THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
A few random thoughts about this article. In the interest of full disclosure, I was trained in science at university and one of my former managers is Vinton Cerf (internet aficionados should know this name).
Science fiction seems to be eerily evocative here. I am reminded of Skynet from The Terminator and the “connectivity” of the Borg.
As an aside, there are some Russian mathematicians who think operation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may open a worm hole that could allow for time travel. See article here for further information. Others are worried that its operation may open a black hole that could grow and swallow Geneva!
Maybe we should wait until we can grow chimeras from British hybrid embryos and have them staff the operation! 🙂
Stuff and nonsense. Neither processing speed nor transmission speed (bandwidth) are limiting agents in public computer networking (“the internet”). Rather, the salient constraints are complexity, inscrutability, lack of storage, inequality, interoperability, and abuse. Just think of the digital equipment you have at home and work now. Are bandwidth and horsepower the primary cause of your headaches? No. We ordered Verizon Fiber-to-the-Home a few weeks ago and I had it canceled: our email and other networked applications in our various PC and devices are in such disarray that migrating to a different carrier would have brought our household to a standstill.
#2 Hmmm… you must be a Windows user! 😉
In our part of the world, the only computer store that sold MAC or Apple products and software went out of business a few weeks ago.
Which was why I went PC in the first place — availability of products.
Has anyone cleared this new “grid” technology with Al Gore?