New Web address system can pinpoint locations of devices

Little known fact: Top Web sites around the world quietly tested a new Internet address system last week that will before long replace the way every connected device in the world communicates.

Think of it as renaming every house number and street name in the cyberworld. However instead of a mailing address, locations are marked by a sequence of numbers — IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses — and they’re running out.

Though most consumers have never noticed, the shortage in IP addresses has meant that all the computers and devices connected within a business or home network usually "share" an address. That makes remotely accessing any one of those devices difficult.

The new protocol

But when the new protocol, nicknamed IPv6, becomes the norm in the coming months and years, every tablet, smart phone, computer and lamp post will have its own house number and street. And when that happens, the possibilities for technology are endless.

Another likely effect is in demand for cloud-based storage services, which is all the rage right now. To illustrate, the ability to connect devices at the same time with ease to stream music from your home computer onto your smartphone, means the demand for certain cloud storage services could shrink.

On Wednesday, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and the biggest Internet players along with Cambridge-based Akamai, Limelight and Comcast launched the first global trial of the new Internet protocol, dubbed World IPv6 day.

Gregory Wood, spokesman for the nonprofit Internet Society, an international organization that helps develop standards for the Web, said the test day was an overwhelming success.