Internet Operating System

Brilliant way to view the internet - as an operating system - where is our data and do we care? Do we really just want the freedom to compute without worry? Recently it was the CEO of Google on the topic of IOS and he is someone in a proud position to speak up on the subject - Text of Wired's Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, from http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/mag_schmidt_trans

"True. Google docs and spreadsheets don't work if you're on an airplane. But it's a technical problem that is going to get solved. Eventually you will be able to work on a plane as if you are connected and, then when you get reconnected to the Internet, your computer will just synchronize with the cloud.

Here's another way of saying this - and these are not my words. People call this an Internet operating system. And by "this" I don't mean Google, I mean the sum of this vision. And if you think about it as an Internet operating system, the Internet operating system will have to have all of the normal features of the older versions of operating systems. It will have to have security, it will have to have caching, it will have to have replication, and it will have to have performance."

I was reading an analysis of the forgotten war manual The Strategikon http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/strategikon/strategikon.htm when I decided to concentrate and prep for our guest speaker on Search:

wired has an article on Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments worth reading in the May edition p.172 - view online at--
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/mag_schmidt_qa

Schmidt so loves YouTube... its cute in a megabillionaire, don't you think?

I can hardly wait to introduce my Mouse Search idea to Alex Wade of the Microsoft Live Search Team, who is coming as a guest speaker to Lee Dirks class for:

Week 6: The Systems Behind the Services
Friday, 5/4
Topics:
* What Kinds of Services Can Technology Enable?
* Elements/Components of an Information System
* Managing Complexity: Integrating Systems & Information
* Modalities: Search (and Search Services); Dashboards; Wikis; RSS Feeds, Notification Systems; Physical and Digital Libraries; Records Management

I believe Alex Wade will see how it adds value (as Jaggi said... hen hen hen)

Still I find myself drifting back to basics in my mad romance with the information industry - Turing http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html

"I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words."

Is the Internet an Operating System? Yea it can be - and Google has been selling this idea for a while - a giant linked computer where all computers are yours by virue of your security.

See http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001689.html