Hi al, Colarado. The American government network of computers were run on packet swiching technology develped at NPL, Teddington UK. The HTML protocol was developed at Cern.

The first computer was Colossus used during the war. UK Official Secrets Act stopped us telling anyone.

odtaa, Richmond, uk

The Collective Nouns for geeks is a "google" lol

Frank, NYC, US

"The Grid has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price as a local call."

Out of curiosity, what does processing/transfer power have to do with the *price* of phone calls?

Phil, Clemson, SC, USA

COLOSSUS has arrived, Dr. Forbin.

Xavier Xsyllman, Vienna, VA, USA

There is a good possibility a new source of energy can be derived from the powerful computing abilities of The Grid. Yes this has been around since 2004 and now many of the world's top physicists will now have the power to process huge calculations that were not possible in their fledgling budgets.

Tony Webb, Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

The concept is interesting, but the most refreshing thing about all of these comments is that most everyone here can spell, and write.
Have you looked at comments elsewhere? If the grid would enhance online speed, my research regarding literacy in various areas might be done much sooner.

Gillian, Webtown, USA

Excuse me, but the Internet does not come out of CERN. It's an American Dept. of Defense project from ages ago.

al, grand junction, colorado

Armageddon is coming! Or a better way to live. I mean there has to be a cheaper easier way to get power that we all are overlooking.

charles, dwhs.com, US

this sounds conspicuously like the beginnings of a real life "Matrix"......

andy, the ROC, USA

"Scientists at CERN, where the world wide web was invented"

Sorry, the WWW started as an American military communication project, which spread to universities. The first web browser was Mosaic, developed at MIT.

Nice try.

kinyah brutha, reading, UK

Am I signed up for this? As one of the users? The sad truth is these machines do not always have the right thing to work on and getting time for your poor study is tough. Another trouble is no one prints out the results and it fades,these wonderful facts, without discussion.

Ava Tunney, Palatine, IL, United States

Everyone should be entitled to a supercomputer... I want fairness!

Jon, Gwangju, S Korea

But won't all these computers add to global warming? What
would Al Gore say? I always forget, was it the internet Al invented,
or global warming?

Kyle, Chandler,

Famous moments with Microsoft Windows:

..."Scientists are trying to reenact the moment in time called the big bang. The huge Hadron Collider has been "lit up" and the world is waiting on the edge of their seats. The tech makes adjustments, the screen turns blue, ..oh...that's not good. Reboot!

Ed, Roseville, US

Much of the LHC was designed using SETI grid technology (my 5 computers helped). Based on the article, I think the difference now is the 15 Petabytes per year of distributed DATA, no just CPU. That looks to be the difference.

Mike Wanninger, Birmingham, USA

So when will skynet become self-aware?

jimbo, rapid city,

So? SETI has been doing this "grid" thing for years. And their project is still safe.

Larry, Dallas TX, USA

Ya know, I just have three words of caution with all of this: Cyberdine, Judgement Day.

Erik M, Virginia Beach , USA

Did Linux ever get a good port to parallel processing? IMO, Microsoft's OS is for business use and collaboration with big overhead and simplicity of use. Much different from Linux and any Unixes still left around.

Linduh, Blanco, Texas

What is the collective noun for geeks?

andrew, london,

Andy im sure these are linux servers and surely not a microsoft product. Or maybe Unix...but definitely not macintosh or microsoft. I dont see how they run all these simulations. I mean how can someone write a program to mimic an earthquake? I would love to see how accurate an earthquake sim would b

Clint Burgamy, Macon, USA!

It doesn't matter how many CPU's they link up or how powerful the system is, if any part of the system depends on a Microsoft product, it is doomed.

Andy, Malvern, USA

"The Grid has the kind of power required to download movies in seconds, and the ability to make high-definition video phone calls for the same price as a local call." ?????!??!?!?!!?
I understand trying to put in perspective the power, but those examples are ridiculous.

Dan Gericke, Taipei, Taiwan

Whatever your take on this, just step back a second and look at the topic we are discussing and the technology involved.

Imagine putting Sir Issac Newton in a time machine and showing this stuff to him...the technology is staggering, and thrilling.

Steven Zore, NY, us

Yeah my PS3 has already been doing this for ages. Go Stanford Uni! (see "Folding at Home").

Andy, Alton, UK

It sounds like a non-charity distributed computing solution for the LHC processing task. And a suggestion that said distributed computers will persist for other applications.

scott, melbourne, australia

Ah, so that's what CERN is for: pumping out porn movies, first of all wizzed round the giant accelerator before bombarding each other and spewing out at breakneck speed across Europe. Helped, of-course, by The Grid, a super-sized PlayStation game. Thank you Times Online for enlightening me.

Barrie Redfern, Zdole, Slovenia

So... none of us mere mortals will actually get to use it? So, then why would I be interested...?

Alastair Johnson, Alicante, Spain

Um, I wonder just how much the dreaded P2P file sharing programs have contributed to this technology?

Patrick, Joinville, Brazil

The claim of a network of 100,000 computers providing the "greatest data processing capacity yet unleashed" would rather seem to overlook the efforts of Google, who are reported to have networked 700,000 servers - and are adding 1,500 more every day.

Toby, London, UK

My Playstation 3 is already frequently used as part of a distributed computing network to find a cure for cancer. Beat that you Xbox users!

Mike, Hong Kong, China

It is entirely possible that use of the Grid's computing power may lead to new insights (mathematical models) useful in addressing the difficulties inherent in compressing video and sound data for faster transmission.

John Fries, Timonium, MD, USA

You nerds all may as well carry on whistling for it in Britain though

For until we can find tens of £billions from the now shattered remains of our economy, and then have to wait frustratedly for 10 years at best for it's installation, scandalously, we still won't have the vital optic-fibre links

dave, cumbria,

Sounds just like the concept of having a screensaver on your laptop/desktop that helped with number crunching on SETI some 10 years ago...and that was pre-broadband. Nothing to do with speeding up the web/internet - check your facts next time Times!

Rick, Surrey,

I like the idea that it can reduce number crunching times to weeks rather than years for Cancer.
Who cares how long a movie takes to download

Phill, Heswall, England

Is this truly more advanced than Smarr's lab at CalIT2/San Diego? Hard to believe, esp. from a short story. Sources? Second point of skepticism: terminology: "the grid" was abandoned by U.S. engineers in 2005-2006. Then again, we in the U.S. are still being told we have "broadband."

not lois, seattle, usa

Not very good for a "Technology Reporter". C-, I'd say. For a start, there is no single "the Grid". Grid hardware and software has been evolving for many years - I wrote a report on it 5 years ago - and there are thousands of different grids. And download speed has nothing to do with it, of course.

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

" . . used to save lives in the immediate aftermath of earthquakes."

Pity all this power couldn't predict the earthquake!

I suppose these scientists are trying to justify the expenditure of vast sums on their little toys.

R Bingham, Lauzun, France

NONSENSE ! The grid provides faster computing / data crunching, this has nothing to do with bandwith ! Fiber might bring higher download rates, grid or not grid.

John, Paris, France

A typical example of hyperbole leading to misinformation. The trouble is that this one is obvious to those who know. Most of the modern journalistic hype is swallowed whole by us gullibles.

Charles Bockett-Pugh, Sandhurst,

This information is wrong. Logging onto this "Grid" (even if you could do so, which you can't) wouldn't increase the speed at which you can download or upload data on the Internet. That's controlled by how much bandwidth you're buying form your ISP. DSL is still 3mpbs, dialup still 49kbps.

Robbie Hatley, Tustin, CA, USA

Sounds great. Now if we could just find some way to get around the maximum bandwidth and data transfer limits that Comcast is enforcing I might consider downloading some movies.

Tom, San Jose, USA

Where are they gonna run all of those tubes ?

S. Early, Seattle, USA

Horribly inaccurate information. A movie takes hours to download because of limited bandwidth. It has nothing to do with processing power.

Sean O, Los Angeles,

Awesome... but can anyone say "Skynet?"

YOu know... terminators... scary! hahahah.

Only in this instance, they'll be terminators with the ability to create black holes and temperatures that existed in the big bang.

Arnold should be at the comencement ceremony.

Brian C., ocala, USA

Wow - the potential for faster porn downloads.

Oh, joy.

Logan Waters, Lincroft, NJ, USA

Yes, a lovely system, to be sure. But are the powers that be really going to make available to the general public, the ability to download movies even faster? Not until they can guarantee that it means each download will generate profit to nourish the corporate cancer from which the earth is dying.

Shandooga, Rego Park, NY, USA

Ah. So the era hasn't dawned after all. Good article.

Graham Rounce, London, UK

At least CERN do not have to worry about capacity for their particle accelerator for the next few months

stanley , London,

Today, earthquakes and viruses. Tomorrow, SKYNET...still this is pretty good.

Ash, Gwangju, Korea

CERN is not the home of the Internet, as the article title indicates, but rather of the World Wide Web, which was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee. The "father of the Internet" is Vint Cerf, who developed the TCP/IP protocol with Bob Kahn while at Stanford University in California.

George Maschke, The Hague, The Netherlands

In response to Joe Jones' comment, I got the sense that the article was holding out the possibility that the Grid will be available to the public at some point in the future. And I don't know if the Grid is the same as Britain's National Grid Service, but I doubt it. It would be CERN's Grid.

Bill, Tacoma, Washington State, USA

So........when do we get it?

Graham, Pattaya, Thailand

What? How can a grid of supercomputers affect the speed of downloads to personal computers? Processing power makes hardly any difference to download speeds if the network infrastructure can't support an increase.

Sounds like the journalist is searching for a "personal" angle that isn't there...

Matthew Lancey, Sydney, Australia

Can't wait for the cerebral implant - then the fun will really begin!

Farrukh, Woking,

Rubbish!!! The Grid has been around for years - check out the National Grid Service which has been around since 2004. The idea that Joe Public at his home PC can log on to the Grid and 'download a movie in seconds' is incorrect. It is a protected network which requires academic proof of status.

joe jones, manchester, england