CERN creates a new super-fast internet, invites tons of people to a deathmatch

Apparently, when CERN isn't colliding particles (and ripping massive holes in the space-time continuum), it's busy working on a new "internet" which will be 10,000 times faster than our current version. The project -- known as "the grid" -- is built atop completely fiber optic networks, and utilizes modern routing centers. By keeping traffic out of our current phone and data systems, the researchers have been able to achieve speeds heretofore unseen on previous networks. The system connects from CERN to 11 centers around the globe, and will be switched on when the Large Hadron Collider is activated, on what the group is calling "Red Button Day." Project heads believe a network with this speed will lead to all sorts of futuristic innovations -- like true cloud computing, holographic video conferencing, and really, really fast pirating of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series.

[Flashpoint @ Apr 7th 2008 10:35AM]

This looks like a machine responsible for the prelude to the crisis depicted in Half Life.

Its like a damn stargate.

If it does manage to create a Black hole, we could use that to dump radioactive waste.

[Ask1001 @ Apr 7th 2008 10:43AM]

Your kidding about the black hole right? RIGHT???? thats bullshit and theres less then .0000001% of it happening. no joke.

[Chebwa @ Apr 7th 2008 11:24AM]

Ask1001 you are the smartest person I know.

No joke.

[tikirob @ Apr 7th 2008 11:24AM]

Better yet...maybe something from a Lovecraft story

[patsy @ Apr 7th 2008 11:43AM]

Actually, that's the RJ45 replacement to plug into The Grid. Better get a bigger house!

[Poltras @ Apr 7th 2008 11:55AM]

No, in fact one of the research to be performed in this is to create blackholes. But since the majority of people cannot understand the nature of a black hole everyone is going "OMG EARTH BE DISTROEI!11!sqrt(1)"

Blackholes have been created in the past and have this tendency to "evaporate" using radiations (even the big ones in the middle of galaxies, although in this case they receive more matter than they can expunge and, thus, grows). Even if the hole phenomenon is not understood entirely (like, you know, growing up to 7-8 dimensions around it), the "danger" they represent has been fully studied and they are not scared by those who knows what the **** is going on.

Keep the science stuff to the scientists. Please.

[Sam @ Apr 7th 2008 12:03PM]

I regret that that my first, jaded, thought on seeing that photo was...Goatz...
my brain, it burns :(

[Jeff @ Apr 7th 2008 12:26PM]

guh.

even if they were able to create a blackhole (unlikely) it would be very small, and contain the same properties of anything else its size.

A tiny black hole has no more earth-ending capacity than a similarly sized mosquito.

you guys are ridiculous.

[LongshotX @ Apr 7th 2008 12:33PM]

Actually we've already created blackholes: hyper small holes that last trillions of a fraction of a second. It is possible.

[Wwhat @ Apr 7th 2008 12:41PM]

I just hope they didn't give you some sort of diploma Poltras.

[Poltras @ Apr 7th 2008 12:57PM]

@Wwhat
I don't know. Are you able to refute my claims? You seem like someone would know much more than me on the matter.

[zendriver @ Apr 7th 2008 1:02PM]

@Poltras
"You seem like someone would know much more than me on the matter."

Matter! Haha! I see what you did there.

[LondonConsultant @ Apr 7th 2008 1:05PM]

It's funny when high-energy physics comes up and everyone and their dog suddenly becomes an expert...

[Matthew @ Apr 7th 2008 1:31PM]

Looks to me like an episode of MST3K is about to start. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

[patsy @ Apr 7th 2008 1:46PM]

@LondonConsultant:

Well, it's not rocket science.

[Magallanes @ Apr 7th 2008 2:28PM]

There aren't not such think as a "tinniest blackhole", blackhole exist in two sizes:tiny and massive, a "tiny" (a common blackhole) will need the mass of "many" Sol ultra compacted (even more compact that MacBook Apple Air) to start collapsing the gravity (both kind of gravity), and massive blackholes will need a lot more mass.

So, even using all the mass of the solar system (and the mass of all bulky ps3s) then this will not be enough to create a blackhole So CERN IS NOT ABLE TO CREATE BLACKHOLES, they are just bluffing or they achieved a way to create gravity without mass and afaik it is not (yet) possible.

[whowhatme @ Apr 7th 2008 2:50PM]

For those who read Kip Thorn's Black Holes and Time Warps, you would know that 'tiny' black holes can _theoretically_ be formed when something-or-other happens (the hypothesis here is that colliding two elementary particles at trillions of eVs will form one).

The concern is that a tiny black hole (around the size of an atom or smaller) would still be able to swallow up the earth, as it were, because as we know, black holes increase in size as more mass falls in.

The evaporating black hole theory was actually postulated by Stephen Hawking (I think), when he realized that in quantum mechanics, particles exist with their antiparticles, and they sort of weave in and out of existence.. when a particle and antiparticle is 'born' near the event horizon, and one falls in while the other escapes, the black hole is essentially 'evaporating' or losing energy. There have actually been observations of black holes emitting X-rays, lending some credence to the evaporating black hole theory.

Of course, that all applies to normal sized black holes, and none of this may apply to tiny black holes, which might come into existence and then evaporate within a billionth of a second or something..

Anyway, read the book... I read it in like 9th grade, so it's been a while, and I might have some of the details wrong. It's really entertaining though (for those of you who like that sort of stuff........ but you're reading engadget anyway, so it might actually appeal to some of the readers here :)

[Tony @ Apr 8th 2008 7:44AM]

SCREW you ALL! No-one knows ANYTHING about what'll happen because no-one has bl00dy well done it before!!!
I'm DAMN sure I heard somewhere that if only a tiny bit if Tachyon leakage in to the nacelles of the CERN, the whole planet will phase in to another dimension or something... And now thanks to this ultra fast network linking up places all over the world, I KNOW that this net-sky computer (I think that's what they're calling it) running the whole thing will utilitse the quantum soup coming out of the device, mix it up at some higer dimension and exterminate all life!
Damn pot-smoking scientists with a budget, you’ll be the downfall of us all, mark my words!!!!!!

[RAY16 @ Apr 7th 2008 10:35AM]

They should have called it a "Red Letter Day."

[Anthony @ Apr 7th 2008 10:39AM]

I was thinking the same thing.

[brendan @ Apr 7th 2008 2:19PM]

10,000 times faster internet connected to the particle collider? Sure making it easy for this thing when it inevitably becomes self-aware.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Apr 7th 2008 2:57PM]

I see you are a Pet Shop Boys fan, too!

nice

[Mobius_1 @ Apr 8th 2008 5:27AM]

CERN Large Hadron Collider Product (RED)

[Marc @ Apr 7th 2008 10:36AM]

I don't care how well it erforms on D-day... it just sounds so bloody cool. Nobody else does red buttons!!!

[Toink @ Apr 7th 2008 10:40AM]

Sounds snappy!

Bring it on! :D

[gmdude66 @ Apr 7th 2008 10:40AM]

This sounds fricken amazing..

Hopefully Verizon upgrades their FiOS to like 500 mb/s lol

[netwerk @ Apr 8th 2008 4:32PM]

@ gmdude66

500mb/s..? Some european countries are currently running 40gb/s to the curb..

let's be a bit more optimistic.. =]

[Matt @ Apr 7th 2008 10:44AM]

LOL
Even the name "Red Button Day" sounds like a Black Mesa tag.

[r3loaded @ Apr 7th 2008 11:14AM]

In other unrelated news, an MIT grad student named Gordon Freeman takes up a job offer in Geneva. When asked about what he thought of the new Large Hadron Collider:

"................."

[OneLove @ Apr 7th 2008 10:44AM]

They could transmit new internet data using black holes and contact the federation. (Maybe receive letters from home? Ensign kim will be happy.)

[ian R @ Apr 7th 2008 8:26PM]

lol voyager!

[Matt @ Apr 8th 2008 5:49PM]

It would be so fast that you would actually get your data 20 years ago, but hopefully whoever receives the data doesn't die before he has a chance to deliver it to you.

[jcsohn2 @ Apr 7th 2008 10:45AM]

Isn't this sort of how Skynet started? Man, I need to start figuring out how to send Arnold Schwarzenegger back to the past to protect current me.

[www.ssdforums.com @ Apr 7th 2008 11:10AM]

Save yourself a few bucks and get Michael Biehn instead. He should be looking for work right now.

[The Future @ Apr 7th 2008 10:46AM]

The creators of the World Wide Web - create Internet 2

[Chad @ Apr 7th 2008 11:35AM]

That would be Internet 2.0

[Brad Green @ Apr 7th 2008 12:34PM]

Oh, but we already have internet2. I2 is a fiber network connecting research universities across the country...including mine...

I personally get 90mbps

[jason @ Apr 7th 2008 10:48AM]

OMG, wow the day i can download a 28gb dvd in a 10th of a second the day i dance around naked!

[a ham sandwich @ Apr 7th 2008 10:53AM]

sorry to be a killjoy but dvds are only 4.7 gb single layer :P

[gmdude66 @ Apr 7th 2008 11:00AM]

And your hard drive can only transfer around 3 gb/s at max (SATA), lol

[Wisam @ Apr 7th 2008 12:47PM]

Realtime bittorrent is on the doooooooooor.
No need to download anymore, we can do torrent streaming!

[Chris Anderson @ Apr 7th 2008 2:25PM]

@ gmdude66

a 10k RPM Raptor drive can only write at about 80 MB/s MAX. So that SATA 3.0gbps link isn't really relevant, in terms of being a bottleneck.

[yacoub @ Apr 7th 2008 4:00PM]

@gmdude66:

Insert here the sound of millions of 1s and 0s going from light speed to crashing into each other at the connection to his hard disk.

[jo3 @ Apr 7th 2008 10:51AM]

when we think about the internet we have today 20 years from now it will be like thinking about the DynaTAC cellphone right now.

[frank @ Apr 7th 2008 10:54AM]

Don't we first have to invent holographic video before we can have holographic video conferencing?

[Josh @ Apr 7th 2008 11:13AM]

That is an excellent point, by the way.

[soul7963 @ Apr 8th 2008 3:33AM]

That's what the day before red button day is for. Duh!

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 7th 2008 1:54PM]

I'm sorry but I couldn't just keep scrolling down past this comment.

Where have you people been the past decade?

Holographic 3D video has been around for awhile. No its not cheap. No its not portable, but its definitely a reality. Just not in the cute little watch-projectors you see in Star Wars.

There are plenty of examples on the internet, just search!

http://www.arena3d.com/tradeshow/holo.html

[Jay @ Apr 7th 2008 3:02PM]

@Lowest Ranked

Is than an actual holographic projecter or just two parabolic mirrors with a rotating platform inside? I'm genuinely asking, I couldn't tell from the site.

[ThePremierAssassin @ Apr 7th 2008 10:54AM]

Shit...skynet is that much closer to becoming self aware.