Home » Archives for September 2007
Shared Stuff - new technology from Google
Google recently introduced a new technology called Shared Stuff which allows you to share any web page, email or links with friends. Shared Stuff saves your shared page in a separate page similar to your profile page which is publicly visible or not on the web according to your settings.‘A Shared Stuff page is a collection of all the links that you want to share online with friends’.
You can bookmark the Shared Stuff button in your browser for easy access. Whenever you see the Google sharing button, on the sites, click it to share the current webpage in whatever way you prefer
This widget offers following three main ways to share content with your friends and family. 1. Add the item to your Google Shared Stuff page, 2. Email the page, with a custom message and 3. Posting the page to some related social bookmarking sites
Compress your CSS to increase loading speed
CSS Drive is a free utility to compress your CSS to increase loading speed of your web page and save on bandwidth as well.You can choose from three levels of compression like Light, Normal and Super Compact, depending on how legible you want the compressed CSS to be versus degree of compression. The "Normal" mode should work well in most cases, creating a good balance between the two.
Some Quick E-Mailing tips in Outlook
Make a message unavailable to recipients after a specific dateTo set the expiration date on a message you are composing, click Options.... Under Delivery options, select the Expires after check box, and then in the lists, select the date and time you want the message to expire.
Set a reminder to reply to a message
Right-click the message you want to set the reminder for, point to Follow Up, and then click Add Reminder. In the Due By list, click the date when you have to complete the reply. In the second list, click a time. In the Flag color list, click the flag color you want, and then click OK.
Make a folder available for online and offline use
Right-click the folder, click Properties, and then click the Synchronization tab. The folder must be on your network, not on your hard disk.
Quickly print search results from your Inbox
To print a list of your search results from the Advanced Find dialog box, press CTRL+P.
Check an e-mail alias against the names in your address books
To immediately resolve an e-mail alias in the To, Cc, or Bcc box, press CTRL+K.
You assume Web 2.0 is real
Web 2.0 is a ridiculous name put on a ridiculous "movement" by O'Reilly publishing corporation to sell conference tickets. There are no version numbers on the Web. It is continually evolving. And, if you're worried about nerds, artists and poets not having a voice, you're not visiting the same forums and sites I am. The Web is all about choice and free (or nearly so) access to publishing and information. I assume most of the people you talk about aren't visiting faceboook, myspace and youtube because they suck (in their opinion), not because they feel they can't be heard. There are other communities outside of the so-called Web 2.0 crowd and I'm sure there will be more when this whole silly business is laid to rest.
What does this mean financially? Will there be a bursting bubble? Yes, but it won't be as bad as the first. Like you say, there aren't as many companies putting everything into it this time and some of the business models are good. Unfortunately, however, for many companies the web has come to mean: "we need a social-networking site, too!" Not because there's a real need, but just because all the cool kids are doing it. And that will be the ultimate demise of "Web 2.0"...in my humble opinion, that is.
What does this mean financially? Will there be a bursting bubble? Yes, but it won't be as bad as the first. Like you say, there aren't as many companies putting everything into it this time and some of the business models are good. Unfortunately, however, for many companies the web has come to mean: "we need a social-networking site, too!" Not because there's a real need, but just because all the cool kids are doing it. And that will be the ultimate demise of "Web 2.0"...in my humble opinion, that is.
10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT
If you are preparing for a career in IT or are new to IT, many of the “dirty little secrets” listed below may surprise you because we don’t usually talk about them out loud. If you are an IT veteran, you’ve probably encountered most of these issues and have a few of your own to add — and please, by all means, take a moment to add them to the discussion. Most of these secrets are aimed at network administrators, IT managers, and desktop support professionals. This list is not aimed at developers and programmers — they have their own set of additional dirty little secrets — but some of these will apply to them as well.
10.) The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you
Although the pay for IT professionals is not as great as it was before the dot-com flameout and the IT backlash in 2001-2002, IT workers still make very good money compared to many other professions (at least the ones that require only an associate’s or bachelor’s degree). And there is every reason to believe that IT pros will continue to be in demand in the coming decades, as technology continues to play a growing role in business and society. However, because IT professionals can be so expensive, some companies treat IT pros like they own them. If you have to answer a tech call at 9:00 PM because someone is working late, you hear, “That’s just part of the job.” If you need to work six hours on a Saturday to deploy a software update to avoid downtime during business hours, you get, “There’s no comp time for that since you’re on salary. That’s why we pay you the big bucks!”
9.) It will be your fault when users make silly errors
Some users will angrily snap at you when they are frustrated. They will yell, “What’s wrong with this thing?” or “This computer is NOT working!” or (my personal favorite), “What did you do to the computers?” In fact, the problem is that they accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, or unplugged the mouse from the back of the computer with their foot, or spilled their coffee on the keyboard.
8.) You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day
When you miraculously fix something that had been keeping multiple employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes — and they don’t realize how simple the fix really was — you will become the hero of the moment and everyone’s favorite employee. But they will conveniently forget about your hero anointment a few hours later when they have trouble printing because of a network slowdown — you will be enemy No. 1 at that moment. But if you show users a handy little Microsoft Outlook trick before the end of the day, you’ll soon return to hero status.
7.) Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You’ll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don’t have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But the fact is that certifications open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.
6.) Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
Your co-workers (in addition to your friends, family, and neighbors) will view you as their personal tech support department for their home PCs and home networks. They will e-mail you, call you, and/or stop by your office to talk about how to deal with the virus that took over their home PC or the wireless router that stopped working after the last power outage and to ask you how to put their photos and videos on the Web so their grandparents in Iowa can view them. Some of them might even ask you if they can bring their home PC to the office for you to fix it. The polite ones will offer to pay you, but some of them will just hope or expect you can help them for free. Helping these folks can be very rewarding, but you have to be careful about where to draw the line and know when to decline. For help, take a look at TechRepublic’s free download “Ten ways to decline a request for free tech support.”
5.) Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong
Working with IT consultants is an important part of the job and can be one of the more challenging things to manage. Consultants bring niche expertise to help you deploy specialized systems, and when everything works right, it’s a great partnership. But you have to be careful. When things go wrong, some consultants will try to push the blame off on you by arguing that their solution works great everywhere else so it must be a problem with the local IT infrastructure. Conversely, when a project is wildly successful, there are consultants who will try to take all of the credit and ignore the substantial work you did to customize and implement the solution for your company.
4.) You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones
One of the most attractive things about working in IT is the idea that we’ll get to play with the latest cutting edge technologies. However, that’s not usually the case in most IT jobs. The truth is that IT professionals typically spend far more time maintaining, babysitting, and nursing established technologies than implementing new ones. Even IT consultants, who work with more of the latest and greatest technologies, still tend to work primarily with established, proven solutions rather than the real cutting edge stuff.
3.) Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies
A lot of companies could implement more cutting edge stuff than they do. There are plenty of times when upgrading or replacing software or infrastructure can potentially save money and/or increase productivity and profitability. However, it’s often the case that one of the largest roadblocks to migrating to new technologies is not budget constraints or management objections; it’s the veteran techies in the IT department. Once they have something up and running, they are reluctant to change it. This can be a good thing because their jobs depend on keeping the infrastructure stable, but they also use that as an excuse to not spend the time to learn new things or stretch themselves in new directions. They get lazy, complacent, and self-satisfied.
2.) Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business
Another subtle but blameworthy thing that some IT professionals do is select and implement technologies based on how well those technologies make the business dependent on the IT pros to run them, rather than which ones are truly best for the business itself. For example, IT pros might select a solution that requires specialized skills to maintain instead of a more turnkey solution. Or an IT manager might have more of a Linux/UNIX background and so chooses a Linux-based solution over a Windows solution, even though the Windows solution is a better business decision (or, vice versa, a Windows admin might bypass a Linux-based appliance, for example). There are often excuses and justifications given for this type of behavior, but most of them are disingenuous.
1.) IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up
All IT pros — even the very best — screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don’t have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, “We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!” What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine.
10.) The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you
Although the pay for IT professionals is not as great as it was before the dot-com flameout and the IT backlash in 2001-2002, IT workers still make very good money compared to many other professions (at least the ones that require only an associate’s or bachelor’s degree). And there is every reason to believe that IT pros will continue to be in demand in the coming decades, as technology continues to play a growing role in business and society. However, because IT professionals can be so expensive, some companies treat IT pros like they own them. If you have to answer a tech call at 9:00 PM because someone is working late, you hear, “That’s just part of the job.” If you need to work six hours on a Saturday to deploy a software update to avoid downtime during business hours, you get, “There’s no comp time for that since you’re on salary. That’s why we pay you the big bucks!”
9.) It will be your fault when users make silly errors
Some users will angrily snap at you when they are frustrated. They will yell, “What’s wrong with this thing?” or “This computer is NOT working!” or (my personal favorite), “What did you do to the computers?” In fact, the problem is that they accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, or unplugged the mouse from the back of the computer with their foot, or spilled their coffee on the keyboard.
8.) You will go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day
When you miraculously fix something that had been keeping multiple employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes — and they don’t realize how simple the fix really was — you will become the hero of the moment and everyone’s favorite employee. But they will conveniently forget about your hero anointment a few hours later when they have trouble printing because of a network slowdown — you will be enemy No. 1 at that moment. But if you show users a handy little Microsoft Outlook trick before the end of the day, you’ll soon return to hero status.
7.) Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise
Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You’ll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don’t have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But the fact is that certifications open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.
6.) Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs
Your co-workers (in addition to your friends, family, and neighbors) will view you as their personal tech support department for their home PCs and home networks. They will e-mail you, call you, and/or stop by your office to talk about how to deal with the virus that took over their home PC or the wireless router that stopped working after the last power outage and to ask you how to put their photos and videos on the Web so their grandparents in Iowa can view them. Some of them might even ask you if they can bring their home PC to the office for you to fix it. The polite ones will offer to pay you, but some of them will just hope or expect you can help them for free. Helping these folks can be very rewarding, but you have to be careful about where to draw the line and know when to decline. For help, take a look at TechRepublic’s free download “Ten ways to decline a request for free tech support.”
5.) Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong
Working with IT consultants is an important part of the job and can be one of the more challenging things to manage. Consultants bring niche expertise to help you deploy specialized systems, and when everything works right, it’s a great partnership. But you have to be careful. When things go wrong, some consultants will try to push the blame off on you by arguing that their solution works great everywhere else so it must be a problem with the local IT infrastructure. Conversely, when a project is wildly successful, there are consultants who will try to take all of the credit and ignore the substantial work you did to customize and implement the solution for your company.
4.) You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones
One of the most attractive things about working in IT is the idea that we’ll get to play with the latest cutting edge technologies. However, that’s not usually the case in most IT jobs. The truth is that IT professionals typically spend far more time maintaining, babysitting, and nursing established technologies than implementing new ones. Even IT consultants, who work with more of the latest and greatest technologies, still tend to work primarily with established, proven solutions rather than the real cutting edge stuff.
3.) Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies
A lot of companies could implement more cutting edge stuff than they do. There are plenty of times when upgrading or replacing software or infrastructure can potentially save money and/or increase productivity and profitability. However, it’s often the case that one of the largest roadblocks to migrating to new technologies is not budget constraints or management objections; it’s the veteran techies in the IT department. Once they have something up and running, they are reluctant to change it. This can be a good thing because their jobs depend on keeping the infrastructure stable, but they also use that as an excuse to not spend the time to learn new things or stretch themselves in new directions. They get lazy, complacent, and self-satisfied.
2.) Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business
Another subtle but blameworthy thing that some IT professionals do is select and implement technologies based on how well those technologies make the business dependent on the IT pros to run them, rather than which ones are truly best for the business itself. For example, IT pros might select a solution that requires specialized skills to maintain instead of a more turnkey solution. Or an IT manager might have more of a Linux/UNIX background and so chooses a Linux-based solution over a Windows solution, even though the Windows solution is a better business decision (or, vice versa, a Windows admin might bypass a Linux-based appliance, for example). There are often excuses and justifications given for this type of behavior, but most of them are disingenuous.
1.) IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up
All IT pros — even the very best — screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don’t have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, “We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!” What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine.
Google May Partner Anil Ambani for Undersea Cable Project
Google is beefing up the infrastructure to make use of rising internet usage across globe especially in Asia-Pacific regions by setting up its own under-sea cable across Pacific, under a project called Unity. This would help Google to meet its data and video transfer requirements from US to Asian countries.Reliance Communication’s Flag Telecom is believed to have initiated a talk with Google to take a stake in its trans-Pacific cable project between United States west coast and Far East Asia on a long term lease
Reopen Closed Browser Tabs in Internet Explorer
If you accidentally close a tab in Firefox, you can easily retrieve it by pressing Ctrl+Shift+T. If you do the same mistake in Opera, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z will help you reopen the most recently closed tab.
Coming to Internet Explorer, there's no inbuilt feature to restore closed tabs
Semantic Tagging
Tagging in Web2.0 is the ability to associate a keyword like “food”, or set of concatenated keywords like “mycooking” with a resource such as a blog entry or a photograph. The benefit of doing this is that the interface then can allow browsing by tag, and can show the popularity of certain tags in a “tag cloud.”6 A tag cloud is a list of all the tags used in the current context, such as one person’s blog, where the size of the individual tag’s font size is proportional to its usage. For example, a blogger may frequently write about food and restaurants, so every blog entry about food is tagged with “food.” The blogger, however, may want to specify when the food described is their own creation, so they use the tag “myfood”.
They can then quickly tell, by looking at the size of the tags in their tag cloud the proportion of posts about “food” compared to the posts about “myfood”. While this knowledge may be useful, the ability for a computer to automatically utilize the tag “myfood” with other data is limited. However, if one were to describe the meaning of this tag, by referencing ontologies, the meaning, to both computer and humans alike becomes clearer. This not only means that ambiguity of terms is reduced, but that the users are in control of their own vocabulary.
They can then quickly tell, by looking at the size of the tags in their tag cloud the proportion of posts about “food” compared to the posts about “myfood”. While this knowledge may be useful, the ability for a computer to automatically utilize the tag “myfood” with other data is limited. However, if one were to describe the meaning of this tag, by referencing ontologies, the meaning, to both computer and humans alike becomes clearer. This not only means that ambiguity of terms is reduced, but that the users are in control of their own vocabulary. We propose that a Semantic Tag is one where the tag itself is backed up by an RDF graph, functioning therefore as a useful shortcut to link knowledge to content. This is better than a keyword search as the Semantics are backed up with an Ontology, allowing the knowledge to not only be integrated easily with other Semantic data, but also the inference over this Ontology. For example, someone may tag something with “Beef Steak”, and this infers, from the relevant food ontology, that another person is describing with the tags Beef, Meat, and Food. This means that someone who then searches on non-vegetarian cuisine will find this item. Semantic Tags should also be subsumptive, for example, the tag "mSpace" also infers the tags "Semantic Web Research" and "HCI Research" and the tag "Semantic Web Research" infers the tag "Computer Science Research". The RDF behind these tags depends on the usage, and therefore needs to be alterable by users. Likewise, users should be allowed to alter the meaning of a tag, by adding, removing and altering triples before they publish their use of the tag.
Beckett describes a practical way for tags to be formatted for semantics in current tag applications. This is a way to add semantics to tags without alteration of current applications, by specifically namespacing tags. For example, if a user was to specify that a file's type is MP3, they would tag it with "system:filetype:mp3". The problem of how to describe the underlying concepts and how to resolve these is left open. Alternately, our approach requires a small alteration to tagging interfaces, while also providing a method to resolve the knowledge where it has been previously described, and a way to allow the bootstrapping of knowledge in the event that it has yet to be properly described in an ontology, after the tagging has occurred. The parameters of these edits presents an interesting problem for shared meaning of tags since spam, vandalism and point-of-view differences give people reason to alter the meaning of a tag in a way that is not shared by all people who use that tag. We suggest a system where all possible permutations of the knowledge of a tag are all stored, and whenever a user specifies the tag, they are given the choice of which meaning to use, ordered potentially by how many times that meaning has been used. For example, the use of the tag TonyBlair could have many people tagging with the meaning of “Prime Minister” and “Politics”, but there may also be a number of users that also wish this tag to infer “Liar”. This option should not be suppressed7, however it may be more convenient for the most utilized tag meanings to be at the top of a selection list, while of course enabling the preferred and perhaps less popular selected meanings of a tag to be immediately apparent when reading the meanings as they appear in a blog post which uses them.8 The tag "TonyBlair" may well likely be vandalized (associating the tag with something insulting), however not all tag users would share this assessment, or want to include it in their use of the tag even if they did, so the alteration of the tag's meaning by lightweight interaction, such as deselecting this attribute of a tag can act as a vote against that meaning, and would help to reduce the occurrence of that meaning being associated with that tag. Wikipedia has faced a similar problem – It allows editing of its articles by anybody, and as such has to deal with problematic entries, Spam and difference of opinion on a regular basis. In spite of this, it reigns as a resounding success, based mainly on its policies for dispute resolution (38) that offers the ability for users to vote on whether article should be deleted, altered, or how a particular topic is described. With enough votes against a piece of knowledge behind the semantics of the tag, that vandalism will be removed.
Semantic Blogging
An approach to semantic blogging has been demonstrated focusing on bibliographic management (10). In the demonstrator, a person uses the Semantic Blog (based on the open-source blojsom blog software) to note down papers that they have read and papers they intend to read in the future. For instance, the person may see a relevant paper on the ACM Digital Library, downloads the PDF, and then creates a new blog entry, associating the bibtex metadata from the ACM portal to the post. The metadata about the paper, such as Author, Publications, etc. is then associated with the blog entry through importing a citation format like bibtex, or by using a web form and can be exported as RDF, using ontologies such as Dublin Core(35). The main value
proposed from the service comes from being able to easily find out if other people have semantically blogged about the same paper, or similar papers. Users can search the metadata, known as “Query-by-Entry”, where values of a specific metadata fields can be searched again of other blog entries and use that metadata as the basis of a new entry. The semantic nature of the data means that exporting to alternate formats, such as those used by a citation tool, is relatively straightforward.
One of the obvious rationales of a semantic-based blogging system is not only discovery of people who have also blogged about a paper but for the inference possible via such semantics: inferring papers which may be about similar work but tagged differently to each other. Likewise, the semantics improves the potential as modeled by systems like FilmTrust to infer trustworthiness of findings or opinions in a given blog entry. In other words, an overall goal of a semantically enabled blog network would be to reduce what has been referred to as “information smog.”
proposed from the service comes from being able to easily find out if other people have semantically blogged about the same paper, or similar papers. Users can search the metadata, known as “Query-by-Entry”, where values of a specific metadata fields can be searched again of other blog entries and use that metadata as the basis of a new entry. The semantic nature of the data means that exporting to alternate formats, such as those used by a citation tool, is relatively straightforward.
One of the obvious rationales of a semantic-based blogging system is not only discovery of people who have also blogged about a paper but for the inference possible via such semantics: inferring papers which may be about similar work but tagged differently to each other. Likewise, the semantics improves the potential as modeled by systems like FilmTrust to infer trustworthiness of findings or opinions in a given blog entry. In other words, an overall goal of a semantically enabled blog network would be to reduce what has been referred to as “information smog.”
Systems such as FilmTrust (16) will work more effectively, and with less user interaction when there is more RDF. Right now, as we have seen, FilmTrust requires people to rate a set of movies to act as a benchmark for determining trust of reviews of new movies. Lightweight mechanisms to enable capture representations of opinions, reviews, or guidance integrated into blog software can help generate clear data that can be reused by trust services, reducing the load on the individual to complete a separate and explicit task of benchmarking multiple domains.
IBM prints with molecules
Think of it as an atomic rubber stamp.
Researchers at IBM and ETH Zurich have devised a way to print patterns with molecules. Using the technique, particles are precisely arranged on a soft, rubbery template. A glass or silicon plate is laid on top of the soft template, and the particles transfer to the glass or silicon.
The pattern on the solid substrate then can be exploited in a number of ways, according to Heiko Wolf, researcher in nano-patterning at the IBM
Zurich Research Laboratory. It can be used to mass-produce patterns. The picture included here is a reproduction of a 17th century drawing of the sun originally done by Robert Fludd. It was created by placing 20,000 gold particles, each about 60 nanometers in diameter, with the IBM-ETH technique. At 60 nanometers, each particle is one one-hundredth the size of a human blood cell. The technique could be used to place particles as small as 2 nanometers wide. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. A human hair is about 60 microns, or 60,000 nanometers, wide.)
Researchers at IBM and ETH Zurich have devised a way to print patterns with molecules. Using the technique, particles are precisely arranged on a soft, rubbery template. A glass or silicon plate is laid on top of the soft template, and the particles transfer to the glass or silicon.
The pattern on the solid substrate then can be exploited in a number of ways, according to Heiko Wolf, researcher in nano-patterning at the IBM
Zurich Research Laboratory. It can be used to mass-produce patterns. The picture included here is a reproduction of a 17th century drawing of the sun originally done by Robert Fludd. It was created by placing 20,000 gold particles, each about 60 nanometers in diameter, with the IBM-ETH technique. At 60 nanometers, each particle is one one-hundredth the size of a human blood cell. The technique could be used to place particles as small as 2 nanometers wide. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. A human hair is about 60 microns, or 60,000 nanometers, wide.) IBM used the system to arrange gold particles onto a piece of silicon. The gold particles in turn served as a catalyst to make nanowires. Some believe nanowires could one day replace components in transistors.
Conceivably, the technique could also be used to produce sensor arrays. By placing a blood drop on a chip embedded with rows of different nanoparticles, a doctor could quickly get information on a patient's vital statistics.
Controlling the placement of particles is a fundamental building block for nanotechnology. The ultimate dream for nanotechnologists is self-assembly, where particles will arrange themselves into complex structures through physical and chemical forces. Self-assembly is common in nature: abalone shells are primarily made of calcium carbonate chalk, the same thing that's found inside chalk and antacids. Proteins secreted by shellfish, however, set off a chain reaction directing the growth of calcium carbonate that results in a hard, resilient, complex cavity.
IBM's printing technology uses directed self-assembly, which is akin to self-assembly with some human assistance. The gold particles, for instance, are intricately placed onto the soft, rubbery substrate, which contains microscopic pits. The pits then help the molecules fine-tune their position through physical forces like capillary action.
Another experimental technique for ordering particles is nano imprinting, in which a signet-ring-like mold is pressed into a layer of materials. This technique can produce lines that measure only a few nanometers wide.
The scientists published a paper on the experiments in the September issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
Conceivably, the technique could also be used to produce sensor arrays. By placing a blood drop on a chip embedded with rows of different nanoparticles, a doctor could quickly get information on a patient's vital statistics.
Controlling the placement of particles is a fundamental building block for nanotechnology. The ultimate dream for nanotechnologists is self-assembly, where particles will arrange themselves into complex structures through physical and chemical forces. Self-assembly is common in nature: abalone shells are primarily made of calcium carbonate chalk, the same thing that's found inside chalk and antacids. Proteins secreted by shellfish, however, set off a chain reaction directing the growth of calcium carbonate that results in a hard, resilient, complex cavity.IBM's printing technology uses directed self-assembly, which is akin to self-assembly with some human assistance. The gold particles, for instance, are intricately placed onto the soft, rubbery substrate, which contains microscopic pits. The pits then help the molecules fine-tune their position through physical forces like capillary action.
Another experimental technique for ordering particles is nano imprinting, in which a signet-ring-like mold is pressed into a layer of materials. This technique can produce lines that measure only a few nanometers wide.
The scientists published a paper on the experiments in the September issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
Seven Wonders of the IT World
First, there were the Seven Wonders of the World. Then there was a New Seven Wonders list, voted on Internet-style. That got us thinking: What are the seven wonders of the IT world? Here's a look at seven of the biggest, most extreme and most unusual computers and projects. By the way, do you have a vote for an eighth wonder? Tell us about it by commenting at the end of this story.
Computer Closest to the North Pole:
Webcam #1
Who's in charge: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory takes care of this floating eye at the top of the world.
A view close to the North Pole from Webcam #1Make and model: NetCam XL, made by StarDot Technologies.
Proximity to the pole: Varies. "Since the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, we deploy our instrumentation on an ice floe as close to the pole as we can," says Nancy Soreide, associate director for IT at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "However, the ice floe does not stay at or near the pole. It drifts."
How it works: The webcam's container stands on a metal apparatus, on top of a piece of plywood and the ice. A battery floats beneath the ice surface, powering the webcam, which sends back pictures via satellite.
Prime time: Runs only during the balmier months, between April and October.
Life span: Think Titanic—at the end of each year's season, the webcam sinks, and is replaced by a newer model.
Operating temperature: From a chilly minus 40 degrees F to a balmy 120 degrees F.
Resolution: 2048 by 1536 (3.1 megapixels).
Weight: 19.5 ounces.
Dimensions: 3.25 inches wide (82.5 millimeters) by 2.20 inches high (56 millimeters) by 6.6 inches deep (167 millimeters).
On the scene: Lots of ice but no Santa sightings or flying reindeer, to date.
Computer farthest from Earth:
NASA's Voyager 1 satellite #2
Distance from Earth: Voyager is three times farther away than Pluto. That's to say at least 4 billion kilometers, times three.
NASA's Voyager satellite computes at the edge of space as we know itDistance from the sun: 15.44 terameters.
Distance logged per day: 1 million miles.
Years old: Almost 30, having launched on Sept. 5, 1977.
Places it's dropped by: Jupiter and Saturn, on the way to the edge of space as we know it.
How it communicates with Earth: Uses NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the Earth. There's no IM out here: Signals traveling at light speed take 14 hours one-way to reach Voyager.
Daily to-do list: Collects data on solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields and radio waves.
Powered by: Radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
Power needed: About 300 watts, the amount of power needed for a bright lightbulb.
World's most intriguing data center:
Google#3
Location: The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River, 80 miles east of Portland.
Google's new homeMain attractions: Hydroelectric dam for power, two four-story cooling towers.
B.G. (Before Google): Pioneers knew The Dalles as the end of the Oregon trail.
Jobs inside the data center to date: Between 100 and 200. Google won't specify.
Code name: Called Project 02 by the locals.
Wired by: A fiber optic artery looped through the surrounding wilderness.
Secrecy level: High. Two reporters from the local newspaper are the only media who've been inside the compound and written about it (See "Inside the World of Google"): Google treats any and all details as though they belong to the National Security Agency.
Size: 30-acre site.
Number of servers: Google's mum. It has an estimated 500,000 around the world, spread across 25 locations.
Storage: Across all its data centers, Google stores an estimated 200 petabytes.
Top searches inside the compound: We'd bet it's a tie between "Britney Spears" and "Web 2.0."
World's largest scientific grid computing project:
The E-sciencE II (EGEE-II) project #4
Launched: September 2006, for use by scientists around the world.
Computer Closest to the North Pole:
Webcam #1
Who's in charge: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory takes care of this floating eye at the top of the world.
A view close to the North Pole from Webcam #1Make and model: NetCam XL, made by StarDot Technologies.Proximity to the pole: Varies. "Since the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, we deploy our instrumentation on an ice floe as close to the pole as we can," says Nancy Soreide, associate director for IT at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "However, the ice floe does not stay at or near the pole. It drifts."
How it works: The webcam's container stands on a metal apparatus, on top of a piece of plywood and the ice. A battery floats beneath the ice surface, powering the webcam, which sends back pictures via satellite.
Prime time: Runs only during the balmier months, between April and October.
Life span: Think Titanic—at the end of each year's season, the webcam sinks, and is replaced by a newer model.
Operating temperature: From a chilly minus 40 degrees F to a balmy 120 degrees F.
Resolution: 2048 by 1536 (3.1 megapixels).
Weight: 19.5 ounces.
Dimensions: 3.25 inches wide (82.5 millimeters) by 2.20 inches high (56 millimeters) by 6.6 inches deep (167 millimeters).
On the scene: Lots of ice but no Santa sightings or flying reindeer, to date.
Computer farthest from Earth:
NASA's Voyager 1 satellite #2
Distance from Earth: Voyager is three times farther away than Pluto. That's to say at least 4 billion kilometers, times three.NASA's Voyager satellite computes at the edge of space as we know itDistance from the sun: 15.44 terameters.
Distance logged per day: 1 million miles.
Years old: Almost 30, having launched on Sept. 5, 1977.
Places it's dropped by: Jupiter and Saturn, on the way to the edge of space as we know it.
How it communicates with Earth: Uses NASA's Deep Space Network, a system of antennas around the Earth. There's no IM out here: Signals traveling at light speed take 14 hours one-way to reach Voyager.
Daily to-do list: Collects data on solar wind, energetic particles, magnetic fields and radio waves.
Powered by: Radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
Power needed: About 300 watts, the amount of power needed for a bright lightbulb.
World's most intriguing data center:
Google#3
Location: The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River, 80 miles east of Portland.
Google's new homeMain attractions: Hydroelectric dam for power, two four-story cooling towers.B.G. (Before Google): Pioneers knew The Dalles as the end of the Oregon trail.
Jobs inside the data center to date: Between 100 and 200. Google won't specify.
Code name: Called Project 02 by the locals.
Wired by: A fiber optic artery looped through the surrounding wilderness.
Secrecy level: High. Two reporters from the local newspaper are the only media who've been inside the compound and written about it (See "Inside the World of Google"): Google treats any and all details as though they belong to the National Security Agency.
Size: 30-acre site.
Number of servers: Google's mum. It has an estimated 500,000 around the world, spread across 25 locations.
Storage: Across all its data centers, Google stores an estimated 200 petabytes.
Top searches inside the compound: We'd bet it's a tie between "Britney Spears" and "Web 2.0."
World's largest scientific grid computing project:
The E-sciencE II (EGEE-II) project #4
Launched: September 2006, for use by scientists around the world.Helps power: Large-scale scientific research projects in fields from geology to chemistry—for example, will analyze data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator being built to help investigate details around the Big Bang and related physics questions.
Amount of work it does: 98,000 jobs a day, more than 1 million per month.
Juggling ability: Runs about 30,000 jobs concurrently, on average.
Number of sites connected to the EGEE infrastructure: About 240.
Number of countries connected to the EGEE infrastructure: 45.
Number of CPUs available to users, 24/7: More than 36,000.
Storage capacity available: About 5 PB disk space (5 million GB).
World's fastest supercomputer:
IBM BlueGene/L (BGL) #5
Powered by: 65,536 dual-processor computer nodes.
The BlueGene/L supercomputer at home at the Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryHome base: This 2,500-square-foot marvel lives at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.
Claim to fame: Helps researchers answer physics questions about stockpiled nuclear weapons and materials like Plutonium.
Power requirements: 1.5 megawatts (equivalent to a 2,000-horsepower diesel engine).
Clocked speed: Rated fastest in the world after clocking sustained performance of 280.6 trillion operations per second, or teraflops.
Approximate cost: As part of a larger contract including other supercomputers, just under $100 million.
Measure of compute capability: To match the power of this behemoth, every man, woman and child on Earth would need to perform 60,000 calculations per second (without transposing digits or forgetting to "carry the one").
Brawny bandwidth: Its internal communication network would support 150 simultaneous phone conversations for every person in the United States.
Waiting in the wings: IBM has announced a successor, Blue Gene/P, designed to deliver three times the processing power of the Blue Gene/L.
Smallest PC to run Windows Vista:
OQO, Model 02 #6
The package: OQO's Handheld PC checks in at 5.6 (wide) by 3.3 (high) by 1 (deep) inches.
The diminutive OQO handheld PC weighs in at less than one poundThe skinny: Weighs just under 1 pound (weight varies with configuration).
Vitals: 1.5GHz processor, Windows XP or Vista, 30 or 60GB hard drive, 512MB or 1GBDDR DRAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.
Most likely to twist your fingers into yoga positions: Thumb keypad with 57 keys total, mouse buttons, digital pen, programmable thumbwheel.
Stayin' alive: Lithium-ion polymer battery keeps it cooking for up to three hours.
Price of entry: Starts at $1,499.
James Bond-worthiness: Sleek, but we'd bet 007 would insist on something even smaller.
Biggest Paradigm Change in Enterprise Software:
Linux kernel #7
Created by: Linus Torvalds, in 1991, helping open-source developers collectively craft a viable alternative to Microsoft operating systems.
The Linux kernel contains 8.2 million lines of code, with approximately 86 lines added every hourNumber of developers: Total since 1991 is unknown; 3,200 developers for the kernel as of release 2.6.22.
New releases: Every 2.6 months.*
Quick change artists: 2.89 changes made to the kernel every hour.
Lines of code: 8.2 million and growing (about 10 percent per year).
Amount of code added every hour: 85.63 lines.
Revenue diverted from Microsoft: Perhaps only Mr. Gates knows.
*Unless otherwise marked, statistics reflect Linux kernel releases of the past 2.5 years (version 2.6.11 through 2.6.21).
Amount of work it does: 98,000 jobs a day, more than 1 million per month.
Juggling ability: Runs about 30,000 jobs concurrently, on average.
Number of sites connected to the EGEE infrastructure: About 240.
Number of countries connected to the EGEE infrastructure: 45.
Number of CPUs available to users, 24/7: More than 36,000.
Storage capacity available: About 5 PB disk space (5 million GB).
World's fastest supercomputer:
IBM BlueGene/L (BGL) #5
Powered by: 65,536 dual-processor computer nodes.
The BlueGene/L supercomputer at home at the Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryHome base: This 2,500-square-foot marvel lives at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif.Claim to fame: Helps researchers answer physics questions about stockpiled nuclear weapons and materials like Plutonium.
Power requirements: 1.5 megawatts (equivalent to a 2,000-horsepower diesel engine).
Clocked speed: Rated fastest in the world after clocking sustained performance of 280.6 trillion operations per second, or teraflops.
Approximate cost: As part of a larger contract including other supercomputers, just under $100 million.
Measure of compute capability: To match the power of this behemoth, every man, woman and child on Earth would need to perform 60,000 calculations per second (without transposing digits or forgetting to "carry the one").
Brawny bandwidth: Its internal communication network would support 150 simultaneous phone conversations for every person in the United States.
Waiting in the wings: IBM has announced a successor, Blue Gene/P, designed to deliver three times the processing power of the Blue Gene/L.
Smallest PC to run Windows Vista:
OQO, Model 02 #6
The package: OQO's Handheld PC checks in at 5.6 (wide) by 3.3 (high) by 1 (deep) inches.
The diminutive OQO handheld PC weighs in at less than one poundThe skinny: Weighs just under 1 pound (weight varies with configuration).Vitals: 1.5GHz processor, Windows XP or Vista, 30 or 60GB hard drive, 512MB or 1GBDDR DRAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.
Most likely to twist your fingers into yoga positions: Thumb keypad with 57 keys total, mouse buttons, digital pen, programmable thumbwheel.
Stayin' alive: Lithium-ion polymer battery keeps it cooking for up to three hours.
Price of entry: Starts at $1,499.
James Bond-worthiness: Sleek, but we'd bet 007 would insist on something even smaller.
Biggest Paradigm Change in Enterprise Software:
Linux kernel #7
Created by: Linus Torvalds, in 1991, helping open-source developers collectively craft a viable alternative to Microsoft operating systems.
The Linux kernel contains 8.2 million lines of code, with approximately 86 lines added every hourNumber of developers: Total since 1991 is unknown; 3,200 developers for the kernel as of release 2.6.22.New releases: Every 2.6 months.*
Quick change artists: 2.89 changes made to the kernel every hour.
Lines of code: 8.2 million and growing (about 10 percent per year).
Amount of code added every hour: 85.63 lines.
Revenue diverted from Microsoft: Perhaps only Mr. Gates knows.
*Unless otherwise marked, statistics reflect Linux kernel releases of the past 2.5 years (version 2.6.11 through 2.6.21).
10 Future Web Trends
We're well into the current era of the Web, commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Features of this phase of the Web include search, social networks, online media (music, video, etc), content aggregation and syndication (RSS), mashups (APIs), and much more. Currently the Web is still mostly accessed via a PC, but we're starting to see more Web excitement from mobile devices (e.g. iPhone) and television sets (e.g. XBox Live 360).
What then can we expect from the next 10 or so years on the Web? As NatC commented in this week's poll, the biggest impact of the Web in 10 years time won't necessarily be via a computer screen - "your online activity will be mixed with your presence, travels, objects you buy or act with." Also a lot of crossover will occur among the 10 trends below (and more) and there will be Web technologies that become enormously popular that we can't predict now.
Bearing all that in mind, here are 10 Web trends to look out for over the next 10 years...
1. Semantic Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for a Semantic Web has been The Next Big Thing for a long time now. Indeed it's become almost mythical, like Moby Dick. In a nutshell, the Semantic Web is about machines talking to machines. It's about making the Web more 'intelligent', or as Berners-Lee himself described it: computers "analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers." At other times, Berners-Lee has described it as "the application of weblike design to data" - for example designing for re-use of information.
As Alex Iskold wrote in The Road to the Semantic Web, the core idea of the Semantic Web is to create the meta data describing data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantical optimization problems.
So when will the Semantic Web arrive? The building blocks are here already: RDF, OWL, microformats are a few of them. But as Alex noted in his post, it will take some time to annotate the world's information and then to capture personal information in the right way. Some companies, such as Hakia and Powerset and Alex's own AdaptiveBlue, are actively trying to implement the Semantic Web. So we are getting close, but we are probably a few years off still before the big promise of the Semantic Web is fulfilled.
Semantic Web pic by dullhunk
2. Artificial Intelligence
Possibly the ultimate Next Big Thing in the history of computing, AI has been the dream of computer scientists since 1950 - when Alan Turing introduced the Turing test to test a machine's capability to participate in human-like conversation. In the context of the Web, AI means making intelligent machines. In that sense, it has some things in common with the Semantic Web vision.
We've only begun to scratch the surface of AI on the Web. Amazon.com has attempted to introduce aspects of AI with Mechanical Turk, their task management service. It enables computer programs to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do. Since its launch on 2 November 2005, Mechanical Turk has gradually built up a following - there is a forum for "Turkers" called Turker Nation, which appears to have light-to-medium level patronage. However we reported in January that Mturk isn't being used as much as the initial hype period in Nov-Dec 05.
Nevertheless, AI has a lot of promise on the Web. AI techniques are being used in "search 2.0" companies like Hakia and Powerset. Numenta is an exciting new company by tech legend Jeff Hawkins, which is attempting to build a new, brain-like computing paradigm - with neural networks and cellular automata. In english this means that Numenta is trying to enable computers to tackle problems that come easy to us humans, like recognizing faces or seeing patterns in music. But since computers are much faster than humans when it comes to computation, we hope that new frontiers will be broken - enabling us to solve the problems that were unreachable before.
3. Virtual Worlds
Second Life gets a lot of mainstream media attention as a future Web system. But at a recent Supernova panel that Sean Ammirati attended, the discussion touched on many other virtual world opportunities. The following graphic summarizes it well:
Looking at Korea as an example, as the 'young generation' grows up and infrastructure is built out, virtual worlds will become a vibrant market all over the world over the next 10 years.
It's not just about digital life, but also making our real life more digital. As Alex Iskold explained, on one hand we have the rapid rise of Second Life and other virtual worlds. On the other we are beginning to annotate our planet with digital information, via technologies like Google Earth.
4. Mobile
Mobile Web is another Next Big Thing on slow boil. It's already big in parts of Asia and Europe, and it received a kick in the US market this year with the release of Apple's iPhone. This is just the beginning. In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night. Look for the big Internet companies like Yahoo and Google to become key mobile portals, alongside the mobile operators.
Companies like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Palm, Blackberry and Microsoft have been active in the Mobile Web for years now, but one of the main issues with Mobile Web has always been usability. The iPhone has a revolutionary UI that makes it easier for users to browse the Web, using zooming, pinching and other methods. Also, as Alex Iskold noted, the iPhone is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.
So even despite the iPhone hype, in the US at least (and probably other countries when it arrives) the iPhone will probably be seen in 10 years time as the breakthrough Mobile Web device.
5. Attention Economy
The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. The Attention Economy is about the consumer having choice - they get to choose where their attention is 'spent'. Another key ingredient in the attention game is relevancy. As long as the consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
Expect to see this concept become more important to the Web's economy over the next decade. We're already seeing it with the likes of Amazon and Netflix, but there is a lot more opportunity yet to explore from startups.
Image from The Attention Economy: An Overview, by Alex Iskold
6. Web Sites as Web Services
Alex Iskold wrote in March that as more and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world. Such transformations are never smooth - e.g. scalability is a big issue and legal aspects are never simple. But, said Alex, it is not a question of if web sites become web services, but when and how.
The transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information - paving the road to more intelligent computing.
Note that we can also see this trend play out currently with widgets and especially Facebook in 2007. Perhaps in 10 years time the web services landscape will be much more open, because the 'walled garden' problem is still with us in 2007.
Image from Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services, by Alex Iskold
7. Online Video / Internet TV
This is a trend that has already exploded on the Web - but you still get the sense there's a lot more to come yet. In October 2006 Google acquired the hottest online video property on the planet, YouTube. Later on that same month, news came out that the founders of Kazaa and Skype were building an Internet TV service, nicknamed The Venice Project (later named Joost). In 2007, YouTube continues to dominate. Meanwhile Internet TV services are slowly getting off the ground.
Our network blog last100 has an excellent overview of the current Internet TV landscape, with reviews of 8 Internet TV apps. Read/WriteWeb's Josh Catone also reviewed 3 of them - Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo.
It's fair to say that in 10 years time, Internet TV will be totally different to what it is today. Higher quality pictures, more powerful streaming, personalization, sharing, and much more - it's all coming over the next decade. Perhaps the big question is: how will the current mainstream TV networks (NBC, CNN, etc) adapt?
Zattoo, from Internet Killed The Television Star: Reviews of Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo, and More, by Josh Catone
8. Rich Internet Apps
As the current trend of hybrid web/desktop apps continues, expect to see RIA (rich internet apps) continue to increase in use and functionality. Adobe's AIR platform (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is one of the leaders, along with Microsoft with its Windows Presentation Foundation. Also in the mix is Laszlo with its open source OpenLaszlo platform and there are several other startups offering RIA platforms. Let's not forget also that Ajax is generally considered to be an RIA - it remains to be seen though how long Ajax lasts, or whether there will be a '2.0'.
As Ryan Stewart wrote for Read/WriteWeb back in April 2006 (well before he joined Adobe), "Rich Internet Apps allow sophisticated effects and transitions that are important in keeping the user engaged. This means developers will be able to take the amazing changes in the Web for granted and start focusing on a flawless experience for the users. It is going to be an exciting time for anyone involved in building the new Web, because the interfaces are finally catching up with the content."
The past year has proven Ryan right, with Adobe and Microsoft duking it out with RIA technologies. And there's a lot more innovation to happen yet, so in 10 years time I can't wait to see what the lay of the RIA land is!
9. International Web
As of 2007, the US is still the major market in the Web. But in 10 years time, things might be very different. China is often touted as a growth market, but other countries with big populations will also grow - India and African nations for example.
For most web 2.0 apps and websites (R/WW included), the US market makes up over 50% of their users. Indeed, comScore reported in November 2006 that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international. comScore said that 14 of the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties - Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.
However, it is still early days and the revenues are not big in international markets at this point. In 10 years time, revenue will probably be flowing from the International Web.
10. Personalization
Personalization has been a strong theme in 2007, particularly with Google. Indeed Read/WriteWeb did a feature week on Personalizing Google. But you can see this trend play out among a lot of web 2.0 startups and companies - from last.fm to MyStrands to Yahoo homepage and more.
What can we expect over the next decade? Recently we asked Sep Kamvar, Lead Software Engineer for Personalization at Google, whether there will be a 'Personal PageRank' system in the future. He replied:
"We have various levels of personalization. For those who are signed up for Web History, we have the deepest personalization, but even for those who are not signed up for Web History, we personalize your results based on what country you are searching from. As we move forward, personalization will continue to be a gradient; the more you share with Google, the more tailored your results will be."
What then can we expect from the next 10 or so years on the Web? As NatC commented in this week's poll, the biggest impact of the Web in 10 years time won't necessarily be via a computer screen - "your online activity will be mixed with your presence, travels, objects you buy or act with." Also a lot of crossover will occur among the 10 trends below (and more) and there will be Web technologies that become enormously popular that we can't predict now.
Bearing all that in mind, here are 10 Web trends to look out for over the next 10 years...
1. Semantic Web
Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for a Semantic Web has been The Next Big Thing for a long time now. Indeed it's become almost mythical, like Moby Dick. In a nutshell, the Semantic Web is about machines talking to machines. It's about making the Web more 'intelligent', or as Berners-Lee himself described it: computers "analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers." At other times, Berners-Lee has described it as "the application of weblike design to data" - for example designing for re-use of information.As Alex Iskold wrote in The Road to the Semantic Web, the core idea of the Semantic Web is to create the meta data describing data, which will enable computers to process the meaning of things. Once computers are equipped with semantics, they will be capable of solving complex semantical optimization problems.
So when will the Semantic Web arrive? The building blocks are here already: RDF, OWL, microformats are a few of them. But as Alex noted in his post, it will take some time to annotate the world's information and then to capture personal information in the right way. Some companies, such as Hakia and Powerset and Alex's own AdaptiveBlue, are actively trying to implement the Semantic Web. So we are getting close, but we are probably a few years off still before the big promise of the Semantic Web is fulfilled.
Semantic Web pic by dullhunk
2. Artificial Intelligence
Possibly the ultimate Next Big Thing in the history of computing, AI has been the dream of computer scientists since 1950 - when Alan Turing introduced the Turing test to test a machine's capability to participate in human-like conversation. In the context of the Web, AI means making intelligent machines. In that sense, it has some things in common with the Semantic Web vision.
We've only begun to scratch the surface of AI on the Web. Amazon.com has attempted to introduce aspects of AI with Mechanical Turk, their task management service. It enables computer programs to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks which computers are unable to do. Since its launch on 2 November 2005, Mechanical Turk has gradually built up a following - there is a forum for "Turkers" called Turker Nation, which appears to have light-to-medium level patronage. However we reported in January that Mturk isn't being used as much as the initial hype period in Nov-Dec 05.
Nevertheless, AI has a lot of promise on the Web. AI techniques are being used in "search 2.0" companies like Hakia and Powerset. Numenta is an exciting new company by tech legend Jeff Hawkins, which is attempting to build a new, brain-like computing paradigm - with neural networks and cellular automata. In english this means that Numenta is trying to enable computers to tackle problems that come easy to us humans, like recognizing faces or seeing patterns in music. But since computers are much faster than humans when it comes to computation, we hope that new frontiers will be broken - enabling us to solve the problems that were unreachable before.3. Virtual Worlds
Second Life gets a lot of mainstream media attention as a future Web system. But at a recent Supernova panel that Sean Ammirati attended, the discussion touched on many other virtual world opportunities. The following graphic summarizes it well:
Looking at Korea as an example, as the 'young generation' grows up and infrastructure is built out, virtual worlds will become a vibrant market all over the world over the next 10 years.
It's not just about digital life, but also making our real life more digital. As Alex Iskold explained, on one hand we have the rapid rise of Second Life and other virtual worlds. On the other we are beginning to annotate our planet with digital information, via technologies like Google Earth.
4. Mobile
Mobile Web is another Next Big Thing on slow boil. It's already big in parts of Asia and Europe, and it received a kick in the US market this year with the release of Apple's iPhone. This is just the beginning. In 10 years time there will be many more location-aware services available via mobile devices; such as getting personalized shopping offers as you walk through your local mall, or getting map directions while driving your car, or hooking up with your friends on a Friday night. Look for the big Internet companies like Yahoo and Google to become key mobile portals, alongside the mobile operators.Companies like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Palm, Blackberry and Microsoft have been active in the Mobile Web for years now, but one of the main issues with Mobile Web has always been usability. The iPhone has a revolutionary UI that makes it easier for users to browse the Web, using zooming, pinching and other methods. Also, as Alex Iskold noted, the iPhone is a strategy that may expand Apple's sphere of influence, from web browsing to social networking and even possibly search.
So even despite the iPhone hype, in the US at least (and probably other countries when it arrives) the iPhone will probably be seen in 10 years time as the breakthrough Mobile Web device.
5. Attention Economy
The Attention Economy is a marketplace where consumers agree to receive services in exchange for their attention. Examples include personalized news, personalized search, alerts and recommendations to buy. The Attention Economy is about the consumer having choice - they get to choose where their attention is 'spent'. Another key ingredient in the attention game is relevancy. As long as the consumer sees relevant content, he/she is going to stick around - and that creates more opportunities to sell.
Expect to see this concept become more important to the Web's economy over the next decade. We're already seeing it with the likes of Amazon and Netflix, but there is a lot more opportunity yet to explore from startups.
Image from The Attention Economy: An Overview, by Alex Iskold
6. Web Sites as Web Services
Alex Iskold wrote in March that as more and more of the Web is becoming remixable, the entire system is turning into both a platform and the database. Major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world. Such transformations are never smooth - e.g. scalability is a big issue and legal aspects are never simple. But, said Alex, it is not a question of if web sites become web services, but when and how.
The transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information - paving the road to more intelligent computing.
Note that we can also see this trend play out currently with widgets and especially Facebook in 2007. Perhaps in 10 years time the web services landscape will be much more open, because the 'walled garden' problem is still with us in 2007.
Image from Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services, by Alex Iskold
7. Online Video / Internet TV
This is a trend that has already exploded on the Web - but you still get the sense there's a lot more to come yet. In October 2006 Google acquired the hottest online video property on the planet, YouTube. Later on that same month, news came out that the founders of Kazaa and Skype were building an Internet TV service, nicknamed The Venice Project (later named Joost). In 2007, YouTube continues to dominate. Meanwhile Internet TV services are slowly getting off the ground.
Our network blog last100 has an excellent overview of the current Internet TV landscape, with reviews of 8 Internet TV apps. Read/WriteWeb's Josh Catone also reviewed 3 of them - Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo.It's fair to say that in 10 years time, Internet TV will be totally different to what it is today. Higher quality pictures, more powerful streaming, personalization, sharing, and much more - it's all coming over the next decade. Perhaps the big question is: how will the current mainstream TV networks (NBC, CNN, etc) adapt?
Zattoo, from Internet Killed The Television Star: Reviews of Joost, Babelgum, Zattoo, and More, by Josh Catone
8. Rich Internet Apps
As the current trend of hybrid web/desktop apps continues, expect to see RIA (rich internet apps) continue to increase in use and functionality. Adobe's AIR platform (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is one of the leaders, along with Microsoft with its Windows Presentation Foundation. Also in the mix is Laszlo with its open source OpenLaszlo platform and there are several other startups offering RIA platforms. Let's not forget also that Ajax is generally considered to be an RIA - it remains to be seen though how long Ajax lasts, or whether there will be a '2.0'.As Ryan Stewart wrote for Read/WriteWeb back in April 2006 (well before he joined Adobe), "Rich Internet Apps allow sophisticated effects and transitions that are important in keeping the user engaged. This means developers will be able to take the amazing changes in the Web for granted and start focusing on a flawless experience for the users. It is going to be an exciting time for anyone involved in building the new Web, because the interfaces are finally catching up with the content."
The past year has proven Ryan right, with Adobe and Microsoft duking it out with RIA technologies. And there's a lot more innovation to happen yet, so in 10 years time I can't wait to see what the lay of the RIA land is!
9. International Web
As of 2007, the US is still the major market in the Web. But in 10 years time, things might be very different. China is often touted as a growth market, but other countries with big populations will also grow - India and African nations for example.
For most web 2.0 apps and websites (R/WW included), the US market makes up over 50% of their users. Indeed, comScore reported in November 2006 that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international. comScore said that 14 of the top 25 US Web properties now attract more visitors from outside the US than from within. That includes the top 5 US properties - Yahoo! Sites, Time Warner Network, Microsoft, Google Sites, and eBay.However, it is still early days and the revenues are not big in international markets at this point. In 10 years time, revenue will probably be flowing from the International Web.
10. Personalization
Personalization has been a strong theme in 2007, particularly with Google. Indeed Read/WriteWeb did a feature week on Personalizing Google. But you can see this trend play out among a lot of web 2.0 startups and companies - from last.fm to MyStrands to Yahoo homepage and more.
What can we expect over the next decade? Recently we asked Sep Kamvar, Lead Software Engineer for Personalization at Google, whether there will be a 'Personal PageRank' system in the future. He replied:"We have various levels of personalization. For those who are signed up for Web History, we have the deepest personalization, but even for those who are not signed up for Web History, we personalize your results based on what country you are searching from. As we move forward, personalization will continue to be a gradient; the more you share with Google, the more tailored your results will be."
