From the article: "Several companies switched to Internet Protocol version 6
(IPv6) at 00:01 GMT on Wednesday. The new system is necessary to prevent the
internet running out of available addresses for new devices. Experts said users
should not notice any difference in their web use, and new devices should be
using the new system as standard. Companies such as Google, Facebook and major
internet service providers have enabled the new system in order to encourage
the widespread adoption of the standard. The actions come as part of World
IPv6 Launch Day, a special event organised by the
Internet Society. IPv6 will eventually replace IPv4, which was conceived during
the early days of the internet. It only allows just over four billion unique IP
addresses - the sequences of numbers used to identify a device." Read more
See also
"World IPv6 Launch", Internet Society website, June 6, 2012.