Google Broadband?

Olivier Travers suggests:

"But looking at Google Desktop and its local web server comes a more intriguing thought. How about partnering with or acquiring a large ISP/WISP (say, Earthlink) to deliver an affordable service bundle with symmetrical bandwidth, static IPs, reliable DNS, and self-publishing with Blogger, Picasa and Hello. Let millions of personal web servers bloom and piggy back on that big wave of user-generated content.

Google would basically reindex their customers' sites (just a directory on their desktop really) on the fly, and share the results with the rest of the world (or not) based on user settings (do not confuse the wedding pictures and the honeymoon video, ok). And now it makes sense to give software for free because you have other ways to bill consumers and learn about them. How's that for increasing targeted ad inventory while diversifying your revenue sources, and wiring yourself into people's life as well as within the fabric of the internet?"

"Anyway, imagine the landscape 5/10 years from now with ubiquitous PDA/cam/phones/whatever, lots of connectivity all around, more occasions and ways to generate content and to put it online instantly. Uploading pictures to a damn server with restricted storage just to share them with friends and family is akin to going to the telegraph office to send messages. It's just a transient state in the infrastructure that doesn't make any sense in the long run (provided we eventually get decent security on the desktop).

Google is not going to win against Microsoft or even decisively beat Yahoo by going through predictable motions. GBrowser is just a way to wave a red flag at Microsoft with 'please come and squash me' written on it. I find it funny that the same people who get all wet about the GoogleOS are claiming that operating systems are a commodity and there's no money in there anymore. So why should Google do it then?

Instead, Google has to keep being disruptive and unpredictable. Microsoft never made much out of its broadband investments, Yahoo is humming a boring song with SBC, AOL TW is toast. Incidentally all seem to confuse the Internet with TV. Maybe Google could really turn the tables. It's all about empowering end users..."

Link
Source: Olivier Travers

See also:
Why Google Will Defeat Yahoo! in the Web Hosting War - SitePoint
Google Job Opportunities - Google
Google's Next Steps or Google in 2010
The New Moore's Law
Google Desktop Search
Web 2.0
Akamai

The New Tech Visionaries

"These folks are a little older and more experienced than back in the '90s heyday. However, they're just as inspired and determined."

Who are they?

Ross Mayfield - Socialtext
enterprise social software

Svetlozar Nestorov - Mobissimo
travel search engine

Mike Horton - Crossbow Technology
sensor technology

Hosain Raham, Alex Asseily - Aliph
mobile-phone headset

Mark Fleury - JBoss
open-source software

Link
Source: Business Week

See also:
Mobissimo - Google News
Socialtext - Google News
Crossbow Technology - Google News
Aliph - Google News
JBoss - Google News

The New Moore's Law

"The affordability and ever increasing capacity of data storage is affecting all aspects of business and daily life. Peter Cochrane predicts what's coming next and what sort of changes will occur once the petabyte is commonplace."

Peter Cochrane has some wonderful observations:

"...TB storage systems anywhere. It seems that Moore's Law has migrated to storage. We are now within an ace of the TB PC and laptop..."

"Only four years ago my son built and installed our first terabyte (TB), or about 1,000GB, home storage server at a cost of $4,000. A month ago we installed the second TB for only $600. What a drop in price and physical size - two parallel drives instead of five."

"We are now within an ace of the TB PC and laptop. My guess is that by 2015 we will also be using around 10GB of RAM. You may think this ought to be enough for most individuals and businesses but when you imagine movies may soon be distributed digitally at around 6 to 12GB each, you can see it all being eaten away. And how about all 26 million books in the Library of Congress? It will need around 1TB too.

The technology to realise hard drives up to and beyond 100TB is emerging in the R&D labs whilst petabyte (PB), or about 1,000TB, systems have already been engineered at great expense for specialised applications. I see no limit on the horizon to the growth of information storage as we have yet to enter the quantum world of the really small."

"But I think there is a more fundamental question we should be asking. We will be faced with an infinite and distributed sea of bits - much of which will not be itemised, catalogued, categorised or labelled in any way. Moreover, there will be duplication and storage corruption on a global scale. The really big question is: how the heck are we going to identify and locate anything in this mostly uncharted sea?

Will today's search techniques fit the bill? I think not - they are far too crude. We are going to need much higher degrees of sophistication to the point of machine cognition in recognising scenes, contexts and relationships in our data. The first machine capable of realising such a capability will probably arrive around 2010 in the form of an adaptive supercomputer and, given our rate of progress, on a PC scale by 2030 or earlier.

Now for the kicker: I cannot see how a fully centralised or fully distributed system spanning the global network will satisfy our future needs. Seems to me an agent-based hybrid scheme is the only contender that will do. Right now I don't see how we are going to do that but artificial life plus artificial intelligence in an evolvable form seem to be strong contenders."

Link
Source: Silicon.com

See also:
The Other Exponentials - Technology Review
Lifetime Digital Memory
What 2034 will bring
Moore's Lore - Corante
John Battelle's Searchblog
Search Engine Watch

Google Desktop Search

"Google Desktop Search is how our brains would work if we had photographic memories. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, chats, and the web pages you've viewed. By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop Search puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails, and bookmarks.

After downloading Google Desktop Search, you can search your personal items as easily as you search the Internet using Google. Unlike traditional computer search software that updates once a day, Google Desktop Search updates continually for most file types, so that when you receive a new email in Outlook, for example, you can search for it within seconds. The index of searchable information created by Desktop Search is stored on your own computer.

In addition to basic search, Google Desktop Search introduces new ways to access relevant and timely information. When you view a web page in Internet Explorer, Google Desktop Search 'caches' or stores its content so that you can later look at that same version of the page, even if its live content has changed or you're offline. Google Desktop Search organizes email search results into conversations, so that all email messages in the same thread are grouped into a single search result."

Link
Source: Google

Google vs. IBM
"Google will transform itself into a 'big iron' computing company. Desktop first. Enterprise data centers next. They are already thinking past Microsoft."

"With the looming death of the CPC model what's next for Google? Google is developing out the next paradigm in search - distributed computing paradigm. Google core assets is smart people and computing power not some old outdated spider algorithm.

Google's real competitor is IBM not Microsoft. Google will transform itself into a 'big virtual iron' company. Their IP is in large systems development deployed on the Internet as a platform where Internet advertising is today's app. You will see Google sequence into other apps with similar network-effect revenue models.

Next up for Google tie in the enterprise data center with some of that Google 'big iron' computing technology."
Link
Source: AlwaysON

Reviews:
Google Desktop Search Launched - Search Engine Watch
Google Your Desktop - O'Reilly Network
Search Engine Lowdown

Comments:
Search Engine Watch Blog
Google Launches Desktop Search Tool - Slashdot
John Battelle's Searchblog
Google's new search terms - CNET News.com
Google Toolbar and Desktop Search Applications - WebmasterWorld
Google Desktop - kottke.org

Audio:
The Gillmor Gang - IT Conversations

See also:
Google Desktop Search - Google News
Desktop Search - Google News
Google Desktop Search - Topix.net
Desktop Search - Topix.net
Google Desktop Search - Daypop
Google Desktop Search - Google Search
Desktop Search - Google Search
Blinkx
Google's Next Steps or Google in 2010
Google Broadband?

Web 2.0

"The Web 2.0 Conference is of, for and about the leading figures and companies driving innovation in the Internet economy. The conference will debut with the theme of 'The Web as Platform,' exploring how the Web has developed into a robust platform for innovation across many media and devices - from mobile to television, telephone to search."
Link

People:
Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban, Marc Benioff, Mitchell Kapor, Tim O'Reilly, Marc Andreessen, John Doerr, Mary Meeker, Craig Newmark, Marc Canter, Jerry Yang, Lawrence Lessig...The technological elite...
Link

Topics:
- The State of the Internet Industry
- The Mobile Platform: The Future of Mobile
- The Platform Revolution
- The Architecture of Participation
- Media is a Platform
- Music is a Platform
- Lessons Learned, Future Predicted
- Geolocation: The Killer Map
- Search is a Platform. Where is it Going?
- The Telephone is a Platform
- From the Labs
Link

Companies:
Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, eBay, Idealab, IBM, CNET, Akamai, Tivo, AOL, AT&T, Benchmark Capital, Macromedia, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Salesforce.com, Ask Jeeves, Six Apart

What's new?
Snap, Jot, Rojo, SpikeSource

Trends:
Web Services, Personal Web Search, RSS Advertising, China
Yahoo Search Blog
Initial thoughts on Web 2.0 - Deep Green Crystals
The China Internet Report - Morgan Stanley

Presentations
Link

Web 2.0 Conference Coverage
Link

Audio:
The Web 2.0 Weblog
IT Conversations

Photos:
Flickr: The Web 2.0 Pool
Flickr: Photos tagged with web20

See also:
Jeremy Zawodny's blog: Web2 Archives
Web 2.0 - Adam Rifkin
John Battelle's Searchblog
Marc Canter
Evan Williams
Jeff Jarvis's blog
Denise Howell
Om Malik
Web 2.0 conference - Google News
Web 2.0 Conference News - Topix.net
Daypop
Feedster RSS Search
Welcome to the internet 2014 - BBC News
The Long Tail - Wired

SpaceShipOne wins X Prize

SpaceShipOne won the $10m Ansari X-Prize! The New Space Age began today. Period.

See also:
How SpaceShipOne Works - Howstuffworks
X Prize - Google News
SpaceShipOne Captures the X Prize - Slashdot
X Prize Won! - Space.com
X Prize - Google Images
The Final Frontier

Audio:
SpaceShipOne Takes X-Prize - NPR

Discuss:
Space Travel - Tribe.net

The Innovation Economy

October 11, 2004 BW Magazine Table of Contents

THE PROMISE OF INNOVATION
This Way To The Future
From energy to biotech, we may be on the cusp of a new age of innovation.

Voices Of Innovation: Steve Jobs
Chairman and CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios

Scouring The Planet For Brainiacs
Worldwide innovation networks are the new keys to R&D vitality -- and competitiveness

Voices Of Innovation: Cherry Murray
Senior vice-president of physical sciences research and a veteran at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs

Photo Essay: Building On The Past

Photo Essay: Global Brain Power


WHAT'S AHEAD
Flying High?
Long the innovation leader, the U.S. now has serious competition from abroad. Is America's research lead in danger?

Voices Of Innovation: Shirley Ann Jackson
President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since 1999.

Commentary: Can Uncle Sam's Cash Still Unlock The Future?

Online Extra: Counting the Femtoseconds
The Energy Dept.'s 20-year R&D plan aims to push the frontiers of fusion power, supercomputing, and nanotechnology

Photo Essay: The Best Of What's New
A raft of ideas that could well change your life

Nanotech: Universe In A Grain Of Sand
Scientists are finding that ultratiny materials behave in unexpected ways.

Online Extra: Nanotech: Big Concept on Campus
Academia is fast becoming the center of this promising technology's universe, with states helping to pay the way

Where Our Energy Will Come From
From seabed gas to pebble-bed nukes, a scouting report on tomorrow's sources.

Voices Of Innovation: Wallace Broecker
A professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and a leading researcher on the issue of global climate change.

Aging Is Becoming So Yesterday
Tantalizing new discoveries suggest the possibility of reengineering the body.

Online Extra: A Longevity Company's First Steps
Elixir Pharmaceuticals is still young, but its all-star team is aiming squarely at one of humanity's oldest dreams

Voices Of Innovation: Craig Venter
A pioneer in decoding the genomes of everything from microbes to humans, and president of The Center for the Advancement of Genomics.

Reinventing The Wheels
Fuel cells, crash-proof cars -- auto makers are forging the future now.

In A Tight Spot -- And Loving It

How Will TV Survive Its Own Reality Show?
To thrive in the Internet Age, the industry must remake itself.


GLOBAL HOT SPOTS
An Old Hotbed With New Crops
This time around, the Valley is nurturing startups that combine info tech with emerging technologies.

Voices Of Innovation: Roger McNamee
An innovator in venture-capital investing and co-founder of the Silver Lake Partners and Elevation Partners funds.

Getting The Best To The Masses
A wave of innovation is yielding high-quality goods that India's poor can afford.

Voices Of Innovation: Faqir Chand Kohli
Former chairman of Tata Consultancy Services, India's software outsourcing pioneer, and a champion of cracking the country's adult literacy problem.

Huawei: More Than A Local Hero
The telecom gear maker aims to be a player in global innovation.

Voices of Innovation: Yuan Longping
Director general of China's National Hybrid Rice Research & Development Center and a pioneer in hybrid rice technology

The Old World Becomes A Little Newer
The trend toward collaborative innovation will help the Continent revive its R&D.

Voices Of Innovation: Tim Berners-Lee
The London-born inventor of the World Wide Web is now at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working to create the new "Semantic Web," a radical leap that would greatly improve how people and machines locate and use data on the Web.


MANAGING FOR INNOVATION
Building An Idea Factory
Inspiration is fine, but above all, innovation is really a management process.

Online Extra: At P&G, It's "360-Degree Innovation"
Chief Tech Officer Gilbert Cloyd on how the consumer-goods giant moves technology and ideas both internally and externally

Photo Essay: Idea Factories

Voices Of Innovation: Jeff Hawkins
Creator of the first PalmPilot PDA and Handspring smart phone and author of the book On Intelligence, about the human brain and intelligent machines.

Reaping The Wind
GE's energy initiative is a case study in innovation without borders

Voices Of Innovation: Amory Lovins
CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit energy and environment policy think tank

SciFi: Novel Inspiration
Otherworldly fantasies can evoke solutions to real problems. Science fiction has been honorably doing just that for decades

Online Extra: 15 Great Science Fiction Novels
Eric Rabkin's personal favorites

Photo Essay: Lessons From Sci Fi

Commentary: Are The Copyright Wars Chilling Innovation?

The Search For Tomorrow
BusinessWeek's new index examines corporate R&D and capital spending

Commentary: How To Sharpen The Innovation Edge

Online Extra: Industry And Academia Weigh In (extended)
IBM's Sam Palmisano and Georgia Tech's Wayne Clough talk about their National Innovation Initiative, due out in December

Link
Source: BusinessWeek
See also:
AlwaysOn
Corante
Fast Company
Red Herring
Business 2.0
Wired