10. Future of the Internet

The Internet is now about 40 years old and it has served us very well over those years. But there are efforts going on to tackle some problems and make it even more useful.

1. Running out of web addresses

Every web page has to have a unique address. And 20 years ago a scheme was developed that could provide that service (it is called IPv4). But it was never dreamt that the web would be so successful. Now we are running out of addresses. We are down to the last 3% of available addresses.

But a new scheme is underway called IPv6 that will take over from IPv4. This has enough space to give a unique address to every grain of sand on Earth! But no doubt there will be problems switching from the old system to the new system

2. The Web is too big

Did you know that search engines only index a small fraction of the internet? There is a vast area called the 'Deep Web' that search engines have not found as yet. And it is getting bigger. The Deep Web consists of many things: database driven web sites, social network pages and so on.

Each search engine company is putting a lot of research into making their engine even more intelligent and to cover ever more of the deep web.