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posted by azrael on Friday July 18 2014, @10:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the pinch-of-salt dept.

Mathematical equations can make Internet communication via computer, mobile phone or satellite many times faster and more secure than today. Results with software developed by researchers from Aalborg University in collaboration with the US universities the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are attracting attention in the international technology media.

A new study uses a four minute long mobile video as an example. The method used by the Danish and US researchers in the study resulted in the video being downloaded five times faster than state of the art technology. The video also streamed without interruptions. In comparison, the original video got stuck 13 times along the way.

"This has the potential to change the entire market. In experiments with our network coding of Internet traffic, equipment manufacturers experienced speeds that are five to ten times faster than usual. And this technology can be used in satellite communication, mobile communication and regular Internet communication from computers," says Frank Fitzek, Professor in the Department of Electronic Systems and one of the pioneers in the development of network coding.

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Centralised Network Management Could Speed Up Data Centers 7 comments

MIT researchers are to present a new network-management system dubbed "Fastpass" that reduced the average queue length of routers in a Facebook data center by 99.6 percent virtually doing away with queues, according to experiments performed. Instead of using a decentralised method, Fastpass uses a central server called an "arbiter" to decide which nodes in the network may send data to which others during which periods of time.

With Fastpass, a node that wishes to transmit data first issues a request to the arbiter and receives a routing assignment in return. "If you have to pay these maybe 40 microseconds to go to the arbiter, can you really gain much from the whole scheme?" says Jonathan Perry, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) and another of the paper's authors. "Surprisingly, you can." The researchers' experiments indicate that an arbiter with eight cores, or processing units, can keep up with a network transmitting 2.2 terabits of data per second. That's the equivalent of a 2,000-server data center with gigabit-per-second connections transmitting at full bore all the time.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:10AM (#70714)

    I thought all modern video codecs use quite a bit of math.

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:16AM (#70715)

      The article is hazy on details but it clearly isn't a codec. It sounds like a form of forward error correction [wikipedia.org] which means it only improves the situation when there is packet loss, like on congested links. If the link isn't dropping packets then forward error correction is slower because of the redundant data.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @10:17AM (#70716)

      OK, now I read the article, and found it's a case of bad summary. But then, while the article is very low on details (anybody has a better source?), it sounds that what they do is some sophisticated inter-package compression. Now, of course any compression algorithm is applied mathematics, so the headline (literally copied from the original article) still doesn't make sense.

      • (Score: 1) by panachocala on Friday July 18 2014, @11:09AM

        by panachocala (464) on Friday July 18 2014, @11:09AM (#70737)

        What do you mean "low on details"? It clearly states it uses patented technology, friend. PATENTED TECHNOLOGY.

        • (Score: 1) by zaxus on Friday July 18 2014, @01:41PM

          by zaxus (3455) on Friday July 18 2014, @01:41PM (#70778)

          What do you mean "low on details"? It clearly states it uses patented technology, friend. PATENTED TECHNOLOGY.

          Maj. Eaton: We have top men working on it now.
          Indiana: Who?
          Maj. Eaton: TOP. MEN.

          I know this is slightly off-topic, but your post reminded me so much of that scene.

          --
          "I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity...I'm for it." - Tom Lerher
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Hawkwind on Friday July 18 2014, @03:31PM

        by Hawkwind (3531) on Friday July 18 2014, @03:31PM (#70837)

        Sorry to toss out something useful after the previous two good laughs but ... the company is here: http://steinwurf.com/ [steinwurf.com]. The technology and software tabs have additional information and the developer tab leads to:

         

        User and Developer Documentation

        Find out how to; get started with Kodo, use Kodo in your setup, and modify Kodo for your needs.

         

        API Documentation

        Our latest Doxygen documentation is available in the link above. Older Doxygen documentation is available at this link.

         

        Testing Status

        Access an overview of the current status of all tests.

         

        Code

        See Github for code available to researchers and lectures.

         

        Binaries

        Various automatically built binaries, such as tests and examples.

         

        Simulations

        Experiment with different network topologies.

    • (Score: 1) by Arik on Friday July 18 2014, @11:35AM

      by Arik (4543) on Friday July 18 2014, @11:35AM (#70744) Journal
      Everything a computer does is math, period.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:37PM (#70775)

        Really everything? So when my computer broke down with a PSU failure, it also was math? Does replacing the PSU then count as applied math?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:42PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:42PM (#70780)

          Well... your computer didn't really break itself down, electricity broke it. And if your computer replaces it's own PSU, I envy you.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Blackmoore on Friday July 18 2014, @02:21PM

          by Blackmoore (57) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:21PM (#70798) Journal

          You might want to discuss this with an electrical engineer.. there is all sorts of math involved in what the power supply id doing.

          and depending on how it breaks down; i'm fairly sure they can give you a mathematical model too.

          (hell I'd go find an equation, but this editor wont handle it)

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday July 18 2014, @09:29PM

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday July 18 2014, @09:29PM (#71000) Journal

            That you can describe something with mathematics does not mean mathematics is involved (indeed, there are few things you cannot describe with mathematics).

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday July 18 2014, @03:42PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 18 2014, @03:42PM (#70841) Journal

        Everything a computer does is math, period.

        That's what I'm telling my significant other all the time. Though, she still doesn't accept that browsing the Internet [youtube.com] is doing math.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 1) by Arik on Friday July 18 2014, @04:41PM

          by Arik (4543) on Friday July 18 2014, @04:41PM (#70866) Journal
          The computer doesnt "browse" the internet, *you* do that.

          The computer simply facilitates it by doing the match very quickly.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @07:24PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @07:24PM (#70930)

            all *you* do is sit on a chair, click/move a mouse, press keys and stare at a screen. remove the math from the process of browsing the internet and you would look quite the fool staring at a blank screen and moving a mouse that does nothing :-P

            • (Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Saturday July 19 2014, @06:10AM

              by Ryuugami (2925) on Saturday July 19 2014, @06:10AM (#71131)

              remove the math from the process of browsing the internet and you would look quite the fool staring at a blank screen and moving a mouse that does nothing :-P

              Don't we look like fools either way?

              --
              If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
      • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday July 18 2014, @10:39PM

        by Geotti (1146) on Friday July 18 2014, @10:39PM (#71022) Journal

        Everything is math, period. (For all known values of "everything.")

        FTFY.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by cafebabe on Friday July 18 2014, @10:26AM

    by cafebabe (894) on Friday July 18 2014, @10:26AM (#70721) Journal

    Random Linear Network Coding [caltech.edu] has been known for a while. These guys seem to have made a practical advance [wikipedia.org].

    --
    1702845791×2
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:30PM (#70774)

    Language helps people communicate and gravity helps things stay down!!!

  • (Score: 2) by LaminatorX on Friday July 18 2014, @01:38PM

    by LaminatorX (14) <laminatorxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday July 18 2014, @01:38PM (#70777)

    Who knew?

  • (Score: 2) by meisterister on Friday July 18 2014, @02:28PM

    by meisterister (949) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:28PM (#70804) Journal

    Fiber optic lines do that pretty well, too.

    --
    (May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 18 2014, @03:08PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 18 2014, @03:08PM (#70832)

      OT, sorry. What distro and windows manager are you running on that K6-2?

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 2) by meisterister on Friday July 18 2014, @03:31PM

        by meisterister (949) on Friday July 18 2014, @03:31PM (#70836) Journal

        Debian with twm on the Linux side and Windows 2000 on the playing awesome '90s games side. To bring it back on topic, wouldn't it make the internet faster if pages were also smaller? Just sayin'.

        --
        (May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
  • (Score: 1) by Schafer2 on Friday July 18 2014, @02:32PM

    by Schafer2 (348) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:32PM (#70806)
    From the Aalborg University article:

    Now we can do without red lights. We can send cars into the intersection from all directions without their having to stop for each other. This means that traffic flows much faster, explains Frank Fitzek.

    No red lights! Now what would that look like? [flixxy.com]

  • (Score: 1) by darkfeline on Friday July 18 2014, @11:15PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Friday July 18 2014, @11:15PM (#71036) Homepage

    Or I could just download the video and watch it while it's downloading ("buffering") using any capable video player. So exactly what advantage does downloading and watching a video ("streaming") through an embedded javascript/flash app that no doubt is poorly coded, skips all the time for buffering, and purges the cache so you need to re-buffer each time you want to watch it, in a web browser, over just downloading and playing at your leisure?

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Saturday July 19 2014, @06:34AM

      by Ryuugami (2925) on Saturday July 19 2014, @06:34AM (#71136)

      "Download & watch" would require at least two additional steps. "Download" and "watch" (aka, opening the file). Plus you would probably need to install a video player, and maybe a browser plugin if you want to D&W streaming videos. Too much work for not much return for an average user.

      OTOH, there isn't much point in downloading a video if you don't plan to watch it more than once (the most common use-case)... or if your connection is atrocious enough (looking at you, Comcast & Verizon).

      Slightly off-topic:
      Does anyone know of a video player that offers the "show preview on seek bar hover" feature? It's the only feature of youtube that I find extremely useful and really, really want to see on, say, VLC. Skipping around the video looking for a particular scene is so annoying in comparison (not to mention slow).

      --
      If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
      • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday July 19 2014, @09:49PM

        by cafebabe (894) on Saturday July 19 2014, @09:49PM (#71314) Journal

        Does anyone know of a video player that offers the "show preview on seek bar hover" feature? It's the only feature of youtube that I find extremely useful and really, really want to see on, say, VLC.

        From the pause that occurs before the preview becomes active and from the legacy videos where this function is absent, I assume that YouTube's preview is implemented as a separate stream of video.

        --
        1702845791×2