Early in the New Year as we are, when most of us are still trying to stick to our resolutions to lose weight, Intel Corp is offering a Web technology that promises to help us with instant ‘wait’ loss. The company has released Quick Web, a technology it began testing in the middle of last year, which enables Internet Service Providers and digital distribution companies to speed up delivery of web pages with photos, drawings and high graphical content. The technology uses patent applied-for techniques developed by Intel’s Architecture Laboratories to analyse the bit-stream of a Web page for graphic images and compress the data. Quick Web also acts as a proxy server between the server and the client, and uses patent applied for algorithms to cache a page once it has been downloaded, so that the next call for that page is even quicker. Quick Web is now being offered by ISPs Netcom Online Communication Services Inc, and Erols Internet, as well as digital distribution company GlobalCenter. Intel says it is currently negotiating with other Internet providers. End users will be able to use Quick Web without any special hardware or software on the client. The technology works with most desktop systems and Java-enabled browsers. Users have the choice of turning the compression feature, and hence the speed, on or off. All the necessary technology resides on the Quick Web server. Intel expects ISPs to offer Quick Web as part of a premium package offering, and says it is likely to cost end users an extra $5 or so a month. The main benefit of Quick Web will be to ease some of the bandwidth congestion which has led to the Internet being branded the World Wide Wait, Intel says.
