I found this interesting article but its a bit out of date now so i was just wondering if anyone had some more recent information. howard_hopkinso01-04-2005, 06:05 AM Please see the following article taken from Internetnews.com. September 2, 2004 Scientists Set Internet2 Speed Record By Susan Kuchinskas Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) set a new land-speed record for Internet2, a second-generation network serving universities and research institutes. The team, which included folks from AMD (Quote, Chart), Cisco (Quote, Chart), Microsoft Research, Newisys, and S2io, transferred 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes. It did so at a rate of 6.63 gigabits per second (define) between the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland, and Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., a distance of more than 15,766 kilometers, or approximately 9,800 miles. Scientists are racing to move gigantic amounts of data by 2007, when CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will switch on. This huge underground particle accelerator will produce some 15 petabytes (define) of data a year, which will be stored and analyzed on a global grid of computer centers. High-energy physicists are excited about the LHC because they hope it will allow them to find the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that they believe creates mass. "Physicists are trying to fill in the blank spaces in our model of high energy physics," said Jim Gray a Microsoft Research engineer who helped set Wednesday's record. But this $10 billion collider will be of little use if scientists around the world can't access the data. Researchers aren't the only ones excited about blazing data speeds. This record speed of 6.63Gbps is equivalent to transferring a full-length DVD movie in four seconds. There are uses in astronomy, bioinformatics, global climate modeling and seismology, as well as commercial applications from entertainment to oil and gas exploration. Internet2 is fast -- Abilene, a U.S. cross-country backbone network, blasts data at 10Gbps. But transoceanic networking is another story. There are hardware and software issues to overcome, Gray said. For example, one limiting factor is that the fastest available interface for PCs is the PCIX64 Bus Isolation Extender, which can only handle 7.5Gbps. The land-speed test is part of an ongoing R&D program to create high-speed global networks as the foundation of next-generation, data-intensive grids with a goal of transferring data at 1Gbps. The performance also is the first record to break the 100-petabit meter per second mark. One petabit is 1,000,000,000,000,000 bits (define). That may seem like an almost inconceivably large number, but Gray said storing petabits of data is a fact of life for many large corporations. He said Microsoft has about 5 petabits of data, and he estimates Google and Yahoo store that much, as well. "If you have a million customers and they each have a gigabyte of storage, that's a petabit," he said. The technology used in setting this record included S2io's Xframe 10 GbE server adapter, Cisco 7600 Series Routers, Newisys 4300 servers using AMD Opteron processors, Itanium servers and the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003.
Pretty cool article kyle... Yeah I heard about that last year, and also that they are like testing some fiber optic connections in the texas and virginia markets. It would be really cool if this stuff becomes mainstream....but one would have to ask themselves, if data travels that fast, is there really a benefit or is there going to be MORE problems than before.....i.e. security, piracy, and so forth. Would like to hear what others think about that?
I think that its a case of technology getting ahead of itself here, but i cant see this coming to the average internet consumer just yet. Who knows maybe in a few years time we will live in a bubble with nothing but a port in the back of our heads and a screen in front of us.!!.
Yep nice article, and lightning speeds I never realised were possible yet. Fibre optic would be the way to go for sure, pretty resiliant to interference and emissions and the speed of light would make things go smooth. Trouble is, the technology to process that would carry a severe expense........ Who knows, it will happen, it'll just be a question of when..............
Like this article i was reading about how technology is actually isolating people in the inability to social...i.e.people who use ipods are quickly starting to become known as "The Ipod People." Article was really good, cause it made alot of sense...but eventually...i think you are right....we will all be placed in bubbles with a screen in front of us....i mean hell...nowadays you can pretty much run a small 3rd world country from your house....can order pizza, do you job, pay your bills, locate information....honestly....do you EVER have to leave your house...lol Who knows if that technology as your described will be coming to the average user....but it might just happen, and man...can you believe that....because soon or later....EVERYTHING will be online...if it hasn't already happened.
Dead right Homophobes are becoming more and more popular........I am loving my new lifestyle........... Even got a chair moulded to my behind for extra comfort...LOL
There was actually an experiment that they did last year , where they put a guy in an empty house with nothing but a pc connected to the internet and he had to order everything online that he needed to live, from his groceries to his lounge suite and he did it, so it just goes to show that you dont even have to leave your house these days. Where once we would be stimulated by doing things on a physical level, I think we as a race are starting to become more stimulated by things on a mental level. but hey you will always get those guys who still wanna go out there and bear wrestle. Go figure
LLLLOOOLLLL!!!! @ baabaa I read that and about fell out of my chair at work.... But Kyle, you definately have a good point there...this article I read the other was saying how teens are now getting more "high tech" and the percentage pretty much doubled in having a vcr/dvd/computer and any other type of device their rooms.... I know when I was growing up, I was lucky to get the small black and white tv with the turn dials and uhf knob control in my room....oh yeah, with the optional coat hanger antenna...LOL
DUDE!!!! Now THAT was a funny one? But yeah....I was wondering the same thing...LOL...I got gig...and tera....but what the hell...LOL!
I asked some people, and they said it's next after a terabyte, meaning 1,024 terabytes. That's a lot of space.
Yeah...like what kind of regular user needs THAT much space...LOL! Oh wait...I remember now, I figured I could use it...cause you know mp3's take a crap load of hard drive space....
Your sources were correct: 2 to the 50th power (1,125,899,906,842,624) bytes. A petabyte is equal to 1,024 terabytes.
I know me either... Forgive me, but the other junk was over my head, and I just wanted to be a part of this thread so I could get updates on it
Just to add a little contribution to this thread,,, We installed a complete fiber optic network in Kosovo for the Army, and that thing was so friggen fast it was unbelievable!! If I remember right it was like 10GBps upstream and 8GBps download I can't even imagine anything faster because as soon as you clicked on a webpage (even microsofts) it was there instantly almost before you could even get your finger off the mouse button. Man I wish I had that sheeeet in my house.
Baabaa's comment: Not necessarily true...an article that I read said that they were testing the fiber optics right now in Richmond, VA and somewhere in Texas. Here's the kicker, in the article it said that even people who are remotely away from lines that produce cable and dsl internet, who can only resort to having dial up, such as the case here in Winchester, VA., they will be able to get the fiber optics. I think it is a joint venture with the counties and providers, because there are alot of people who have houses all the way up on the mountains, who can only get dial up. But now, everyone will be able to use the fiber ops. I would think that the providers will flip the bill or the county because with television changing the way it is...fiber ops seems the way to go. But your right when you said:
