Little known fact: Top Web sites around the world quietly tested a new Internet address system last week that will soon replace the way every connected device in the world communicates.
Think of it as renaming every house number and street name in the cyberworld. But 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 generally “share” an address. That makes remotely accessing any one of those devices difficult.
It’s like sending a mailman to a street but no house number. That’s why accessing your home computer from afar usually requires special software like the popular GotoMyPC.
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 innovation are endless.
“The ability to auto-sense a car in the driveway and turn the lights on and off, remote control of your thermostat and the connected home,” are just some of the technologies that will become easier when every device has an address, said Jennifer M. Pigg, vice president at the Hub-based Yankee Group. “There are a lot of those applications — especially light poles for some reason — that require that type of connection.”
Another likely effect is in demand for cloud-based storage services, which is all the rage right now. For instance, the ability to connect devices together with ease to stream music from your home computer onto your smartphone, means the demand for certain cloud storage services could shrink.
However, with more and more devices being used, there will be plenty of demand for cloud-based back-up systems, analysts say.
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.
“This was everyone joining hands at the edge of the pool and all jumping in together,” he sad. “The result was things worked pretty much as planned. Most people didn’t notice the difference.”
2011年3月30日星期三
Bailiff planning solution cuts mileage by 50 per cent
Collect Services, one of Britain's leading firms of enforcement agents (generally known as bailiffs), has rolled out the latest version of Collections, the specialised planning and scheduling system developed by MapMechanics under the company's guidance, and managing director David Rayner's verdict is unequivocal: "The control that it gives us is fantastic."
He explains: "Our business is about operating efficiently, minimising costs and maximising the number of visits our agents can do in a day. Collections has become an indispensable part of this process. Basically, the system has helped to keep us in business in the recent recessionary times."
Collections helps Collect Services' management team plan its agents' journeys from day to day. It plans routes with the minimum distance between calls, grouping visits as tightly as possible consistent with achieving a high number of visits. "The original version saved us about 38 per cent of mileage," David Rayner says, "but the latest version is saving about 50 per cent."
While Collections has proved invaluable in planning optimal walking routes (even saving agents from crossing main roads too often), lately it has also proved invaluable in optimising the company's increasing number of long-distance journeys. Around 20 per cent of the company's visits now involve locations more than 50 miles away from its base west of London.
"A lot of our work is made up of parking fine enforcement in London and the South East," David Rayner explains, "but often the offenders live in other parts of the country. We take pride in doing all our own enforcement visits, rather than contracting out any of the work, so our agents often need to travel throughout the country to reach them."
Typically, the company will use Collections to construct a journey lasting two or three days. "For example, the agent might snake up the country, taking in several visits on the way, then spend a couple of days in Newcastle, doing visits in that area, before returning south."
David Rayner says that even on these long-distance operations, Collections enables an agent to complete between twenty and thirty calls in a day – as good as the national industry average for local operations. On purely local journeys, he says Collect Services continues to achieve 50 or more calls in a day – far above industry norms.
He explains: "Our business is about operating efficiently, minimising costs and maximising the number of visits our agents can do in a day. Collections has become an indispensable part of this process. Basically, the system has helped to keep us in business in the recent recessionary times."
Collections helps Collect Services' management team plan its agents' journeys from day to day. It plans routes with the minimum distance between calls, grouping visits as tightly as possible consistent with achieving a high number of visits. "The original version saved us about 38 per cent of mileage," David Rayner says, "but the latest version is saving about 50 per cent."
While Collections has proved invaluable in planning optimal walking routes (even saving agents from crossing main roads too often), lately it has also proved invaluable in optimising the company's increasing number of long-distance journeys. Around 20 per cent of the company's visits now involve locations more than 50 miles away from its base west of London.
"A lot of our work is made up of parking fine enforcement in London and the South East," David Rayner explains, "but often the offenders live in other parts of the country. We take pride in doing all our own enforcement visits, rather than contracting out any of the work, so our agents often need to travel throughout the country to reach them."
Typically, the company will use Collections to construct a journey lasting two or three days. "For example, the agent might snake up the country, taking in several visits on the way, then spend a couple of days in Newcastle, doing visits in that area, before returning south."
David Rayner says that even on these long-distance operations, Collections enables an agent to complete between twenty and thirty calls in a day – as good as the national industry average for local operations. On purely local journeys, he says Collect Services continues to achieve 50 or more calls in a day – far above industry norms.
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