Comcast shifts some customers to IPv6, promises it won't hurt

No sooner have you memorized the IP address of your media server and then your ISP has to go and mess it all up -- in this case, by adding a whole lot of extra digits. It's for a good cause, though: Comcast is launching its IPv6 pilot as part of a long and grueling global transition away from IPv4, whose 4.3 billion addresses are now severely depleted. The pilot will start with customers who have a simple connection straight from their PC to a cable modem and who are running an up-to-date OS. It will also allow old IP addresses to exist alongside the new ones, hopefully avoiding the slowdowns that can result from trying to translate between to the two formats on the fly. The good news? Once it's over, nobody should have to go through this upheaval again until there are 2^128 web-connected devices on the planet, and by then it'll be the last of our worries.

[Thanks, Anthony]