Computing and Communication - The Next Wave of Computing

Well, finally the rumor comes true - Google now joins the IM party. It's not a Gaim-like multi-IM service; but it is expected to communicate with iChat. Meanwhile, other IM players will not consider opening their closed networks to allow inter-IMing. For now, Google talk enables computer-to-computer voice chat. Perhaps computer-to-telephone chat is also on the way?

Now, if you think what Google will be doing, ask yourself what else you are doing everyday with your computer - web, email, IM, and yes, desktop applications like Word and Powerpoint! Do I hear web based office applications?

I have to save this link to avoid another google search for the paper later on.

This is absolutely a must-read paper for those who work on computer systems research.

It was so much fun reading the "101 Dumbest Momenets in Business" at Business 2.0's website. Some of the very cool stuff that relate to IT are:

#5
For more nostalgia, you can always check out your legal bills from the DOJ antitrust lawsuit.
"Microsoft has had competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document this stuff."—Bill Gates, in a talk at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

#7-9
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
In April, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser—seeing his online music store struggling to compete with Apple's iTunes because it's not compatible with the iPod—e-mails Steve Jobs suggesting that he open the iPod to other purveyors of digital music. The e-mail is immediately leaked to the New York Times, which interviews a surprised Glaser. "Steve is showing a high level of fear," he says.

If you can't beat 'em, and you can't join 'em, encourage people to whine about 'em.Still peeved that Apple won't allow the iPod to play downloads from his online music store, Glaser launches an online petition urging Apple to open up. He quickly pulls the petition offline when he discovers that most of the signers have left strident pro-Apple comments.

If you can't beat 'em, and you can't join 'em, and you can't get people to whine about 'em...put out some half-baked software that forever alienates potential customers?Not backing down, Glaser offers a software hack that allows iPods to play songs purchased from Real. Apple blasts its rival for exhibiting "the ethics of a hacker" and warns iPod users that future updates to its software will render the Real songs unplayable. But it turns out that if Real is acting like a hacker, it's not a particularly talented one: Several Real customers report that the software fills their screens with ads and crashes their computers. In November an Apple software update blocks the hack.

The co-inventor of the Internet, Vint Cerf, talks about Internet Challenges, ranging from vulnerable computer systems, to insure networks, to mobile security, to patch-hungry software, and so on. Vint Cerf and his partner Robert E. Kahn are believed to create the first TCP/IP protocol suite when they worked at DARPA.

What's really interesting is the question of "What is the science of computer science?". Fact is, in many places, CS programs have been a quick job training - Java/VB programming, a bit data structure and SQL, very superficial knowledge of OS, and you are done (oh, don't forget claiming you can do website development after you know HTML and Frontpage!).

These kinds of quick training apparently do not provide sufficient background for students to understand those challenges, let alone tackle one of them. But, what cares?

Some MIT students wrote a program to generate junkie CS research papers, and one of the papers has been accepted by the junkie SCI conference. see here. Actually the paper looks like real. Don't know who they put together those fancy but completely nonsense terms...

Thanks to Google's web services API, google maps service has been integrated into real estate Listings.

If you have ever used MLS list web site, you may have some idea as to how bad their list mapping service is. I suggest the MLS people use Google maps, instead of the current outdated highly confusing maps.