World Wide Web 2.0 Superfast Internet

According to an article written by Jonathan Leake, Science Editor for Times Online, the Internet could see itself obsolete and out of date, with a new version in the making by its pioneering creators. They have built a replacement which is capable of downloading massive data within seconds. A suitable example to give an idea of the speed, a Hollywood feature film can be downloaded within seconds from web film services such as the Apple Store. As Leake states in his article, this new version is capable of speeds 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection (which in itself is an astonishing feat considering how fast the currently publicly available internet connections are).

The new innovation from Cern, the particle physics centre which created the web, has been named “the grid”. It will capable of providing the power to have online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players instantly without any waiting time or delays or lag, eradicating the worry over ‘ping’. In addition, it would offer high-definition video telephony, another eager-to-have feature which will only be limited by the technology to support this new Internet by Cern, leaving behind the web invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data.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.

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.

From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.

It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

Click here for the original article at Times Online.