I attended a private conference recently led by Larry Smarr who is the director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CalIT2). The underlying theme of his presentation was that data communication is moving closer and closer towards a utility service, much like electricity. By creating a worldwide infrastructure of supercomputers (high-performance linux clusters running rocks) with dedicated fiber pipes (moving towards 1TB/sec) and massive amounts of redundant, reliable storage we can essentially eliminate distance.

Another major topic that he covered involved the concept of the visual interface being the largest bottleneck in computing. In the last 10 years our computing/network power has increased exponentially, by the thousands, however the number pixels we have has remained essentially the same. The majority of users are still using the same size monitor today that they used 10 years ago. 15″-17″, 10 years ago it was a CRT, today its an LCD, either way you still have the same number of pixels to work with. His point was that while we can process and store incredible amounts of data, we can’t possibly display it effectively using a single display. He showed pictures of his office and of others in which has implemented his design and to give you some idea what we are talking about here his office featured 20 Dual CPU nodes (roughly 1/4teraflop) with 20×24″ lcd’s which spanned one of his entire walls. Using this type of configuration you can process, store and display incredibly detailed and complex data effectively.

In summary, he said that it wasn’t until 1950 that the last few big companies in America stopped trying to produce their own power and linked up to the power grid. He believes that the same thing needs to and is going to happen for data communication and we will be moving closer and closer towards that initiative.

Stay Tuned.

- Nicholas

Bad news for Apple. Steve will not give keynote in 2009.Company may drop show in 2010. Apple Mac and iPhone sales slipping too. The App store is still a problem. Australia allows people to use Facebook to serve liens. Chip industry in the toilet and it is getting worse. How can this happen? Dell falling behind. Experts think they will start acquisitions. IBM ranks as most trusted tech provider. New Palm OS may be Linux..

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