Word: bandwidth
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...billion business five years ago to a $500 billion one today, with annual growth rates of 50%. And in some sense, Cisco is the beneficiary of a virtuous cycle, so to speak, in which the very innovations that make its own products faster and increase the supply of bandwidth also supercharge demand for bandwidth, as faster computers mean we will want to download more video, more music and more of everything--all through Cisco-powered networks. "The user is the slowest link in the chain," says Varian. "We're limited by our biological perception--we can only read so fast...
...that Napster "is operating a haven for music piracy on an unprecedented scale." Yet no pirated files ever sit on the Napster server--Fanning considered legal liability when he wrote the software--so those charges may not stick. Meanwhile, college campuses, claiming that Napster is sucking up too much bandwidth, have begun blocking access to the site. Gnutella, which doesn't require a centralized server, will be harder to shut down. But even if there is a way to disable Gnutella, so what? "Every time a 42-year-old figures out how to lock something up," says Griffin...
...this is only the beginning. Just ask Jaron Lanier, who coined the term virtual reality. Lanier is chief scientist for the "tele-immersion" project, part of the federally subsidized research program known as Internet2, which explores the upshot of massive bandwidth and computing power...
Mushrooming bandwidth and computing power aren't the only things drawing us deeper into cyberspace. Global-positioning satellites are turning driving a car into an intermittently online experience. And the high-resolution satellite images that became commercially available last year will move the earthiest of endeavors into cyberspace. Sitting at a desk will soon be the fastest way for farmers to inspect their crops for signs of blight...
...bandwidth grows, more of these narrow interests--recreational, political, cerebral--can be pursued online. In 2025, the League of Women Who Find Gilligan More Attractive Than the Skipper and the Professor can not only form online; it can tele-convene and watch reruns! More and more, obsessions will be online obsessions...