GLIF Map Exhibited on Spherical Display for WIDE 20th Anniversary Celebration

[Kevin Meynell <meynell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

GLIF Map Exhibited on Spherical Display for WIDE 20th Anniversary Celebration

20 May 2008 -- In celebration of the 20th anniversary of WIDE 
(http://www.wide.ad.jp/), the GLIF 2008 map was projected on the 
GeoCosmos, a large spherical display at the Miraikan, Japan's 
National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation 
(http://www.miraikan.jst.go.jp/).

WIDE, the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment, is an 
industry-government-academic project, and among its many activities 
is research into next-generation networking infrastructure. In 
celebration of its 20 years, WIDE held a reception at the Museum on 
May 20, 2008, and projected the GLIF map, enhanced by overlaying 
several Asian-related research networks, onto the GeoCosmos 
(http://www.miraikan.jst.go.jp/e/exhibition/d_geo.html), to show 
attendees how its efforts fit into the evolving global advanced 
network infrastructure.

The GeoCosmos is a large display sphere, 6.5 meters in diameter, 
suspended from the ceiling of the Museum's atrium. It has 
approximately 1-million LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) on which are 
displayed Earth satellite images. The GLIF map was the first man-made 
image projected on the display, and Museum management was so 
impressed that they are considering having it as part of their regular exhibit.

WIDE is one of the stewards of the IEEAF (http://www.ieeaf.org/) 10 
Gbps link from Tokyo to Seattle, which is a GLIF resource. WIDE also 
was one of the hosts and sponsors of the GLIF 6th Annual Global 
LambdaGrid Workshop (http://www.glif.is/meetings/2006/), held in Tokyo in 2006.