'Father of Internet' says that the 'web balance' might tilt !

I listened to an interesting talk today by Vint Cerf, the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, better known to the world as 'father of the Internet' & co-designer (with Robert Kahn) of the TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the net.

This talk was done at the Zurich Campus of Google and as is usual with most of the high profile talks at the company, this too was put up at the Google Channel on Youtube. Check it out if you haven't already,cos it really is a wealth of interesting and informative talks.

Some of the points that struck me through the talk :
1. Vint Cerf says that the user base of the internet in absolute terms of the population is steadily but surely tilting towards the Asian countries. About 460 million Asians are already on the net compared to just about 234 million from North America. This inspite of the fact that only 12.5 % of Asians use the net today whilst about 70 % of Americans are already online. This literally means that the gap is only going to widen in the future.
Now the interesting observation here is that with an increasing user base comprising predominantly people of Asian origin, the content,style & nature of the web will be heavily influenced by this factor.Remember that Internet is perhaps the only truly 'democratic' entity that exists in the world cutting across geographies; and with user-generated content taking over the web in a big way, there is absolutely no stopping this phenomenon.

To check the seriousness of the idea, I tried a simple experiment . I opened Youtube and gave a simple search titled 'Auto Expo' . And boy, the top 5 results are from where; but India - 'the New Delhi auto expo'. I do agree that the Tata Nano launch might have influenced it to some extent, but you also have to remember that the Detroit Auto Show is currently going live in North Ameica.

There are lots of other interesting things that Vint Cerf covered like how the idea of 'letting the users on the web decide what Ads be served to them' is going to gain more momentum in the future. Another observation was that going ahead, mobiles are going to play a key role as Information dissiminators for any geographically indexed content on the web. To put it in simple words, mobiles would play an important role in telling you where the nearest salon is , just in case you feel like having a haircut all of a sudden while on a long drive !

He also stressed on the importance of the research being carried out in the area of the Semantic web . Although I was more interested in the powerful & critical idea which he calls 'Bit Rot' . It's about how most of the information that we are currently putting on the web might reduce into pure junk in some years if we don't find out a way to preserve the software that helps us read that info. The example he gave for this was imagining ourself in the year 3000 and trying to access a spreadsheet on the net dated 1000 years back created say using a software made in 1997. What would that spreadsheet mean to us other than a rotten set of bits ? As he puts it, expecting any application(in this case, a spreadsheet reader) to provide backward compatibility of the order of 1000 years would be sheer foolhardy.

Listen to more from the talk here ...

Stanford on your iPod !

Came across a nice initiative by Stanford Univ.

Most of the lectures,talks,seminars at Stanford on technology, business etc are being put up in iTunes format (iPod's media format) on their website :

http://itunes.stanford.edu/

It would be pretty helpful for people who commute long distances by bus/car to work and back.

And even if one doesn't have an iPod, we can listen to the talks by downloading iTunes software onto our PCs and visiting the webpage.

And the best part, it's all for free. These even include talks by Nobel laureates, top CEOs & the eminent professors.

Happy learning !

And why I will miss being in Chennai this republic day ...

Of course, to be in India to join the republic day celebrations in it's 60th year of Independence would be a joy, but then theres more ...One thing that I haven't missed in the last few years that I have been in Chennai. Saarang at IIT Madras ! So if you are anywhere in striking distance, don't miss this one.You will never regret the energy.










































The crowd & the Mobile sway (the 2nd pic)- typical to Saarang !

Businessworld.in

I have been a big fan of the Indian business magazine Businessworld all through out. Right from the days it used to cost Rs 5 (They hiked it to Rs 10 a couple of years ago), I remain a die hard addict .
I remember my days in Munnar when it all started. My friend Abhilash brought a copy of it to our room one day and I saw it by accident. I read it sincerely and boy, fell in love instantly with the presentation style. This was Indian Business simplified at it's best(A bit of global biz too, here & there). Seeing my interest, Abhilash told me that he had a CD with about 3 years of B-world archived in it. And all I remember after that are the endless nights I spent (bunking my college assignments that is) in front of my computer reading out the entire CD.Mind you, 3 years of Archives and not even a single boring moment throughout the read. That's Businessworld for you.
And so, when I got shipped to America, I was pretty sad that I would miss my weekly dose of adrenaline shot. But gee,happy am I ? Businessworld has it's entire current magazine online, week after week ...everyweek. As usual, it's following a very different business model compared to it's peers ,even in the online magazine space.And yep, no complaints of course. Stay put !

As I was browsing the current New year special issue, I came across a very interesting article.That of a single extra day -29th feb adding almost 2.74 billion dollars to the Indian GDP in 2008. Pretty interesting analysis .
It seems similar studies on the impact of Leap years have been done earlier too. Check out the article for more.

Tinku learns mathematics !

Even before coming to Amrikaa, Tinku had heard about the 'immense' mathematical abilities of American kids and how some Indian software companies had spun out an entire business idea out of it.
But then, as they say...Tinku always realises the seriousness of things the hard way.
So it happens that Tinku heads to a famous eat-out chain of Amrikaa to have lunch. Now Tinku doesn't know much about the stuff to order, so in typical Indian style he watches fellow grub eaters at the counter for ideas.
The guy in front of Tinku heads to the counter and gets a sandwich , a coke and some French fries. He pays 3.5 $ and gets away with it.
Now diet conscious (or is it $$ conscious) don't eat french fries, so Tinku tells the lady...' One chicken sandwich and coke..thats it.'
The counterwallah: 'You wanna make it a meal ? '
Conscious Tinku : What's that ? .... Ans: You get a coke and french fries....
Tinku (after quick calculation of the rate of french fries with the latest ICICI bank exchange rates) : NOOO.. only sandwich and coke.

And then comes the big surprise..whattt,but the bill of course ! A staggering 4.5 $ .
Now now now... there might have been some mistake of course. Tinku asks the counterwallah about it, trying to get things settled. She says 'everythings fine.'
Hmmm...Tinku takes the hit and starts eating anyways..

And then , tinku sees the posters above and deciphers the secret...
The catch : One word - Meal !!!
It seems if you say you want a meal and get the coke+french fries , you would be billed 3.5. But if you are anti-French due to some reason and say you won't eat french fries,you pay a simple 1 $ premium... Cool naa.. Welcome to America !