Wednesday, August 14, 2013

How CERN’s Grid May Place the Power of the World’s Computers in Your Hands

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The combined power of the world’s computers could soon be placed in the palm of your hand thanks to technology that is partly being developed at the home of the Large Hadron Collider.

Scientists at CERN in Switzerland and in the US have been developing a new kind of computer system that is already being described as the successor to the World Wide Web.

Known as the Worldwide Grid, it would give users access to the computing power of all the machines connected to a network no matter where they are in the world.

The technology could turn desktop computers into supercomputers and is now being adapted to allow mobile devices such as phones and tablets to connect.

Physicists at CERN already have access to the world’s biggest Grid computing network, combining more than 200,000 computers together.

It allows them to analyse more than 26 million gigabytes of data produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) each year. » | Richard Gray, Science Correspondent | Wednesday, August 14, 2013