In the context of our class discussion on how Google is trying to save energy and be creative on how to cool their servers I found the article: Video Games Suck Up Energy Like Vampires very interesting. The article itself is brief but the attached sound byte from NPR is extremely informative.
Video game machines like X-Box can consume as much energy as 2 refrigerators. I thought one comment on the article was extremely well written so I will not attempt to reword or improve upon the author's content. Ramin Honary wrote, "All across the microelectronics industry, companies are trying to find ways to make chips that consume less power without actually slowing down their computing capacity. But the more raw-numbers you are required to crunch, the more electricity you need; there is no way around it. High-quality computer graphics that run in real-time take a tremendous amount of computing power, and it takes even more power to cool the machine to prevent it from burning up. It's a tough engineering problem that will only get tougher as societies computing demands continue increase."
The energy required for future technology will far surpass what we understand as "neccessary" for today's computing and graphics. I think Google is wise to look at alternatives but in truth they are the only company I can recall that are addressing energy concerns in the technology sector. Undoubtedly there are more, but I think the primary focus is on oil and other fossil fuels.
If you have time listen to the NPR sound byte. You will not be disappointed. And while you are at it, turn off all electronic equipment that you are not using! A concerted effort to shut down your lap top or other electronic equipment will save the environment and save you money.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
A Truly World-Wide Web
I logged on to Google Reader recently and found the article: Is Your Web Truly World-Wide very interesting. The "Google Translate Team" has been hard at work creating technology that translates internet content into various languages.
The premise behind the Goggle Translator is that when you log in to Google Reader and you find an interesting feed in another language you can check off "translate into my language" and the feed will automatically be translated and sent to you. The setting would also be saved so if you found one particular blog or information source that you would like to read frequently. You would always receive the feed in your language. The potential for increased internet access and exploration of foreign internet content is now limitless!
The article does not say how many languages the translator will work for. One of my first friends here at BC was a second year student who described a similar project that he was working on for his MP class. In his project, the "translator" translated Arabic to English and vice versa. I thought the concept sounded cutting edge but apparently Google has already thought of it! I hope for my friends sake they are able to sell a piece of the business to Google. Regardless, I think the idea is brilliant.
My final thought about the language translating feature that Google is promoting is how revolutionary it will be for traveling! I fly for free working for United Airlines and grew up abroad so needless to say I love to travel. I am intersted to see where they take this technology. It would impressive if you could set your entire internet to automatic translator so you could see translated articles regardless of whether or not you are using Google Reader. There would certainly be a lot more articles that populate for a search but wouldn't it be great to "Google" something while traveling in Japan and have Japanese reviews or articles populate about what you are searching. Maybe there could be an on and off funtion?
This is what I perceive to be a huge advancement in Web 2.0 technology. The world will only be that much flatter with the Google Translate team on the job! And yet, what will be the implications for future generations need to learn another language? And will something be lost in the translation? I'll be interested to see where Google takes the technology and how they apply it to other applications. I'll also be routing for my first business school friend in hopes that he can sell his translator to Google and retire early!
The premise behind the Goggle Translator is that when you log in to Google Reader and you find an interesting feed in another language you can check off "translate into my language" and the feed will automatically be translated and sent to you. The setting would also be saved so if you found one particular blog or information source that you would like to read frequently. You would always receive the feed in your language. The potential for increased internet access and exploration of foreign internet content is now limitless!
The article does not say how many languages the translator will work for. One of my first friends here at BC was a second year student who described a similar project that he was working on for his MP class. In his project, the "translator" translated Arabic to English and vice versa. I thought the concept sounded cutting edge but apparently Google has already thought of it! I hope for my friends sake they are able to sell a piece of the business to Google. Regardless, I think the idea is brilliant.
My final thought about the language translating feature that Google is promoting is how revolutionary it will be for traveling! I fly for free working for United Airlines and grew up abroad so needless to say I love to travel. I am intersted to see where they take this technology. It would impressive if you could set your entire internet to automatic translator so you could see translated articles regardless of whether or not you are using Google Reader. There would certainly be a lot more articles that populate for a search but wouldn't it be great to "Google" something while traveling in Japan and have Japanese reviews or articles populate about what you are searching. Maybe there could be an on and off funtion?
This is what I perceive to be a huge advancement in Web 2.0 technology. The world will only be that much flatter with the Google Translate team on the job! And yet, what will be the implications for future generations need to learn another language? And will something be lost in the translation? I'll be interested to see where Google takes the technology and how they apply it to other applications. I'll also be routing for my first business school friend in hopes that he can sell his translator to Google and retire early!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Not for Your Entertainment (Really)
After reading Joy's blog post: Netflilx and TiVo to Partner on Movies I was intrigued to read this article from Business Week: AT&T to try limits on monthly Internet traffic . The article outlines AT&T's efforts to reduce some customer's bandwidth and the amount of data customers can use. This would greatly effect those AT&T customers who are have streaming video service like Netflix offers.
Approximately 5 percent of AT&T subscribers take up around 50% of the networks capacity. To me, that seems like an awfully small group of customers to limit all of their customers connectivity. The article states, "to exceed the limits, subscribers would need to download constantly at maximum speeds for more than 42 hours, depending on the tier." Obviously, this sort of downloading is beyond the realm of your average internet user who browses the web and uses e-mail. The question is, however, as more products become available such as Netflix streaming video will more people require higher bandwidth as a result? Will streaming video on the internet become a way of life and will be people require more bandwidth on a day to day basis for new internet tools and functions?
The article unfortunately does not address "why" AT&T is putting the restriction in place. From our discussions in class the Fiber Optic cable that was layed had seemingly limitless capabilities. Two other internet service providers (ISP) are addressed in the article; Time Warner Cable and FairPoint Communications. Both of these companies are planning on or testing limits similar reductions to AT&T. Fair Point and Time Warner Cable hover, are looking at even lower limits around 5 gigabytes. These low limits would easily be exceeded by internet users watching streaming video.
I personally see the Internet Service Providers adding additional costs for those who require more downloading capability. If you want to watch streaming video there will be additional charge! It could help to protect the loss in revenue by the movie companies or retailers (if shared by ISP) or simply boost ISP's revenue. Regardless, it is interesting article given our class discussions and classmate's recent blog posts.
Approximately 5 percent of AT&T subscribers take up around 50% of the networks capacity. To me, that seems like an awfully small group of customers to limit all of their customers connectivity. The article states, "to exceed the limits, subscribers would need to download constantly at maximum speeds for more than 42 hours, depending on the tier." Obviously, this sort of downloading is beyond the realm of your average internet user who browses the web and uses e-mail. The question is, however, as more products become available such as Netflix streaming video will more people require higher bandwidth as a result? Will streaming video on the internet become a way of life and will be people require more bandwidth on a day to day basis for new internet tools and functions?
The article unfortunately does not address "why" AT&T is putting the restriction in place. From our discussions in class the Fiber Optic cable that was layed had seemingly limitless capabilities. Two other internet service providers (ISP) are addressed in the article; Time Warner Cable and FairPoint Communications. Both of these companies are planning on or testing limits similar reductions to AT&T. Fair Point and Time Warner Cable hover, are looking at even lower limits around 5 gigabytes. These low limits would easily be exceeded by internet users watching streaming video.
I personally see the Internet Service Providers adding additional costs for those who require more downloading capability. If you want to watch streaming video there will be additional charge! It could help to protect the loss in revenue by the movie companies or retailers (if shared by ISP) or simply boost ISP's revenue. Regardless, it is interesting article given our class discussions and classmate's recent blog posts.
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