- Thursday, 8 January 2009
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The incurable itch for scribbling affects many - Juvenal
The dawn of the new internet age is here
TIRED OF RUBBISH download speeds and ridiculous contention ratios? Stress no longer, as salvation is on its way.
A new network of 100,000 computers known affectionately as The Grid will revolutionise download speeds, changing the Interwibble experience forever.
This Grid is being heralded as the dawn of the new internet age, as downloading full-length films will take a few seconds and a whole album of MP3s should take just one.
The revolutionary power of the Grid will not only cut time, but will also cut expenses as the cost of Video phone calls is expected to drop to the same price as a local voice call.
The Grid will communicate with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest machine designed for large research and engineering jobs which require the crunch of huge quantities of data – however boffins now believe it will move onto working with home computers.
The Grid didn’t come cheap to the scientists at CERN who invented it, at €500 million it is expected to do exactly what is says on the tin.
Dr Bob Jones, of CERN said, “The Web allows you to access information on other computers. What the Grid allows you to do is not only access the information, but make use of their computing resources and power.”
Dr Jones compared it to the National Grid as users would be able to tap into huge amounts of processing power – the source of the power would change however and be dependant on availability.
Dr Jones also explains the Grid’s part in finding cures for dangerous diseases as, “The Grid cannot find a cure for cancer, but what it can do is make it quicker,” highlighting that what would ordinarily take decades can be accomplished in weeks.
The Grid is an all round good guy then, as it has also been utilised to save the lives of those in the urgent aftermath of earthquakes, as the seismic data can be used to pinpoint the worst affected areas allowing the rescue teams to b e at the point of crisis as soon as possible.
All processing tasks will be distributed between ten countries through 11 gateway computers, the tasks will then be shared out between over 140 different sites. µ
L'Inq
The Times
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WOW ....KaPOW. QuITe CosmIQ Power. By the Way, does the Course of Microsoft Mimic that of Ford?
This resembles a similarly naive and uncritical article in The Times today. First, who is this Dr Bob Jones and who appointed him the new Bill Gates? Second, Grid hardware and software has been gradually evolving for many years - I wrote a report on the software side of it several years ago, when it was already far from new. Third, many of us have been contributing for years to medical research (and other things such as climate research) through grid software such as the World Community Grid, RosettaNet, CilmatePrediction, etc. Fourth, there is nothing to stop anyone using remote or distributed computing resources over the existing net today - which is exactly what SETIatHome, the World Community Grid, etc. do. I recommend, in future, asking "why is this source authoritative?", "what is new about this announcement?" and "what is important about this announcement?" If you run this story through those three filters, there will not be much left. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4842964.ece
Could you explain to me how any distributed computing set up is going to allow me to download a whole album in a single second over my 2Mbps line?
Dr Jones also explains the Grid’s part in finding cures for dangerous diseases as, “The Grid cannot find a cure for cancer, but what it can do is make it quicker,” Err the Doctor is saying it can't find a cure, and using a Grid means it can discover that it can't find a cure quicker? Isn't that a profoundly stupid thing to say?
That exists already. It's called a botnet, I believe.
Is it April already ? This sounds like a spam for a kind of pill, but for computers. I fail to see how any number of computers is going to accelerate my download speed - I only get 8Mbps and that is capped by my ISP. No Grid is going to change that to 8Gbps. This must be a boffin-only, secondary Internet for VIPs.
I must start gathering all those password files so I can prepare for the über-cruncher to crack them in a second..!! Realistically, I would expect that you need to go through a lengthy and expensive trial to be able to use the power of the interwibble and LHC. However if you connect to it, everyone that has actually qualified can use your computer on idle, probably without you knowing .. so instead of calling this the new internet age, I would recommend that it shall be called the new BotNet age.
---------From Times Online-------- "However, it is unlikely to be directly available to most internet users until telecoms providers build the fibre-optic network required to use it."
I'm really sorry to say this, but where on earth is the INQ getting it's writers from these days... the zoo? Or worse, the Sun? This story is sensationalist, doesn't make sense and doesn't explain anything. I might aswell go down the corner shop and pick up the first red top newspaper that comes to hand. See above comments re: speed.