Get ready for the Grid ...

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01/05/2008

Scientists in Geneva have created a new ‘parallel internet’ that could enable us to download movies in seconds, conduct holographic video conferencing and make high definition phone calls for the price of a landline call. Called The Grid, it operates at 10,000 times the speed of a normal broadband connection using fibre optic cables. The Grid has been constructed by the particle physics lab CERN, where Sir Tim Berners-Lee originally conceived the internet, and will be switched on later this year connecting the US, Far East and Europe. Its creators say it could allow internet users to store much more information online, rather than on their own PC – known as ‘cloud computing’.