Soon on someday, maybe you not even notice which operating system your computer is using. That at least not like Windows and Mac OS X are today, broadband-connected machine may not have an operating system on board at all. Because there’s a new kid on the block, but he’s not even on your block at all, but storing your data and running applications based somewhere else, out there, on the Internet, or as it’s more commonly referred to, “in the cloud.”
Google’s doing all it can to expedite that exodus with a web browser called Chrome, pounding its latest nail into the coffin of conventional earth-bound operating systems. With architecture that runs Javascript web applications as separate services, it’s fast, and primed to make it easier to compute in the cloud. This could be won’t come a moment too soon and the beginning of the end of the operating system as we know it.
It is the first planet from an alien solar system encircled in the picture below which ever seen by humans. It’s a planet eight times bigger than Jupiter, located 500 light years from Earth. It’s actually 11 times farther away while it looks close to this sun-sized star in the picture, from it than Neptune is from our sun.
By detecting gravitational “wobble” in stars, scientists have found numerous planets however “this is the first time we have directly seen a planetary mass object in a likely orbit around a star like our Sun,” said David Lafrenière, the lead author of a paper about the discovery. The University of Toronto astronomers who took this shot say the planet is probably orbiting this star, but add there’s a slight chance it could be just hanging there in space. They’re still not even sure if it’s moving in sync with the star, which will take two more years of observation to determine.
For the scientists, this could change everything who thought planets could only be formed by dust and matter close to a star. Equally interesting is how this picture was taken of an object 3.1 quadrillion miles away, using a an infrared adaptive optics system and the near-infrared imager on the Gemini North telescope atop Mona Kea in Hawaii.
Bill Gates ask to his comedic companion, “Why are we doing this again?” Then Jerry Seinfeld, who rests upon a pink-blanketed bed in a room with purple walls, replies: “Why, Bill? Because, as we discussed, you and I are a little out of it.”
The newest Microsoft’s ad comes after rather confusing commercial last week’s. Instead of sneakers and churros, we’re treated as house guests to a four-and-a-half minute Seinfeldian sketch depicting the pair in an average suburban home. Last week’s the words in the ad ended with: “The Future: Delicious.” This week the theme is “Perpetually Connecting.” No mention of Vista in either. Like a reply to Apple’s knuckle-dusting, PC bashing commercials, Microsoft’s ads feel less and are more like a focused showcase of the benefits of computing in general. We’ll just have to see if Microsoft is indeed working on a delicious computer and where the ads take us.
Did you know that one of those kooky monowheel cycles you saw in the Olympics closing ceremony is for sale?. Now you can buy it. You’ll have a collector’s item on your hands by plunk down your $1700 and reminding you of how techno-hip and far ahead of us those Chinese people are. However, to use these bikes they must have gotten the idea.
The producers calling this awkward contraption as the Monovelo, probably in the Chinese way to say “monowheel.” It’s not clear whether included in the deal with those nifty LED lights used in the extravaganza. Then you’re going to need to learn a whole new way of bike riding, if you want one of these monocycles. Just by shifting your weight, you steer this stuff so only the coordinated or serious collector need apply.
On Sunday (13-08-2008) Google turned 10 years old. With a show of power last week, it celebrated when it released Chrome, a new Web browser that may or may not destroy all others. Then earlier this summer, the company released a Web platform with far less fanfare, that could prove to be just as influential as Chrome, a supposed Wikipedia-killer called Knol.
Knol would be a detailed reference source where people could write non-anonymous entries on topics that interest them and get a share of the page’s ad revenue for their troubles. However, the platform will probably hurt the Internet more than it benefits in reality by filling it with highly ranked misinformation, spam and plagiarism. We hope as quickly as possible, Google will pull the plug on the program.
No more Wikipedia
When it dreamt up Knol we can understand where Google was coming from. Google noticed that usually for a search on just about everything, a Wikipedia entry ranks on the first page of results. Wouldn’t it be nice if those results would instead link to (ad supported) pages under the Google umbrella? Since Wikipedia is full of inaccuracies, anonymous and can be vandalized by anyone, by encouraging experts Google could improve the system to write on subjects they know well.
