The Internet may soon be a thing of the past. The scientists who created the internet have now come up with something even better, called "The Grid." Apparently, it's 10,000 times faster than your typical internet broadband connection. As a result, you'd be able to download movies in seconds. And that's not all.
The Grid could also be used to "allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players...offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call." and transmit holographic images. Badass.
This summer, scientists are going to test it out. You can read all the geeky mumbo jumbo about how they'll do that here.
Unlike the internet which needs cables and routing equipment to operate, the Grid would use fibre optic cables and routing centers. There are 12 routing centres all over the world with 55,000 servers in total. It is estimated that the number of servers will increase to 200,000 servers in the next 2 years. The 12 routing centres are scattered throughout the world and are connected via fibre optic cables running from Cern (in Switzerland), to the US, Canada, Asia, and Europe.
The reason the Grid was created however, is not just so we can download whole seasons of our favorite TV show in seconds. The real goal that scientists had in mind when creating the Grid was to have it work with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a "new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe." yup..
Anyway, by working together, scientists are hoping to track down the Higgs boson--the particle that "is supposed to be what gives matter mass."
The Grid isn't going to be released to domestic users as of yet, but there are plenty of companies and telecom providers that are introducing technologies based on the Grid. The biggest technology to take from the Grid that everyday users will probably get their hands on soon is something called "dynamic switching" which allows internet users to switch into a dedicated "channel" that would allow then to download large files. So we'd be able to download a movie in about 5 seconds.
The only people who are allowed access to the Grid are scientists, researchers, and academia for now. But can you imagine sending and receiving holographic messages? Last Star Wars reference...I promise
Literature has tried to predict the future in books like 1984 and the Brave New World. I find it ironic that, instead, the future is starting to sound more and more like a sci-fi movie.
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