe) or it’s simply taunting the jailbreak community to build a better mousetrap — and they will.

Sources describe the ATV sequel as “an iPhone without a screen,” but the real kicker is the price – rumored to be $99. I’m calling it the “Apple HDTV,” but feel free to chime in in the TalkBack with your prediction. For $99, I’d buy one.

I don’t know about you but my current Apple TV almost never gets turned on, except for when there’s a software update to write about. The damned thing runs so hot that it will literally singe your fingertips and there’s no power switch or sleep mode (that I’m aware of) so it’s an electricity vampire. Apple TV meet Craigslist.

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You’ve been able to buy an ink jet printer for close to a song these days, especially when they go on sale. But when the inexpensively priced printer stops printing things with the same sort of graphical fidelity as it did out of the box, things can get expensive from there.

That’s the thing with ink jet printers – the hardware itself is cheap, but the ink refills will get you in the end. But have you ever asked yourself why the ink is so expensive? Sure, it may be the razor and blade model, but it’s still an awful lot to pay for just 10 to 20 milliliters of liquid. In comparison, a Heinz ketchup dipping pack contains 27 ml of ketchup, while the older single packets held 9 ml.

The difference between ketchup in printer ink, however, is vast. HP claims that it spends $1 billion a year on ink research and development – that’s some high-tech ink.

“These liquids are completely different from a technology standpoint,” said Thom Brown, marketing manager at HP, in a Computerworld story.

HP’s first ink jet printer in 1985 had 12 nozzles in the print head and fired droplets at a rate of 10,000 per second, which doesn’t even compare to today’s Photosmart ink jet that uses 3,900 nozzles that fire 122 million drops per second.

Still, that won’t help consumers feel better about paying lots for a little ink cartridge. Computerworld suggests that it may help consumers decipher ink jet cartridge replacement value to list the liquid volume inside each cartridge.

Brown, however, said that doing so would just confuse the customer. “Each system has a different way it uses ink or the drop size is different. If you looked strictly at volume you wouldn’t see those differences and it would be confusing to the customers.”

To HP’s credit, it does list the maximum page yield, but that’s only for black and white text and it’s from a non-standardized measurement.

For now, it seems that consumers will either have to look at more economical, aftermarket, but perhaps less satisfactory ink replacements. There’s always laser too.

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