According to some internet expert, the new IPv6 protocol will offer 340 trillion trillion trillion addresses! Wow! ... it's said that if every man, woman and child on Earth had a billion devices each with an IPv6 address, you wouldn't even come close to scratching the surface of the number of addresses available.

"Leading internet firms have set 6 June as the World IPv6 launch day. IPv6 is the new net address system that replaces the current protocol IPv4, which is about to run out of spaces to allocate.

Web companies participating in the event have pledged to enable IPv6 on their main websites from that date. The Internet Society, which made the announcement, said the day represented "a major milestone" in the deployment of the standard.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo are the inaugural web firms involved."

Source: BBC

I can't tell you how many times I've thought of something really great that I wanted to post to my Facebook but didn't have a smartphone handy.  But have no fear, Mercedes-Benz has helped give us the gift of social media from the comfort of our dashboards.  Yes, the new series of Mercedes automobiles will be including the option to access facebook at your convenience while you go for a nice, relaxing Sunday drive.

"Facebook will be among the Internet services that can be accessed in new car models from Mercedes Benz.

Facebook access is just one of the new features in the second generation telematics system, called "Mbrace2," which will begin appearing in new Mercedes models this spring.

Introduced at CES 2012 in Las Vegas Tuesday, Mbrace2 will connect to the Internet through any 3G network and runs apps tailored for it by the car maker. In addition to a Mercedes flavor of Facebook, Mbrace2 offers access to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Yelp, as well as the viewing of information like stock prices and news.

A problem car makers face when they install software in their models is keeping that software current. With access to the Internet, however, Mercedes can push automatic updates to Mbrace2-enabled vehicles from the cloud ."

Source: Tech News World

Not sure if it's right to celebrate the death of IE6, but Microsoft seem to think it's OK, and decides to celebrate the occasion by baking a cake!

"Microsoft has celebrated the imminent demise of version 6 of its Internet Explorer browser by baking a cake. The software giant held the light-hearted celebration as it revealed that the program was used by less than 1% of US internet surfers.

It is keen to kill off the old version of the browser and persuade users to move to IE8 or 9. Meanwhile rival Google has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown on the promotion of its Chrome browser."

Source: BBC

WTF? Over 1 billion apps were downloaded just in December 2012. Just image if you were paid $1 per app ... oh boy!

"For the first time in a single week, more than a billion apps have been downloaded, according to a study. Analytics firm Flurry said 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the last week of December.

Activity was buoyed by the facts that many users received new devices for Christmas and firms offered discounted apps over the holiday period.

The US was responsible for nearly half of the downloads, followed by China and the UK. With 81 million downloads, the UK easily surpassed Canada (41 million), Germany (40 million) and France (40 million). It was beaten to second spot by China with 99 million downloads. The US was out ahead with 509 million."

Source: BBC

HP wants a USD $1.2 Billion refund ... Mmmm, I wonder if they'll get it. They should have done something with it, but sadly they didn't. Oh well, it's money well-spent (NOT!)

"Apparently you can't run your operating system into the ground and expect a full refund. How much does Hewlett-Packard Comp. (HPQ) think its leftovers are worth?  Apparently $1.2B USD, according to VentureBeat.

HP allegedly in mid-2011 asked various parties if they were willing to pay it $1.2B USD for the remains of webOS/Palm.  That's a pretty gutsy move given that HP paid $1.2B USD for Palm in 2010."

Source: Dailytech

HTC was lucky to have only one ruling against them. Originally, Apple filed a total of 10 cases for patent infringement against HTC, but the ITC awarded Apple just one of them.

"The final decision of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) in favor of Apple in a patent dispute with HTC will have limited impact on HTC as the scope of patent violation and the import ban of HTC devices to the US market are less severe than expected, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

As a result of the decision, HTC devices which are found to have violated patents held by Apple will be banned from shipping to the US effective on April 19, said the sources.

In response to the ITC ruling, HTC said it is gratified that the ITC reaffirmed its previous determination of non-violation on '721 and '983 patents and also reversed its decision on the '263 patent and partially on the '647 patent."

Source: Digitimes

Sounds great ... image sign-on. I wonder if they can create a facial recognition sign-on, now that would be cool!

"Using Windows 8 devices could involve signing on by tapping, circling or touching images. Microsoft has revealed details of a login system for the next version of Windows based around pictures a user stores on a touchscreen device.

Only when parts of an image are tapped or touched in the right order will a user be able to access a device. Experts said it might stop people using weak passwords but could lead to other loopholes that are harder to solve."

Source: BBC

"AMD has just sent word that the new AMD Catalyst 11.12 drivers are now available as well as the new Catalyst 12.1 preview driver. Use the following links to download the drivers for your OS.

 The AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview drivers include all of the features found in the 11.12 drivers as well as the latest optimizations found in the Catalyst 11.11c performance drivers. AMD recommends that all gamers use the 12.1 preview drivers."

Source: HardOCP

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