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From today’s Honolulu Advertiser web site, here’s a bit of interesting news.

According to a study by Edmunds.com, Hawaii has the highest automobile ownership costs in the country. The company’s press release is posted here. Edmunds.com based this study on its True Cost to Own benchmark – an online calculator that provides results for specific models is available here.

The figure of US$59,457 covers five years of car payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance and depreciation.

California car owners paid $110 less.

In today’s print Advertiser, the lead story focused on the mass transit selection process. I’ve changed my thinking over the last year, and now prefer the guided buses instead of rail. The bus routes are much easier to build, and the bus system would be easier to maintain. I’d rather spend my commute time reading than driving.

Cisco Systems, the world’s largest network equipment company, has released its largest switch ever. The Nexus 7000 can move 15 terabytes of data per second, and is designed to connect distant data centers together. According to Forbes, that is fast enough to move the entire Wikipedia in about 40 seconds. The 1-meter tall box will require special cabling and cost US$200,000 a year to maintain and operate.

As companies move their servers and data storage into larger data centers, these types of switches are necessary. The continued growth of web-based applications is also supporting this trend. Networks are a lot like plumbing, but there’s only a finite amount of water on the planet. The amount of data produced and stored continues to grow.

According to a Reuters article, John Chambers, the long-time CEO of Cisco, believes network growth will continues at a fast pace for the next ten years as ISPs and data centers add capacity.