The Internet is Sooo Yesterday

Yeah, but if that had been the title of the thread I would have never read it.
 
Wow, a great new way to deliver viruses, lightning fast.

As long as they don't call it Skynet...
 
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six7s said:
Catchy subject line :)

Bit misleading though, bearing in mind that "The Grid's network is the Internet"
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I read that article quickly and surely didn't grasp the whole thing but did catch this sentence
Computers contributing to the Grid must recognize Grid-relevant messages and ignore the rest.
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where I assume the "the rest" means the ordinary e-mail, etc.

Anyway, I was just amazed at the direction and pace of communications technology and thought it worth noting.
 
(off topic a bit ...)

alfaniner said:
Wow, a great new way to deliver viruses, lightning fast.

As long as they don't call it Skynet...
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LOL!! I was pleasantly surprised by the Terminator TV show - The Sarah Connor Chronicles. How 'bout you? Didn't expect it to be any good. Same for Buffy when it first came out - I thought it would be terrible, but I ended up loving it. Low expectations can be a good thing.
 
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This is excellent. Porn downloads will be much, much faster.

That IS what it was developed for, right?
 
Not quite...

Rather, the development is more a response to the anticipated need arising from a rapid rise in uploads from large institutions

However, on a personal level, it is quite likely that this will help relieve the pressure when disseminating the swelling contents of one's memory stick - that physically-shrinking yet increasingly important tool that many boys have concealed within their trouser pockets



:D
 
Lilith said:
(off topic a bit ...)



LOL!! I was pleasantly surprised by the Terminator TV show - The Sarah Connor Chronicles. How 'bout you? Didn't expect it to be any good. Same for Buffy when it first came out - I thought it would be terrible, but I ended up loving it. Low expectations can be a good thing.
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Definitely! I expected nothing, I got a surprisingly faithful spin-off series. I haven't really got a bad word to say about it yet. Roll on T4 with Christian Bale (oh yes).
 
Isn't the Grid intended to make computers themselves run faster? As far as I get it, it basically has the owners of Grid let others log onto their supercomputers and use their CPU power, leading to your home computer reaching extremely fast speeds. The faster download speeds, as far as I understand it, is just one of many positive effects.
 
SezMe said:
I read that article quickly and surely didn't grasp the whole thing but did catch this sentence

where I assume the "the rest" means the ordinary e-mail, etc.

Anyway, I was just amazed at the direction and pace of communications technology and thought it worth noting.
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It matches the computing problems at the Hadron Collider. Once it gets going, it will generate 15 petabytes of data per year constantly, 24/7/365. That's 475 GB / sec.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Isn't the Grid intended to make computers themselves run faster?
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Not quite... as the simplest (only?) ways to make an individual computer run faster is to modify:
  • the hardware; CPU (multi-threading etc) and memory (RAM, cache, etc) and/or
  • the software it uses

However... for some applications, there aren't ANY stand-alone computers that are up to the task... which is where 'distributed computing' (sharing the load) kicks in

Think SETI@home and the Folding At Home projects



gridcafe.web.cern.ch » What is the Grid?
Well, there's a short answer, and then there's a very long answer.

The short answer is that, whereas the Web is a service for sharing information over the Internet, the Grid is a service for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet. The Grid goes well beyond simple communication between computers, and aims ultimately to turn the global network of computers into one vast computational resource.

That is the dream. But the reality is that today, the Grid is a "work in progress", with the underlying technology still in a prototype phase, and being developed by hundreds of researchers and software engineers around the world.
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gridcafe.web.cern.ch » The dream
Imagine a lot of computers, let's say several million... ...all over the world and... you connect all of these computers to the Internet.

So far you have imagined nothing new: this is pretty much what the world looks like today.

But imagine if all of these computers could be connected to act as a single, huge and super-powerful computer. Wow! Now that really is different. This huge, sprawling, global computer is what many people dream "The Grid" will be.
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SezMe said:
With all those resources and computational power, can The Grid become conscience? Ever?
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No. Anyway CERN is euopean is it did become sentiant rather than trying to kill us all it would demand well all filled in 30 meter piles for forms.
 
SezMe said:
With all those resources and computational power, can The Grid become conscience? Ever?
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To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "Consciousness is hard. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly hard it is."

Consciousness is a problem we just don't know how to solve at the moment, and the idea that just throwing resources at the problem will allow a solution to magically appear is , as the creationists say, like expecting that a tornado going through a junk yard to some how build a Boeing 747.
 
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Jekyll said:
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "Consciousness is hard. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly hard it is."

Consciousness is a problem we just don't know how to solve at the moment, and the idea that just throwing resources at the problem will allow a solution to magically appear is , as the creationists say, like expecting that a tornado going through a junk yard to some how build a Boeing 747.
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Indeed

It seems that most of the research into Artificial Intelligence involves modelling human intelligence... but what is intelligence?

alanturing.net » What is Artificial Intelligence?

Intelligence ... is the ability to adapt one's behaviour to fit new circumstances.

Mainstream thinking in psychology regards human intelligence not as a single ability or cognitive process but rather as an array of separate components.

Research in AI has focussed chiefly on the following components of intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language-understanding.
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The article goes on to describe the short-comings of our (current) understanding, which is not trivial - and that's without even mentioning appreciation for/abilities in art, humour, wit, emotions, etc.

Maybe this is something DNA was thinking about when he devised Marvin

Jekyll said:
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "Consciousness is hard. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly hard it is."
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As any frood knows, the answer is very simple... but what on Earth (or Betelgeuse Seven) is the question?

:confused:
 
Yeah, to whoever said it -- I'd have to agree: Let's hope we don't have a Skynet/Terminator scenario on our hands!

But what I worry about is that it could be used to link up loads of cameras (actually we can already do that but it could be easier) with an A.I. program, and facial recognition software (much like DARPA's "Combat Zones that See" concept that will end up used for domestic surveillance) could place whole cities under 24-hr surveillance (and with ground penetrating style radar could even see through the walls in our houses and homes)
 
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