google

The second coming of Larry Lessig

Years ago I remember when my then-professor, Larry Lessig, announced that he was hanging up the speaker's mic to concentrate on his research (and to give time back to his family). I pleaded that he would not abjure his freedom fighting. I asked who would take up the mantle in his absence?

Larry's answer was typical of him:

You.

By which he didn't mean "me" per se, but rather those who looked to him to help promote open source, net neutrality, etc. Tim Wu of Columbia Law School has taken up that charge. Tim studied under Larry at Harvard and has been particularly involved in opening up the wireless world to competition, innovation, and capitalism. (Yes, you read that right - it's one of those ironic offshoots of freedom. It tends to lead to greater financial opportunities.)

Businessweek recently profiled Tim and noted the following of his growing influence, from the Googleplex to Capitol Hill:… Read more

In praise of Google

I tend to be pretty hard on Google. I suppose it's a case of where much is given, much is expected. Regardless, as I was working yesterday it hit me just how much I use Google. It made me grateful that the company figured out a way to make gobs of cash so that its basic service - search - is free to use 24 hours each day, seven days each week.

How do you use Google? For me, I find myself using it constantly to find the following information:… Read more

Last.fm creates OpenSocial application for Ning

The launch of Google's OpenSocial platform earlier this month might have been more PR than anything, as many of the third-party partners implementing the new developer standard won't be releasing anything for months.

Instead, OpenSocial-related announcements have been rolling out slowly: one of the latest is that social music site Last.fm has created OpenSocial widgets designed for use on Ning, a site that allows any person or business to create a specialized social network. (According to Ning, more than 123,000 networks have been created so far.)

Ning network creators and members can now install the Last.… Read more

Don't expect Google to take on AT&T

Google is lining up financing to bid on wireless spectrum in the Federal Communication Commission's upcoming 700MHz auction, and it's already built a small high-speed wireless network at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to test out what it could do with the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The Journal cited sources saying the company is planning on bidding in the auction, set to take place early next year. Google has obtained a test license from the FCC that it's using to test technology on a small wireless network on its campus, the article said. … Read more

Episode 606: The Kindle is coming!

Obama is 'Google-like'

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama made an impressive showing at the Googleplex on Wednesday, joking about the casual attire of the audience and correctly answering a standard Google engineering interview question.

Asked by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt what the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers is, Obama said the wrong way would be the "bubble sort method," which is a basic but inefficient method for sorting numbers. "You answered the question correctly," Schmidt said.

"He's fresh, he's new, there's something about him that's Google-like," Nicole Resz, … Read more

Google's Mayer to judge VC pitching contest

Paula Abdul doesn't have anything on Marissa Mayer.

Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, will be on a panel of expert judges for YouBeTheVC.com, where people vie for venture capital funding though an online contest. The contest is something like American Idol meets The Apprentice.

Would-be entrepreneurs submit their business ideas online and the judges give them report cards. Members of the public then choose the winners from semifinalists picked by the judges.

"We're really excited about this contest because we really like the idea of being able to see what'… Read more

Episode 604: School daze

Sun's worried that Google Android could fracture Java

Update: I added comment from Google.

Painful flashbacks are beginning to torment those of us who lived through the Java wars between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft that began 10 years ago.

Earlier this week, Google released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone software project that shun the existing Java standard-setting process in favor of a Google-specific variety. Sun responded on Wednesday by expressing concern that Google's Android project could fragment Java into incompatible versions.

"Anything that creates a more diverse or fractured platform is not in (developers') best interests," said Rich Green, executive vice president of Sun'… Read more

Open source may be the winner in the consumerization of IT

The technology world has been turned on its head. As Tom Krazit notes in his blog, today's hardware and software industry is increasingly focused on consumer IT, not enterprise IT:

Not so long ago, if you were technology-oriented and wanted to do something innovative and cool that would make you rich, you wrote a new piece of enterprise software. Or you came up with a new design for a server. Or you figured out a way to link businesspeople with their offices while on the road. Of course, there are always exceptions, but enterprise computing, most believed, was where the real innovation occurred. Those innovations paved the way for the computing industry as we know it today....… Read more