Google Hires Vint Cerf 307
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.""
Wikipedia link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Do they have a strategy behind this? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course -- to make money for their investors.
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.
Google has always been fairly secretive about their dealings, even after they went public -- it's just that now they are releasing stuff a lot sooner than they were in the past.
Yeah, I'm sure that they are "just collecting" people but I have a feeling that they are being put to good use. Dodgeball (one of the collected items) is likely going to be put to excellent use for business reviews and frequency of visits -- especially when they figure out a way to tie it to everything else.
If you haven't seen their recent additions of Google Maps showing locations of you, and your friends' check-ins, I suggest that you do that.
The possibilities are scary.
Re:a case of mistaken identity? (Score:5, Informative)
But yea, the joke is funnier then the truth by far
Re:snark (Score:3, Informative)
Their role is to get the word out about their project/product/concept and turn sceptics into true believers by flooding them with positive information about it. Is there anyone who doesn't know what the Internet is?
Re:snark (Score:3, Informative)
http://global.mci.com/us/enterprise/insight/cerfs
Re:snark (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Wikipedia link (Score:1, Informative)
geez man, I hate it that America is so misinformed. If you RTFA you would know he _is_ Al Gore sex child.
Re:Vint (Score:3, Informative)
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...
Here's What Vint Says... (Score:5, Informative)
Vint has released a statement on the Google Blog [blogspot.com].
Re:Do they have a strategy behind this? (Score:2, Informative)
Well, all except where you say "this has worked".
Re:Do they have a strategy behind this? (Score:1, Informative)
Microsoft Research was opened in 1991. It currently has 700 members across 50 projects. These projects have no ties to products and none are bound by any form of timeline. Some of these projects do eventually get incorporated into products. Last I heard this is the largest research division of any software company.
Re:Do they have a strategy behind this? (Score:2, Informative)
Bacon: I don't too much about him.
Shannon: you mentioned that he published his work in 1948 and didn't patent it. Who cares, if he had tried and patented it he would still be trying because mathematics aren't patentable now and weren't then. Furthermore computer algorithms, not that that is what he did with his seminal work, weren't patentable then either. Not that any of this disputes whether or not he had motivations other than interest but it just points out that everything you said didn't do so either.
Tesla: This is the worst one you mentioned. Tesla almost went insane over his patents. That was from the wikipedia entry on him. As far as giving his patents to Westinghouse? He did that as Westinghouse was about to go bankrupt; if Westinghouse had gone bankrupt Tesla wouldn't have been able to collect on the royalties owed to him from the past. Tesla basically gave him a break so that he could remain financially solvent and pay him his past debts--kinda like how a loan shark doesn't take a plumber's wrenches the minute he is late repaying the loan.
Galois: I don't know enough about him.