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Google Hires Vint Cerf
hsuwh writes "Google has hired Internet pioneer Vint Cerf away from MCI as its "Chief Internet Evangelist".
"He is one of the most important people alive today," said [Google CEO Eric] Schmidt, who has been friends with Cerf for more than 20 years. "Vint has put his heart and soul into making the Internet happen. I know he is going to jump right in here and start shoveling out new ideas for Google.""
Vinton Cerf, father of the internet
Or are they merely collecting people and figuring out what to do with them later? From the outside looking in, it sure seems like the latter.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Boy, that Internet thing just isn't catching on. I guess we need someone to really spread the word about it!
Chief Internet Evangelist? Really?
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Vint has put his heart and soul into making the Internet happen.
Are they sure they didn't hire Al Gore by mistake?
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"I know he is going to jump right in here and start shoveling out new ideas for Google."
I can only think of one thing that people typically use the phrase "shovel out" with... and it begins with sh-.
I sure hope, for Google's sake, that he shovels out something else.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
who?
Diesel.
I forget, do we love or hate google?
(are they becoming an unstoppable giant?)
This guy is amazing.
Obviously Google isn't content to simply dominate the internet on this planet, they want to dominate the interplanetary internet too.
Context sensitive ads for Mars rovers anyone?
FTA: "[Cerf] also will continue as a visiting scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he has been focusing on a very Google-like project _ trying to figure out a way to connect the Internet to outer space."
How is this project Google-like, other than seeming to be pretty cool?
Cerf has been working on a network utility issue with NASA. I wasn't aware that Google is in the network utility game at all.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Look at the photo with the WaPo article (hint: look at the license plate).
I saw an interesting Google sponsorship of PBS NOVA Tuesday. In their 15-second infomercial a word typed into the Google screen about some natural phenomena and switched to a video clip of that phenomena. (I dont think Google does that right now, but will any month.)
Botht the Cerf and PBS thing shows Google is moving away from being just a startup and more of a community player.
From the article: "Cerf will remain chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the oversight agency for Internet domain names."
.google TLD? or maybe .goo :)
So how long before we get a
This is a much different strategy than the Microsoft sieze and conquer. MS takes over companies to get technologies, and then through culture the effectiveness of the subsidiary becomes null. Google, however, invests instead in obtaining highly innovative, creative, and motivated individuals, and they're doing it en mass. I know there is a lot of speculation about them working on an operating system or something similarly large, but whatever it is, it is big. There are too many bright minds there for it not to be.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
This guy is amazing
He may be, but not for naming it (why "IP"?), and the author clearly doesn't understand the difference between different network layers.
"radio/laser communications that are highly tolerant to signal degradation" is data link layer and below. Cerf's work most likely is taking place at/above that or the transport layer. I'm not really sure what work he could be doing that NASA hasn't already dealt with themselves- and the massive time delay seems to be a problem better addressed on a per-protocol basis.
It's also likely a problem we won't need to solve for many, many years. Do we really need to give astronauts on the moon or Mars access to websites? No. When we do, it seems like a problem most easily solved by a high bandwidth stream, by monitoring what stuff is popular and simply throwing it at the planet, where it is cached. Obviously interaction will be impossible, which means much of the web becomes useless...
Please help metamoderate.
Sure they have. If smart people are hired by google, they can't be hired by anyone else, for one.
First off, the wright brothers didn't invent flight. The first flight was with a glider. So go read a proper history text.
... give it up.
Second, there is an acceptable period in which you can gloat about your accomplishments. 8 terms of office later
Granted hindsight is always 20/20 there are a lot of flaws with IP and TCP in general. It isn't perfect and frankly the lack of progress since the early 80s when TCP/IP was standardized shows that his "ability to innovate" is right up there with grapefruit.
As for this interplanetry bullshit, it's the same ol' same ol'. You apply error correction codes and do longer packets once the connection has been established. You can even do SYN/ACK over a different medium.
The fact is we can simulate [in about 200 lines of C code] a "network with really long delays and random chances of packet drops".
You don't have to be in space to test out what delays do to a protocol...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
When I posted about Google buying a lot of dark fibre I never would have thought about these two things put together....
You really have to wonder what they are up to.. Now either what I put in my previous post is correct and they are just trying to minimise their risk by distributing the BGP peers and reducing their risk, and trying to cut out Akamai who they were originally paying a reasonable amount of money to for various hosting things. Or they are about to come out with something over the next couple of years that will put us all in shock. I have no idea what is about to become of this..
Does anyone have any ideas on what they would be doing with one of the pioneers of the internet and a truckload of fibre?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
How can anyone hire an MCI (aka Worldcom, aka UUNET) spam supporter? Being with the worst spammy ISP ever should basically make you unemployable.
Yeah, but you get dispensations for doing cool things like inventing the internet.
Vint has released a statement on the Google Blog.
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"I beat the internet, the end guy was hard"
Yeah you know designing a form of networking that will last for 30 years, that's nothing major.
The fact that we can do so much with TCP/IP is evidence that the creator actually had more sense then most people in this industry, trivilizing his stuff because you can name stuff built off of that is a joke.
You make jokes about the size of ARPANET but what you don't realize is that those 9 computers were linked to each other, before that you'd have to have a direct line to each computer to call it a link, instead you could do one link to a central system to route the packages with out any major software really running. The idea of the ARPAnet is that it was a defensive infrastructure that could be attacked, and had nodes destroyed with out losing the entire network.
And as for size, yeah it's 9 computers, what ever you want to believe.
Just because you don't beliieve he's worth anything doesn't make him worth less. The fact is the guy actually invented something everyone uses now, that's incredible, a single standarized system of Control, that everyone can agree to, on all platforms, and hasn't been completely revolutionized for the most part for 30 years. Let's see your next development last more then 10 with out needing to be completely scrapped and reworked.
I'll trade you a Vint Cerf for 2 DBA's and a Project Manager.
To treat this guy as a god because 30 years ago he figured out that if you gave a box an address you could send packets to it ... my god, what a fucking genius! ...mumble.../rant
I'm with ya! Like somebody uses TCP/IP these days, good God people!
I can't belive the nerve of these losers to compare this acient crap to all YOUR Earth shaking inventions and contributions to computer science. I shudder to think of a world devoid of your greatness.
Just like the Yankees, Google is throwing enormous piles of money at (nerd) superstars, hoping that all of that acquired talent will bring them to the top.
Sure, that has (for the most part) worked rather well for the Yankees, but they are also highly criticized for their gluttonous payroll, and dare I say, anticompetetive behavior.
How long will it take Google to earn that same scorn?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Surplus of money? sure
Shortage of ideas? Not so sure. I don't see why Cerf , being the father of the medium in which google is based, wouldn't be a uself hire.
Kharma Whoring
I have a twisted sense of humour, I suppose.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
So if they can find the mother of the internet, will Google have the chance to create the Internets that we heard of?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=161582&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=95&mode=thread&pid=13510971 #13512140
Which support the development of international standards for protocols that don't break over long distances with lossy data link layers. The point being that with a proper delay-tolerant protocol, reliability goes up and long-distance links become more efficient. No one intends to surf the internet from Mars, but it would be nice to reliably send commands to and receive data from a rover via a secure link on a computer with just a standard internet connection. On top of this, a good deep-space protocol would get the information from source to destination whether or not the rover has a line-of-sight link or must go through an orbiting probe, and it would not require the scientist to worry about the messy details of setting up the link.
All of this is missing from current space protocols. Interestingly enough, if you read through the delay-tolerant-networking research group's website ( http://www.dtnrg.org/ ), you'll see that these protocol standards have terrestrial applications with civilian, miltary and scientific projects.
All you can do is try to assemable the greatest group(s) of already provably inventive poeple you can find, put them in a positive, stimulating environment, and incent them to come up with something great.
That is what Google is doing. That is exactly NOT what Microsoft, HP, et. al. are doing.
Actually not true, Microsof thas spent some time doing exactly the same thing - hiring really smart people and putting them in Microsoft R&D. I can't thnk of specifics, but it seemed like it was people from all fields...
However Microsoft R&D has produced almost nothing of practical value. So, the suspicious mind starts to wonder if perhaps all Microsoft R&D is there for is to keep these smart groups of people from producing something outside of Microsoft!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know how technically competent he is to-date, however althought he came up with cool shit (tcp/ip) I get this impression (total intuition here) that he's pretty much useless 30 years later. Am I missing something? Am I wrong?
For instance, I know he is a visionary... However, take a great number of reasonably bright people on slashdot for example. I bet you we (individually, for the most part) would come up with the same ideas, and basic concepts that he will while he's working at google.
Don't get me wrong - the guy is good, he obviously is comfortable thinking in his own realm/sphere, but I bet you there are probably tcp/ip topics that blow his f-ing mind -- stuff that he can't even come up with. Or, I could be wrong. What is he doing there? What the heck was he doing at MCI? I'm sure the engineers at MCI probably think, what the F does Vint know about installing an OC48, or a DSLAM, or BGP routing, etc. I just can't see him getting his hands dirty. What are they hoping to accomplish with this guy?
As far as the guy from Microsoft - he sounds pretty darn bright with all the speech technology he was working on. That guy sounds like he is in the know, and has the theory and practical under his belt, and the innovation floating on his brain 24/7.
I'm not bashing Cerf, I just question what the hell good is he there? Someone tell me please. Remember - I like the guy.