<IT WORLD> Digital drought in Asia
By Martin J Young
HUA HIN, Thailand - The web is full in Asia, at least according to the
Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) which has announced the release
of its last batch of IPv4 Internet addresses. It comes as no surprise that the
number of IP addresses has been exhausted; after all, the Internet Corporation
For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) already made it known in February that
it had assigned the last IPv4 blocks to Regional Internet Registries. The
surprise is that those addresses where used up so fast in the Asia-Pacific
region.
APNIC has reserved almost 17 million IPv4 addresses for release under a limited
distribution plan primarily to network operators for use in the facilitation of
integrating with new generation IPv6 address blocks. Under the new rations
eligible organizations will only be entitled to 1,024 new addresses. A day
before the
announcement Chinanet Fujian Province Network managed to snag up more than a
thousand small blocks adding up to nearly half a million IPv4 addresses.
Many Internet providers across Asia have been aggressively buying up net
addresses in preparation for the dearth ahead. A number of them will have
sufficient reserves to enable them to offer more services to end users; many
also connect users and share the same address over multiple packages. Those
that have not foreseen the impending digital drought may be forced to turn down
new customers and in turn may go out of business.
A hasty rollout of IPv6 technology by Asia-Pacific providers is not the
solution either, as connectivity between the new system and those that still
have not upgraded from IPv4 will be fraught with headaches with network address
translation (NAT) technologies.
Part of this problem lies in the fact that the United States is still clinging
on to the lion's share of the 4 billion IPv4 addresses currently available. The
American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) has over 60 million regular
addresses left and administers more than 75 million unused legacy addresses.
Microsoft recently spent US$7.5 million to purchase 666,000 addresses from
Nortel.
Today's reliance on current technology and reluctance of global Internet
carriers to get their heads together and make IPv6 a reality for all could give
them a bigger hangover tomorrow.
Hardware
BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion has finally jumped onto the tablet
train with the launch of its own Playbook this week. The unit, which has some
hard-hitting competitors including two versions of Apple's iPad and a slew of
Android tablets, has not been given the complimentary introduction it wanted by
technology and review websites.
The major downside of the device is its reliance on an existing BlackBerry
smartphone to access its full functionality. The Playbook does not have its own
cellular connection, only WiFi, so to get online away from a hotspot it needs
to be tethered to a BlackBerry. The tablet "bridges" to the phone via a secure
Bluetooth connection to access encrypted corporate emails, contacts and
calendars stored on the handset; once the connection is severed the data is
lost (it remains on the BlackBerry).
RIM claims that this functionality will be built into future models of the
Playbook along with its own cellular connection. In reality, those that don't
already have a BlackBerry may be better off looking elsewhere for a tablet
device. The unit has been priced to compete with the iPad, namely $500 for the
entry level device up to $700 for the top-end one.
Telecoms
The planet's most secretive tech company has been throwing out lawsuits again
this week claiming rival companies are copying them. Apple sued Samsung for
mimicking the look and feel of its own iPhone and iPad. The company is alleging
that Samsung's Galaxy smartphone and tablet range, which are powered by rival
company Google's Android software, are too similar to Apple devices in look and
feel.
Apple is claiming patent infringement on color, shape, scrolling, zooming, and
motion-based functionality used in its own products. To appease the fickle
fruit, maybe Samsung, and all other rivals, should have designed pink
triangular tablets that activate when dropped into water and zoom when they are
hurled into the air at high speed.
Apple is also embroiled in lawsuits with rival smartphone manufacturers
Motorola and HTC over similar issues.
Internet
Yahoo has made a u-turn on its data-harvesting and privacy policies by stating
that it will be retaining search records for 18 months. The move, which is
unlikely to win the search company any new friends, will begin in mid-July
whereupon Yahoo will begin storing user search data, including IP addresses,
cookies and search-related information, for 18 months. The current storage time
is 90 days.
Microsoft, which powers Yahoo's search technology, implemented a six-month
anonymizing strategy last year to protect user privacy by masking parts of
their IP address and deleting personally identifiable data. Yahoo's
announcement has back-tracked on that policy and angered privacy activists who
feel that large Internet companies are gathering too much information on people
and as a consequence are becoming too powerful themselves.
Google, the big daddy of the search and online advertising industry, also keeps
user search data for a year and a half. About 97% of its almost $30 billion per
year in revenues from online advertising doesn't come from nowhere - it comes
from your behavior on the web!
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
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Hardware
