Cisco is predicting that global net traffic will be over 1 zettabyte in 2016 according to this PCWorld article. That's a new word for me, that's the first time I've seen the word zettabyte. From a quick search in Wikipedia, zettabyte is a 1 with 21 zeros after it...
So getting your head around that is a pretty daunting task, and the news article makes many comparisons to help the reader cope.
But what is next? Is there a number after that? Have enough people gotten their minds around that number to think of the next one? The whole beginning a word with a "z" in the English alphabet does suggest it's the last of its kind.
The result from searching in Wikipedia is yes, there is one more: yottabyte a 1 with 24 zeros after it. But that's the end of the list... for now.
Of course, that's a word beginning with "y" coming after a word beginning with "z", so are we going backwards now? Will there be that many more really big numbers coming? The news article does go to some great lengths trying to help the reader get their head around the number zettabyte, I'm sure when we get to yottabyte there will be more efforts made to understand the enormity being described... but is the thought of going backwards for 26 letters of the alphabet just too much? Is this just a bit too stressful?
Well, relax, the list of numbers is not in alphabetical order. There is no pressure to go to the next letter up. The order of the one list does not dictate the order of the other list. Whew. So you can relax and just work on getting your head around a 1 with 21 zeros after it... does that make it easier?
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