Vint Cerf: Interplanetary & Pervasive Device Connectivity

The Internet pioneer is working on interplanetary communication.Vinton G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn created the software code that gave rise to the Internet. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) gave computers standard addresses by which they can exchange packets of data - putting the "e" into email, ebiz, and everything that followed. Cerf’s latest project is expanding the world's stock of Web addresses to accommodate the proliferation of connected devices. Today that means TiVos , cell phones, iPods, and games, but Cerf says the list of connectibles will someday include nano devices such as tiny microprocessors assembled from individual molecules. Cerf is also preparing the InterPlaNet protocol, which may first be used on a Mars orbiter in 2009. Today, NASA spacecraft carry their own telecom equipment to communicate with earth. But the devices on each new mission can't interact with those on other spacecraft. Just as the Internet laces terrestrial computers into one big network, InterPlaNet would provide a common language to link all communications among space probes and planetary stations.The IPV6 can make available trillions upon trillions of addresses may sound out of this world. As the electronic devices may shrink down to the dimensions of biological cells, which humans and other creatures manufacture in the trillions. Whether cell-sized contraptions with nanoscale parts are eventually crafted from silicon, carbon, or some other material, they're bound to require Net connectivity, just as the neurons of the brain depend upon the synapses that connect them.