Webs’ Random Ideas

On the “Lets Over-Hype the Shit out of Something to the Detrmint of Our Own Good” front comes the story of Google and Verizon working together on the issue of Net Neutrality. Someone awhile back must have leaked what was going on, a few journalists not knowing the whole situation took the story and ran with it. And as in every case where someone claims big brother or evil doer of Google, Google comes away on top as they should.

In case you have no idea what I am referring to read the NY Times article from last week on Google, Verizon, and Net Neutrality. I refuse to link to it because it really blows things out of proportions and that article deserves no more hits. If you are interested, it is from 08/04/2010, just search. After the bad press both companies have been getting they released some statements that didn’t make things look any better.

But now today we know what is going on. The two companies were worried about the Comcast court case that not only cleared Comcast of wrong doing (which is BS) but set precedent that the FCC is unable to enforce Net Neutrality. Enter Google and Verizon, from Google Public Policy Blog:

In October, our two companies issued a shared statement of principles on network neutrality. A few months later we submitted a joint filing to the FCC, and in an April joint op-ed our CEOs discussed their common interest in an open Internet. Since that time, we have listened to all sides of the debate, engaged in good faith with policy makers in multiple venues, and challenged each other to craft a balanced policy framework. We have been guided by the two main goals:

1. Users should choose what content, applications, or devices they use, since openness has been central to the explosive innovation that has made the Internet a transformative medium.

2. America must continue to encourage both investment and innovation to support the underlying broadband infrastructure; it is imperative for our global competitiveness.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Read on to see each of the major items in the legislative framework for more info. Also there is a link to the framework so you can read about it yourself.

I am thinking I am not actually missing that much and Google and Verizon both want a free and open Internet. Maybe because Google knows it certainly benefits them because they don’t have to pay extra and Verizon knows it benefits them because their DSL infrastructure is weak and would lose out to other high speed carriers thus not giving them many options for charging people for tiered services. At least they wouldn’t have the leverage of a Comcast.

In the long run Net Neutrality benefits no one and I think both companies realize this. So their proposed legislation just makes sense. Next time something like this story leaks, how about we seek out information rather than hype and then make a determination if a company is evil or if the end of the world is near.

Go to www.google.com now and play Pacman. Its pretty cool!

good riddance!

I just got an email about my Google Apps Domain account from Google stating that HTML5 and java improvements from Google will phase out IE6 support. It took forever but finally it dies!!

I missed the announcement that Google has stopped development on Google Notebooks. Which sucks cause I loved it and used it all the time. It’s just been awhile for me since I have become busy. Looking at the site it seems I am about 7 months behind… dang

Luckily I can still get in and figure out a way to move my notes, but damn that will take some time. In the meantime I guess I will check out Google Bookmarks or look for other systems.

CADIE:

Research group switches on world’s first “artificial intelligence” tasked-array system.
For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.

Since then progress has been rapid, and tonight we’re pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world’s first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions. It’s an exciting moment that we’re determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE’s emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.

These are merely the first steps onto what will doubtless prove a long and difficult road. Considerable bugs remain in CADIE’S programming, and considerable development clearly is called for. But we can’t imagine a more important journey for Google to have undertaken.

The best thing about this is the website though…

All found toward the bottom of Google’s homepage.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am kinda giddy as I just created and published my first Knol. It’s not too big of a deal as it was basically a post I had on my website already. But oh well, at least it’s out there.

Creating the Knol was super easy. You get a beautiful WYSIWIG editor that allows you to start typing. And if you’re like me you can go to the upper right corner and click the link for HTML to edit to your heart’s desire. Pretty nifty. Bringing the HTML from my blog was easy, I just had to add the Paragraph and Line Break Tags. Also, if you use headers in your Knol, Google will create a ToC (table of contents) for you.

You can save your work at anytime and publish using the link on the right when ready. You can also change the shared settings and many other settings too, such as copyright protection. I must say Google’s interface beats the crap out of MediaWiki hands down.

I created my Knol as part of a contest Google has called “Knol for Dummies.com”. The idea is to create a How To you think could help someone. If you click on the link there and then click to enter the contest you will get to the page that allows you to create your Knol. And Google will already have the Knol set for the contest.

So go out there and try to beat me! If you leave a comment here about the Knol you create I promise I will go out and read yours and rate it for you too! Share the knowledge love!

Look whats happens when you do a Google Define search for the word weird, but spelled “wierd”.

So I have a couple good reasons to celebrate Google’s 10th birthday. For one, they have dramatically changed the way people work on the Internet and do their day to day Internet tasks. Searching on Google is incredibly easy but very efficient. They first time I searched with Google I was blown away. I couldn’t believe the first link that came up was the one I wanted.

Then I remember in the summer of 04 my sister told me about Gmail. I said I didn’t need another email address as I was already using Yahoo and was tired of having people switch me from one crappy client to another. She explained it was different and invited me (one of her friends worked at Google).

I tried it out and fell in love. I was floored that I was only getting a few spam messages a day and they were all going to my spam folder. Not only that none were false positives. When Gmail rolled around  I was instantly hooked with Google’s ability to create easy, lightweight, and blazing fast software. Now Chrome has solidified this opinion…

Now to celebrate go search like it’s 2001…

Click here to try it out!

I will write a review later…

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

One look at Google’s homepage is all you need to get the sense that a Google browser will be fast and minimalist. I love Firefox but I am not necessarily stuck in my ways. I don’t really care what browser I use as long as I get the features I want. So I’ll give it a go…