Personally, I see an 'information pipeline' of sorts with data coming through. Maybe you've heard someone say "the information coming down the pipe" or something similiar. Just my 2ยข
It looks like the throbber is borrowed from Galeon, at least comparing it with Galeon's screenshots, and that the slinky pipe thing makes a lot more sense in the context of Galeon's site.
Has anyone tried replacing the Throbber.avi file with a different animation?