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Vint Cerf talks Google
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor, StepForth Placement Inc.
September 14, 2005
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Last week Google hired a net-god, Vinton Cerf, as its “chief Internet
evangelist”. Google’s hiring of Cerf has set off a wide range
of speculation among Internet watchers. Vint Cerf is not what many would
consider a “normal” person and is no where near a “normal” employee.
Cerf has been called the Father of the Internet and the most important
person alive.
Do you ever wonder how so much data can cross the global network every
second? In 1972 and 1973, Cerf who is now 62, co-invented the Internet’s
primary data-transfer protocol known as TCP/IP. Cerf and fellow TCP/IP developer
Robert Kahn figured out how to make the Internet work efficiently. TCP/IP
is based on the simple concept of breaking large chunks of data into byte-sized
packets, directing those packets from computer to computer through a scalable
network, and reconstituting the individual packets to replicate the original
document.
Since he was hired, Cerf has given two interviews, one to TechWeb
News last week and the other to CNet
news earlier this week. Both articles offer
comprehensive glimpses of what interests one of the world’s most significant
geeks and how he sees his role at Google. Cerf’s tenure as Google’s
chief Internet evangelist officially begins October 3rd but, being the Father
of the Internet, nearly anything Cerf says about the ‘net is by nature
evangelical. Quotes used in this article are lifted directly from the CNet
and TechWeb pieces. In some cases, quotes from each article are used in
the same paragraph to paint what I believe is a clearer picture of how Cerf
is thinking.
Cerf admits his job description is currently undefined but likened his
role to that of a bumblebee in transporting and cross pollinating ideas
among Google engineers around the world. While he won’t be working
directly on writing code or managing programmers, he will be working to "… probe
deeply into design philosophy, parameters and constraints", of Google’s
systems. "This is a place that's just full of creative energy, and
I like places like that," Cerf said. "I want to have the opportunity
to challenge people in the labs with problems that need solving.”
Google’s stated
mission is to “organize the world's information
and make it universally accessible and useful.” Cerf’s view
of this mission extends to include all possible information infrastructures
such as appliances, interactive advertising, movies and any other form of
digital data. "I see Google creating information infrastructure, literally,
as it goes about adding applications to the things it can do. And that's
what’s exciting, because that information infrastructure has all kind
of possibilities," Cerf said.
The Internet, as seen by Cerf, is comprised of layers of technology stacked
upon one another starting with the basic connectivity protocols TCP/IP.
As the layers of technology grow upwards from one computer or server to
an entire network, the model grows outwards, sort of an inverse pyramid.
Google has already inserted itself into several of these layers with its
core search tool and supporting applications such as GMail, Google Earth,
Local Search, Blogger, and Google Talk. Cert sees Google working towards
forming what he calls an “Upper-Level Infrastructure” of products,
services and applications.
"While it presents itself as a web interface to most people, Google
could just as well present itself as a programmable interface, which means
that you can start writing software that gets information through the eyes,
sort of speak, of Google," Cerf said in the TechWeb interview. "That
creates a vocabulary, if you like, that programmable systems can use in
order to take advantage of what Google is capable of doing with its gigantic
database."
CNet cites an example Cert offered while speaking at a conference on broadband
connectivity in Washington on Tuesday. The article quotes Cert speculating
on what he sees developing when the next-generation Internet, IPv6, is universally
adopted. “Wouldn't it be great,” he suggested, “to order
that bottle of champagne that James Bond is now opening simply by mousing
over on the same screen where a movie is playing?"
Over the years, the Internet has become far more than Cert and his partner
Kahn could have imagined. It was originally designed to allow researchers
at academic institutions to share information and as a nuclear-war proof
communications backbone for US national security. Just over a decade after
it was opened for commercial use, the Internet is now the primary means
of global communications and data transfer.
For Cert, the biggest change in the three decades he’s known the
Internet is its exponential growth. The “avalanche of information
that’s out there,” is, for the most part, accessible only through
the use of search applications such as Google. "Having the world's
knowledge at your fingertips is amazing," he said in the TechWeb interview. "The
second [biggest] thing is the flexibility and richness of communications
among people and between computers."
It is difficult to imagine a wired world without the TCP/IP protocol. One
of the many ways TCP/IP can be used is to create and connect micro-networks
or grids of computers. Grid computing utilizes the power of multiple CPUs
to create a networked super-computer. The SETI@home project is a popular
early example of the power of grid-computing.
Google currently uses grid-networks in its array of data centers but Cert
hints at a larger Internet based grid-system. In the TechWeb article, he
speaks of an evolving computational platform based on grid-computing and
peer-to-peer interactions between systems. These comments will undoubtedly
unleash more speculation on future plans to create a new form of online
operating and storage system. It can also be seen as an indication of future
Google-branded, Internet-based software, information, and entertainment
platforms.
In the CNet article, Cerf mentions approaching movie makers to discuss
the Internet as a distribution outlet. "Some are responding positively,
but some legal departments are still having trouble swallowing the idea," he
said.
He also sees great value in local search providing what he calls “spacely” information. "I
think what's very clear, based on the excitement associated with Google
Earth, is the exploitation of geographically indexed information is clearly
ripe for more development," he said. Google is currently seen as the
leader in local search applications, being the first to merge local search
and mapping for PC users and more importantly, for handheld devices.
In hiring Vint Cert, Google has acquired one of the most nimble IT minds
on the planet. Even though he invented the basic routing protocols that
allowed the commercial expansion of the Internet, he is still striving to
understand exactly what it is he created. An evangelical urgency around
the Internet’s development has always been associated with Cert whose
career accomplishments include work with MCI and NASA. What makes him, quite
literally, one in a billion, is the depth of knowledge and experience underpinning
an articulate and reputably highly-personable scientist. Cert is an engineer,
a lobbyist, and an industry pioneer. He is as significant as Thomas Edison,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Tim Berners-Lee, and Bill Gates. His hiring is bound
to spur Google and its competitors on to bigger and much more interesting
things.
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