Slashdot Mirror
Vint Cerf Optimistic About Internet's Future, Continued Innovation
Anti-Globalism takes us to The Observer for an article by Vint Cerf on how far the internet has come, and how much can still be accomplished through its development. Cerf says,
"We're nearing the tipping point for mobile computing to deliver timely, geographically and socially relevant information. Researchers in Japan recently proposed using data from vehicles' windscreen wipers and embedded GPS receivers to track the movement of weather systems through towns and cities with a precision never before possible. It may seem academic, but understanding the way severe weather, such as a typhoon, moves through a city could save lives. Further exploration can shed light on demographic, intellectual and epidemiological phenomena, to name just a few areas."
As long as there's fairly few data sources, you could get the butterfly effect writ small -- a butterfly smashing into my windshield causes me to activate my wipers, resulting in a prediction of a thunderstorm in Philadelphia.
They will probably have to mandate that you cannot alter them in anyway, 'cause I fully intend to disable them all.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
as if there really is someone named "Vint Cerf"
Back in the late 1970s, Bell Labs put several hundred direct-wired rain sensors around Murray Hill, NJ. (This isn't hard when you're the phone company.) They could then make "movies" of the patterns of rain when storms went through. This resulted in cute pictures, but didn't provide any predictive value, so it was dropped.
Oh well.
People change technology. Technology does not change people.
Sounds like the same lambs being lead to bubbly slaughter after they read something in Wired that is going to transform the world. They just lose their money.
All these supposed benefits of ubiqituous monitoring will pale in comparison to the big brother aspects.
These gps systems will be automatically issuing speeding tickets before they save a sinlge life in a storm.
Monitoring "intellectual phenomena" will be used to track political opponents before it scheds light on the human condition.
Monitoring "epidemiological phenomena" will mean constant drug testing or social engineering of every individual before tracking a real communicable disease.
Is it just me or does the quality of the content seam to be spiraling down?
Whenever I do a Google search on anything, I find that I have to wade through pages of garbage, redundant pages and downright copies, advertisements, and pages authored by folks with very little, if any, knowledge of the subject. What is it that you engineers call it? Signal to noise ratio?
I think the next big web app is going to be a filter.
"We're nearing the tipping point for mobile computing to deliver timely, geographically and socially relevant information."
to the military-industrial-Congressional complex.
Cordially,
K. Trout
When most people weren't on it and it was still cool.
Don't forget that easy transfer of information also implies easy transfer of disinformation.
Lies, propaganda, marketing, causing panics, etc. could all be caused by a well coordinated information hack.
The swift boaters and Fox news are two examples of this, but as information flow and connectivity increases I predict more vulnerability to this sort of attack on good information. Without good information neither democracies nor markets can operate effectively.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
We're reaching another tipping point. For example, if you live in the UK, you got the EU internet data retention directive, National ID program, Integrated communications records database, National DNA database, Vehicle movements database, Enhanced CRB database, PNR database, Bank record and credit card monitoring databases, etc. etc.
We're at a tipping point where our privacy is not only taken away completely, but gives way to complete, total control.
In this case, I think it's relevant to mention that Vint Cerf, despite all his legandary accomplishments, is now an ad broker who makes a living by selling your privacy. That billions are involved and that the company he works for prefers profit over privacy and human rights (e.g. China). And that Vint failed to mention this in his optimism.
Saving their lives is easy, tell them to stop driving in typhoons.
He starts by saying he'll violate the Observer style guide, and then he doesn't.
My car did ONE little wipe and my mom got scared and said, "you're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air."
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
No one here is taking this man and his article seriously, and here might be why.
1. No one knows him.
2. ICANN is not something I'd brag about, considering how it created huge chaos, and profit motivated change at every step of every decision making process. Multilingual domain support is a joke, at least in Japan, where it basically NEVER HAPPENED. It was suppose to happen, they sold millions of domains, but it didn't happen, so they had to make a plugin instead. Now the plugin is standard on IE, but who cares, ICANN failed all the same.
3. Space net access, online fridge, and browser surf board. The examples he bases his vision of the future are quite lame, if not the fossils from the IT bubble earlier this decade. How many people are going to space anytime soon? Hasn't the computer-in-the-kitchen already killed the please-embed-a-computer-in-my-fridge crowd? And surfers are really going to surf the web while waiting for waves. The last I checked, they hardly even surf the web at home, and they'd be glad to turn in their computers for a good day at the beach.