If you’ve ever wondered what the Internet is all about, there’s an article in New Scientist entitled “Eight Things You Didn’t Know About The Internet“. It makes highly interesting reading.
The article tries to answer the following questions (click each one for a link to the relevant sub-article):
- Who controls the internet?
- Could the net become self-aware?
- How big is the net?
- Is there only one internet?
- Is the net caught in the credit crunch?
- Where are the net’s dark corners?
- Is the net hurting the environment?
- Could we shut the net down?
It also has a fascinating image gallery in a sidebar called “Exploring The Exploding Internet“. I recommend enlarging the graphics to full size in order to read them properly. For example, here’s one showing the submarine cables carrying Internet traffic. To see it full-size, click here. You may have to click the newly-displayed image again to expand it to its full 3,000 x 1,650 pixel resolution – five times larger than that shown below.
All very interesting information, and useful to understand the complexity of the World Wide Web that we take for granted.
Peter