A Penny Here, A Megabyte There

Every few months, I take a bucket of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to the bank and dump them into coin counter, turning my spare change into cold cash. But I don't think this is what computer scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have in mind when proposing that Internet bandwidth be used as global currency.

And as a proof of concept, they are using a peer-to-peer video sharing application to explore a next-generation model for safe and legal electronic commerce. How might this work? For example, the more users upload (earn) and the higher the quality of the contributions, the more they would be able to download (spend) and the faster the download speed.

Another idea they're tinkering with is the combination of social network technology with peer-to-peer systems. "In the case of sharing and playing video, our network-based system already allows a group of 'friends' to pool their collective upload 'reserve' to slash download times. For Internet-based television this means a true instant, on-demand video experience," explains Johan Pouwelse, an assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

To model this, researchers are using an enhanced version of a freely available program called Tribler created by scientists at the Delft University of Technology and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam to study video file sharing. The software exploits the power of peer-to-peer technology, which is based on forming networks among individual users.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 01:51 PM  Permalink