Tubes and Exchanges: Discovering the Real Places of the Internet
DATE: May 2, 7 pm
LOCATION: SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W Hastings St, Vancouver
ADMISSION: free, but reservations are required. Reserve at www.sfu.ca/reserve
When a squirrel chewed through a cable and knocked him offline, journalist Andrew Blum started wondering what the Internet was really made of. So he set out to go see it — the underwater cables, secret switches and other physical bits that make up the net. Blum’s talk will take you on a journey through this network of networks.
He will explore its evolution over time and how centralized hubs called Internet Exchanges (there are 350 in the world) are making the Internet faster and more affordable for everyone in the cities where they operate. He will highlight Vancouver’s Internet Exchange, operated by BCNET and located at SFU Harbour Centre, and what it means for the city’s businesses, public post-secondary institutions and future economic development.
Lecture details: http://www.sfu.ca/continuing-studies/events/2013/05/tubes-and-exchanges-discovering-the-real-places-of-the-internet.html
Andrew Blum is the author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, the first book-length look at the physical heart of the Internet itself. Tubes was reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian, The Economist, The Independent, Kirkus Reviews, and others; featured on NPR’s Fresh Air, CBS News, Fox News, APM’s Marketplace, BBC’s Book of the Week, among others; and presented on the stages of TED Global, the London School of Economics, Microsoft, Town Hall (Seattle), The Architectural League of New York, Studio-X New York, The Skyscraper Museum, The Boston Athenaeum, among others. When not immersed in the Internet’s depths, Blum writes about architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel.
www.andrewblum.net
Sponsored by BCNET, British Columbia Internet Exchanges, and SFU Continuing Studies (City Program)