Goodbye Broadband. Hello Rocketband

Memo to the pirate nation: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. There’s a new world record for fastest data transmission over the Internet: 1.1 terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits a second–roughly 20,000 times faster than a broadband connection today. The record was set on October 1 when scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva sent the data to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In lay terms: dude, no way! This means that someone can send the contents of an entire Matrix DVD in seven seconds, or the new Strokes CD in less than one minute. So much for broadband: call this “rocketband.” Granted, ordinary web travelers won’t be unleashing 5.44 gbps any time soon. But by breaking the transmission barrier, scientists are paving the way for an empowered consumer age we can hardly fathom. Suddenly, the movie and music industries’ recent attempts to fight the power seem all the more quaint.