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Internet 2: A virtual liver tour?

May 19, 1998

by Nancy Weil

(IDG) -- ORLANDO, Florida -- For anyone who has ever wanted to take a walk through a liver -- and, hey, who hasn't? -- the day to fulfill that desire may be fast arriving, thanks to research work being done in part for the Internet2 project.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, it may be possible soon to take a picture of an internal organ and create a virtual tour of it.

And what possible useful purpose might this serve?

"Surgery, for example," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, general manager of IBM's Internet division during an interview this week at the company's Technical Interchange developer's conference here.

In the future, surgeons may be able to take an MRI of, say, a liver and duplicate the picture on computers to take a virtual walk through the organ to plan for surgery.

"A lot of this is in the realm of the possible," Wladawsky-Berger said. "What we don't know is -- are they in the realm of the usable."

While various companies work to build the Internet2's infrastructure, researchers are trying to answer those types of questions. The Internet2 is a project of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, a consortium of some 100 U.S. research universities, nonprofit agencies and government entities. IBM is a corporate sponsor of the project.

As one of IBM's key players in Internet strategy, Wladawsky-Berger has been working on the Internet2 project, which is expected to create new points of presence nationwide by 2000 for a network expected to have speeds up to 2.4G bit/sec. The network will be the province of university and government researchers who access and transmit data-intensive files on the increasingly clogged, increasingly slower Internet.

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A lot of the work being done now on the Internet2 involves coming up with standards for the flow of data and voice over the Internet, Wladawsky-Berger said. Various pilot projects related to the high-speed network will be announced in coming months.

As the pace picks up, he predicted that "one day you'll wake up and find it's exploding on the marketplace," much as the Internet did. "You can begin to see things happening that weren't six months ago. ... All of a sudden, great inventions happen."

And, maybe some that aren't so great.

Speaking of "virtual immersion" and the ability to tour body parts, Wladawsky-Berger said, "A lot of this stuff is weird."

Related CNN Interactive stories:

• Tomorrow/Today: Magnetic Imaging - March 19, 1998
• Airborne diagnosis via Internet - November 4, 1997
• Tomorrow/Today - Learning medicine from a dummy - October 16, 1997
• Gore pledges $50 million for next-generation Internet - April 14, 1998
• Analyst: Internet2 means wider bandwidth for universities - Apr. 14, 1998

Related stories at IDG.net

• Gore to unveil high-speed Internet2 (InfoWorld)
• Internet2: The sequel (PC World)
• Untangling the next Internet: Dissecting the Next Generation Internet and Internet2 (Sunworld)
• You will have faster access (PC World)
• We do not need science fiction for today's telemedicine wonders (Infoworld)

Related sites:

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• Internet 2 Home
• Internet 2 Explained
• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• Next Generation Internet Initiative

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive

 

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