Data Transfer Record: 186 Gbps

Researchers have set a new 2-way network data transfer rate record of 186 Gbps in order to help work through tons of information spewing out of the Large Hadron Collider.

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The researchers at Caltech, University of Michigan, and others have recently cooperated to push the limits of the amount of data that could be transferred in a wide area network. Today the computer experts acknowledge that very large quantities of data are able to be crammed down optical fibres and sent throughout the globe from continent to continent. The speeds in question are apparently equivalent to moving 2,000,000 Gb per day.

Now they expect that new networks could be constructed in order to use the technology in the next few years, most likely within the range of 40 to 100 Gbps. The 2-way connection, both ways reaching 88 Gbps to make up for a combined 186 Gpbs, sent information from ten Dell servers from British Columbia and Seattle through an optical network. This broke the earlier record, set by the same team, which was 119 Gbps two years ago. Moreover, the researchers decided to show the globe spanning potential of the high speed information network, and that’s why data was also sent to some institutes located in Brazil and Korea.

This network will be very helpful in work through the staggering amount of information derived from the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN facility, where the scientists are now trying to work through information that has indicated the presence of the Higgs boson.
Thus far, over 100 petabytes of data has been processed. This is really an outstanding amount of information, which could be compared to a Blockbusters-beating 100,000,000 Blu-ray disks. Meanwhile, the researchers believe that it’s only the start, because experts of the Large Hadron Collider will smash even more particles together.

At the moment, it is expected that the experts in laboratories all over the globe will be able to get their hands on information in order to solve mysteries of the universe rather than having to watch a download bar run as swiftly as an MP3 on a slow dial-up connection. Everything becomes easy our days, and petascale particle physics information can now be transferred to any corner of the world in merely a couple of hours.

Microsoft Stopped Selling Expression

Software giant has come to a decision to kill a program called Expression. It seems that in its effort to copy Apple, Microsoft has been increasingly clamping down on any form of Expression in a hope that consumers would instead get used to a world where people do as they are told.


If you don’t know, Expression was a suite of Internet and design-oriented instruments and the company has been slowly pulling the plug on it. Vector graphics drawing instrument Expression Design 4 was end-of-lived, and Microsoft claimed there were new versions created, so it isn’t for sale any longer. The tool can be downloaded for free, and the program will continue to receive security patches for at least 2 more years. In the meanwhile, Microsoft announced there will be no replacement or alternative of the product.

In other words, the program has seen the fate of the HTML and CSS authoring instrument Expression Web 4, which is currently available as a free download. Microsoft has decided that it will continue to extend and develop Visual Studio’s HTML, CSS, and JavaScript capabilities. At the moment, the priority is given to the IDE as Microsoft’s main actively maintained web development tool.

In addition, the SuperPreview Remote service which let developers to view their pages in several browsers hosted on the company’s servers is also expected to be killed off in the middle of 2013. Expression Blend, the instrument for building user interfaces in XAML, will also find itself integrated into Visual Studio.

Actually, the only part of the Expression suite that seems to have any life left in it is the Expression Encoder, which is employed for both off-line media conversion and on-line media streaming. The code has both a free limited version and a Pro version which adds support for H.264.

Microsoft announced that Expression Encoder 4 Pro will be sold until the end of 2013 – the tool won’t undergo any future development and there won’t be any new versions. In the meantime, encoding, format conversion, and media streaming will be integrated into Windows Azure Media Services.

In other words, the software giant is ending the development of any tooling which is oriented at designers rather than developers. This is because the company had been unable to take down Adobe as the market leader and can’t be bothered working with designers.

Italy Acquitted Google Executives

An Italian appeals court has finally acquitted 3 Google executives of 2010 charges of having breached the privacy of an Italian boy with autism. All of them were arrested after a video of the boy being bullied was uploaded to the site 7 years ago.


This court ruling overturned a previous ruling in 2010 that had sentenced three Google executives to jail. Now the court didn’t reveal why the case had been thrown out. Of course, Google is happy with the news. The company’s policy manager told the press that Google was happy the earlier ruling wasn’t confirmed, and that the judges recognized the innocence of the executives. The company assured that their thoughts are with the boy and his family for the difficult moments those have endured.

Seven years ago, 4 students at a Turin school uploaded a mobile phone video to Google Video showing them bullying the boy. However, for some reason the prosecutors blamed the company for what happened, saying that the video remained on the Internet for 2 months even though a number of users had published comments asking for it to be removed.

Finally, the complaint was brought by an Italian advocacy group for people suffering Down's Syndrome, Vivi Down, and the boy’s father, and the plaintiffs were initially successful. Three years ago, a court gave each of the 3 Google executives, none of whom were residing in Italy, a 6-month suspended jail sentence. The company pointed out that the executives had nothing to do with the video and couldn’t have removed it even if they wanted.

The company claimed to have deleted the video immediately after being notified and helped Italian coppers to identify the uploaders. However, the case has exposed some odd aspects: for instance, Vivi Down was only involved because it was named by the boys in the clip. The suffered boy had autism, not Down's and they wanted to make sure that message was heard. In addition, the enthusiasm with which the court took to the company was considered suspect in the Italian press. The country’s PM Silvio Berlusconi also took part in a war with YouTube. This particular lawsuit is still ongoing.

uTorrent’s Goal Extends Beyond Piracy

Despite the fact that anti-piracy lobbyists insist the uTorrent and BitTorrent applications are bridges for Internet piracy, BitTorrent’s chief executive officer begs to differ. Eric Klinker admitted that they hear that question all the time. The company hears that it has killed movie, the radio star and the content industry. They are also accused of being the Internet’s dark matter, and the Web’s seedy underbelly. BitTorrent claims it is not.

The outfits representing entertainment industries (Motion Pictures Associations of America and Recording Industry Association of America) had long tried to close the company down, together with its spearhead application, uTorrent. Currently, it’s believed that uTorrent accounts for more than 150 million registered users, most of which are suspected of downloading copyrighted material.

 Anyway, Klinker is going to change that perspective by starting a new site named “Does BitTorrent Equal Piracy”. He claims that the BitTorrent involves scientists, engineers, developers and designers committed to creating a better web. The team of BitTorrent informs that they are photographers, musicians, writers and gamers who came to work at the company because they wanted to change the way the web works for them and for everyone. BitTorrent neither endorses piracy nor encourages it. E company doesn’t point to piracy websites either. And, of course,they don’t host any infringing material.

Despite the fact that anti-piracy lobbyists insist the uTorrent and BitTorrent applications are bridges for Internet piracy, BitTorrent’s chief executive officer begs to differ. Eric Klinker admitted that they hear that question all the time. The company hears that it has killed movie, the radio star and the content industry. They are also accused of being the Internet’s dark matter, and the Web’s seedy underbelly. BitTorrent claims it is not.





The outfits representing entertainment industries (Motion Pictures Associations of America and Recording Industry Association of America) had long tried to close the company down, together with its spearhead application, uTorrent. Currently, it’s believed that uTorrent accounts for more than 150 million registered users, most of which are suspected of downloading copyrighted material.

Anyway, Klinker is going to change that perspective by starting a new site named “Does BitTorrent Equal Piracy”. He claims that the BitTorrent involves scientists, engineers, developers and designers committed to creating a better web. The team of BitTorrent informs that they are photographers, musicians, writers and gamers who came to work at the company because they wanted to change the way the web works for them and for everyone. BitTorrent neither endorses piracy nor encourages it. E company doesn’t point to piracy websites either. And, of course, they don’t host any infringing material.