Jonathan Leake, Science Editor writes in The Sunday Times that '... The internet could soon be made obsolete.'
As a person who spends several hours a day on the internet, that, surely, caught my attention.
'The scientists ... have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.' Wahhh! Suddenly I am thinking of all sorts of possibilities. I was once asked, during one of my 'publishing' talks (at a Rotary Club meeting) on the future of reading and shopping online. This was a couple of years ago. 'The main problem,' I remember saying, 'is one of technology. Mainly it is the speed of the internet, which is horribly slow even at its fastest at present.' (I was not even thinking about Streamyx).
'Turning pages is excruciatingly slow,' I said. 'I can browse through an entire medium sized bookshop in a few hours, and go through a few hundred books. But try doing that on the internet. You will want to kill someone by the third book.' Okay, I exaggerate. But I also said that I was not a pessimist. I said that we would get there sooner than most of us think.
Well, it looks like it is here already. It is expected to be in operation in August this year.
It is '...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.'
'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 report says.
This present internet operates by linking together a spaghetti of cables and equipment originally designed for telephone calls. Despite all the technological advances, its limitations are obvious and it lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission. Its like driving a Ferrari through kampong roads.
'By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.'
I am drooling already, though I should know better than to hold my breath considering where I live.
No comments:
Post a Comment