ADDOURS.COM

We’ve all known it’s been coming for a long time now, there’s even a new, alternative IP addressing scheme that’s been developed and implemented — IPv6 — but adoption has been slow, and now, things are about to heat up, as the time remaining before the estimated 166,741,530 remaining addresses run out. It was getting low, but this makes it seem much, much more real.

A Twitter account, labelled the “ARPAgeddon” has surfaced, which is broadcasting the countdown of IPv4′s address pool drying up, estimates that as of today, only 102 days remain before all hell may break loose. The world knew it was coming, with IPv4 only being capable of 4,294,967,296 total addresses. IPv6 was developed to supercede the protocol — which was originally released in 1981 — and was finalised in 1998, over 12 years ago, but the “new” protocol still hasn’t seen the adoption it needs.

The information on the “ARPAgeddon” Twitter account is sourced from Hurricane Electric Internet Services, who offer a live counter of how quickly the pool is diminishing. When the internet runs out of addresses, everything won’t grind to a halt, but we could see ISPs reconfiguring their networks to put some clients behind shared public IPs, in order to give dedicated addresses to commercial customers.

Just because the IPv4 addressing scheme is running out, doesn’t mean all hope is lost either. There are many ways to mitigate the impending doom, the most obvious being rapid adoption of IPv6, which could be pushed quickly by businesses at risk of not being able to obtain IPv4 addresses. Other possible solutions include heavier IPv4 address sharing, Network Address Translation, private addressing and more, but time is running out quickly.

Only 102 days left until the IPcalypse…

Apple’s official internal policy on replacing devices with dead LCD pixels leaked this week, revealing that the company will replace an iPhone if it has just one dead pixel, while an iPad must have at least three to qualify.

The internal Apple document, leaked by Boy Genius Report, reveals the loose guidelines employees must follow when a customer attempts to return a device with bad pixels on its display. Just one dead pixel is good enough for a replacement on a device with a screen size of between 1 inch and 3.5 inches.

Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad display must have three or more dead pixels for the unit to qualify for a replacement. Things get a bit more complicated with larger screens — including laptops, iMacs and the company’s Cinema Display — as a distinction is made between “bright” and “dark” faulty pixels.

Apple Store Geniuses are, however, given some leeway. The internal document states that authorized service providers must explain to the customer that they can replace the product, but that replacement may have even more dead pixels or other issues. Apple will not replace the product again if the replacement product is within the written guidelines.

Members of Apple’s retail team also contacted TUAW to clarify the company’s policy even further:

“If you ask for a first replacement product due to bad pixels, you should always get it, with no arguments and no restock charges (if this isn’t your first experience, ask to discuss it with a supervisor),” the report said. “However, if the replacement unit is still within spec — which for anything other than an iPhone or iPod touch, may mean more pixels depending on how bad the first unit was — a second replacement is ruled out.”

Dead pixels are a somewhat common occurrence on LCD displays. They can stand out as either a dark or light spot on a screen on any of Apple’s products with displays.

A number of confidential internal support documents from Apple leaked this week, including one that revealed that the company is working on a software fix for issues with its new thin-and-light MacBook Air notebooks. Some users have experienced display issues, including horizontal screen flickering and fading. via appleinsider.com

Sony first unveiled Gran Turismo 5 in 2005. Since then, gamers have patiently waited as the developer continuously teased them, provided false release date expectations, and hyped up the game to the point where it sounded like the second coming of Jesus. And now, it may actually be finished.

“The discs are being stamped as we speak,” said Gran Turismo head Kazunori Yamauchi in an interview with Japanese blog LINK Jalopnik. This of course comes after the developers missed the highly publicized November 2 launch date.

And just recently, online retailers like Amazon.com and GameStop.com had pushed the release of the game back to 2011. But that was based simply on the fact that it wasn’t receiving updated information from the publisher, and they had to put something down for the release date.

Sony quickly came forward to say it was still expecting a holiday release, but no one is giving us an actual new date at this time.

If we can actually believe Yamauchi, though, then the game should actually be on its way to stores very soon.

Gran Turismo 5 is of course aiming to be the most sophisticated driving simulator ever. Nearly a decade of development has gone into the game and an unbelievable budget of $60 million has been allocated to its production. Sounds like a pretty impressive game…if it actually ever comes out. via tgdaily.com