Old Media is Going to Die, though perhaps not Exposively

Despite being a self-described geek, who lives a highly digital life, I tend to still schedule time to watch local and international news on television every evening (or, at least, make a mental choice to watch it in the background, say, during solitary dinners at home). Consequently, I've always been skeptical when hearing pundits predict the demise of "old media". Certainly I can't be the only odd-ball with an appreciation (or addiction) to old media. Even so-called "screenagers" can be found reading (gasp!) newspapers. OK, maybe not the Globe and Mail, but I see them quite often reading one of the free dailies such as Metro.

Don't get me wrong, I do peruse world news online, searching to get to a higher depth of detail when I'm particularly intrigued by something. But I don't use the net to keep abreast of "standard" daily happenings (i.e., not including odd-ball events that go viral on the net); certainly not those from the local subset. Today, however, for the first time, I learned of something local online first -- and on Twitter of all places! It was the big propane explosion that happened today in the North end of Toronto (here's an amateur video link showing the impressive size of the blast). Interestingly, I was out for a walk at that time (3:30 AM), submitting my own tweet.

Perhaps these old media doomsayers have a point after all.

Want a copy of my CD? Sure, give me a few seconds...

An international team working on the Internet2 project set a new record for Internet performance by transferring the equivalent of an entire CD (625 MB) more than half way around the globe (across 12272 km of network) in 13 seconds. A transfer rate of 401 megabits per second was achieved when transferring the data between Alaska and the Netherlands. This is over 8000 times greater than the throughput achievable with the fastest 56 kbps dial-up modem; 400 times greater than the throughput of typical DSL or cable Internet connections.

I'm sure that all you music file "traders" (not to mention software "pirates") are salivating at the prospects for the future. Who needs MP3's when you can get the original high fidelity version in mere seconds! Of course, there are other implications as well. At these ultra high throughputs things like live telesurgery and video-on-demand over the Internet will move from the experimental stage to common place.