History of the Internet

The Internet has almost just become an extension of one’s self. There really is almost nothing that gets done without it. And with nearly all mobile phones giving Internet capability to the individual right in the palm of the hand, it truly is hard to fathom that there once was a time without the World Wide Web at the touch of the fingertip. The Internet has become such an entrenched part of our daily lives, it’s components have even become a part of our lexicon, with site names becoming verbiage – Google, YouTube, Wiki, and Facebook, to name a few. But as with all things, it’s vital to remember where such things come from, to trace the roots. As an MBA candidate, it’s important to see the evolution of inspiration, the benchmarks that led to what we understand to be the Internet today. It’s an opportunity to see where the World Wide Web came from that can lead the MBA candidate to unveil the possibilities of tomorrow. So the following infographic provides a brief history of the Internet, if only to whet your appetite for knowledge.
 
Internet-history

Computer model shows speeding mantle

The Earth’s mantle flows far more rapidly around a sinking tectonic plate than previously thought, according to new computer modeling. The findings could change the way that we think about plate tectonics and the amount of energy available for earthquakes.

The results are reported in the journal Nature.

“Our model suggests that some parts of the mantle are moving at screaming speeds compared to what we can observe directly at the Earth’s surface,” says Magali Billen, associate professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, and the paper’s coauthor. “There is much more mixing and more rapid transport of heat in these regions of the Earth than we suspected.”

Alaskaflow_1

This computer model image shows the mantle (arrows) flowing around the Pacific plate of the Earth's crust (gray) as it sinks under Alaska. Longer arrows show faster-moving mantle. (Credit: Magali Billen)

Billen and graduate student Margarete Jadamec, now a postdoctoral researcher at Monash University in Australia, studied the Alaskan subduction zone, where the Pacific plate is diving beneath Alaska and pushing up Mt. McKinley.

To do so, they built the most detailed computer model to date of the plate and the surrounding mantle. The model revealed that rather than moving at roughly the same speed as the plate, the mantle was flowing much faster.

“We expected it to flow faster, but the surprise was that it is flowing 20 to 30 times faster,” Billen said.

For geophysicists, that’s as jarring as looking out your car window and estimating your speed at 10 miles an hour based on the passing scenery, then looking at the speedometer to find that you are doing 200 miles an hour, Billen says.

The Earth’s surface is made of rocky plates floating on the mantle. Although solid, the mantle can flow under enormous pressure and temperature as individual grains are stretched. Where the surface plates meet, they may rub alongside each other or one may dive under the other and sink into the mantle, creating a subduction zone. As the plate sinks, it drags the mantle material along with it, Billen explains.

The model assumes that the viscosity of the mantle is not directly proportional to the stress on it. As stress increases, the mantle gets much less viscous and flows more easily.

The model raises questions about how movements in the mantle are connected to the movements of plates at the surface. One prediction is that there is more energy available in subduction zones to cause earthquakes than previously thought.

The model includes 100 million data points and takes 48 hours to run on a supercomputer with 400 processors. Billen and Jadamec ran their model on the Teragrid supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, which is partly supported by the National Science Foundation.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

More news from UC Davis: www.news.ucdavis.edu/

Google’s Pac-Man Logo Costs Society $120,483,800 in Productivity

We joked last week when Google changed its logo to a playable game of Pac-Man that the world’s collective productivity would take a sharp plunge, but it turns out that’s exactly what happened.

Google-pacman-260b

The blog for time management tool RescueTime did the math and determined that Google Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time, or $120,483,800 in productivity.

The cost was determined by looking at how much time was spent on Google’s homepage the day the Pac-Man logo was up (48 seconds) versus the average amount of time spent on other days (11 seconds) and multiplied by the number of visitors to the site that day (503,703,000).

The cost seems like a bit of a stretch, though. RescueTime assumed that the average Google user makes $25 per hour; that’s considerably higher than median income in Internet-connected nations. Also, you probably can’t assume that everyone who visited the site Friday was on the clock at work.

If you haven’t wasted time at work playing Google Pac-Man already, you still have a chance to add to that lost productivity tally. Google has preserved the Pac-Man game logo at www.google.com/pacman (you can alsodownload the game) even though the front page has returned to normal.

A Billion Hits by tumblr

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Has it been three years already?!

February was a month of big milestones for us, possibly the most exciting of which was that you guys viewed Tumblr more than a BILLION times. That’s 36 million times a day, 25,000 times a minute, and more than 400 times a second!

To say thank you, we have some beautiful, free, and awesome features we’ll be pushing this week.

david:

To the 4 million folks behind these numbers: You’re amazing. It’s because of you we have the greatest jobs in the world. We are eternally grateful.

To our strapping team back in New York (I’m in Florida for something!): It’s an honor to work with people so much smarter than me, that are so good looking.

Thank you.

The Current State of Twitter [Infographic]

There is no doubt that Twitter has been a runaway success. Add to their rapid growth the recently announced @anywhere  platform, and plans for further international expansion, and it comes as no surprise that the company is not looking to sell — at least within the next 2 years.

While the site’s growth has certainly been impressive and it has reached the point of non-displacement, there are some interesting hidden truths about Twitter and its users. The following graphic takes a look at Twitter’s path to 10 billion tweets, what we have learned about its users and what they’ve been talking about along the way.

Twitter

Mobile Data Traffic Surge: 40 Exabytes by 2014

In only four short years, the worldwide mobile data traffic will reach 40 exabytes per year. This is according to new research from Cisco which sees the traffic jumping from 0.09 exabytes per month in 2009 to 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014. And in case you don't know what an exabyte is, it's 1 billion gigabytes. That's one quintillion bytes.

It appears that not only does the mobile web have a future, the mobile web is the future.

Global mobile data traffic has increased 160% over the course of the past year and is now at 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009-2014. By 2014, it will have reached 3.6 exabytes per month, a 39-fold increase.

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The researchers said there are two major global trends driving up the data usage. One, obviously, is the increase in the number of data-ready handsets. Simply put, more handsets capable of browsing the web means more data usage. By 2014, there could be over 5 billion personal devices connecting to mobile networks and over 400 million of those devices may represent the only means of connecting to the Internet that some people will have.

However, it's important to note that in Cisco's study, they also counted laptop air cards as mobile Internet devices, so these numbers don't just speak to the proliferation of smartphones themselves, they speak to how we will increasingly be using cellular data networks to access the Web in the future.

The other major trend driving up the data traffic numbers is the consumption of mobile video content. By 2014, mobile video will account for 66% of all mobile data traffic worldwide. This represents a 66-fold increase from 2009, the highest of any mobile data application. 

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Another way to get a handle on the increase is to look at the average mobile broadband connection and how much data traffic it uses. Right now, the average connection uses 1.3 gigabytes per month - the equivalent of 650 MP3 music files. By 2014, the average connection will use 7 gigabytes of traffic per month or the equivalent of 3500 MP3's.

The Middle East and Africa will have the highest compounded annual growth rate (CAGR), with a rate of 133%. Following that region is Asia-Pacific (119% CAGR), and North America (117% CAGR). India will be the country with the highest CAGR - they'll be at 222%. China will follow with a 172% CAGR and South Africa will have a 156% CAGR. 

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These are just some of the highlights from Cisco's research. If you're interested in learning more, you can read through the entire report here.

Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2009-2014

The Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update is part of the comprehensive Cisco VNI Forecast, an ongoing initiative to track and forecast the impact of visual networking applications on global networks. This paper presents some of Cisco's key global mobile data traffic projections and growth trends.

Executive Summary

Globally, mobile data traffic will double every year through 2014, increasing 39 times between 2009 and 2014
. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 108 percent between 2009 and 2014, reaching 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014.
Almost 66 percent of the world's mobile data traffic will be video by 2014
. Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2009 and 2014. Mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the Cisco VNI Forecast at this time (see Appendix A for applications details).
The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest growth of any region at 133 percent CAGR
, followed by Asia Pacific at 119 percent and North America at 117 percent (see Appendix A for region details).

Year in Review: Mobile Data Traffic Growth in 2009

In spite of the economic downturn, which many regions only now are starting to slowly rebound from, the demand for mobile services has remained constant and has in fact grown in many areas. Our global estimates show that mobile data traffic increased 160 percent from calendar year-end 2008 to calendar year-end 2009. And individually, some mobile carriers have published some dramatic traffic increases. For example, the United Kingdom-based O2 reported that its mobile data traffic in Europe doubled every three months in 2009; Telecom Italia announced that its mobile traffic grew 216 percent from mid-2008 to mid-2009; and AT&T has reported that its mobile traffic increased 5000 percent in the past 3 years.

The Impact of Video and Advanced Devices on Mobile Traffic

According to the Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, video will be responsible for the majority of the traffic growth between 2009 and 2014. As Figures 1 and 2 show, overall mobile data traffic is expected to grow to 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014, and over 2.3 of those are due to mobile video traffic.

Figure 1. Cisco Forecasts 3.6 Exabytes per Month of Mobile Data Traffic by 2014

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Figure 2. Video Will Account for 66 Percent of Global Mobile Data Traffic by 2014

2

Figure 3. shows the devices responsible for mobile data traffic growth. Smartphones and portables will account for 91 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2014. This is primarily due to the much higher usage profile of laptops and the suitability of mobile broadband handsets for high-speed, high-quality video.

Figure 3. Laptops and Smartphones Drive Traffic Growth

3

The average smartphone user generates 10 times the amount of traffic generated by the average non-smartphone user. Handset traffic is highest in regions with the highest smartphone penetration. Currently, Italy has the highest smartphone penetration, and will continue to be the smartphone leader through the forecast period. Starting at a low base, India will experience the highest increase in smartphone penetration, which will triple over the forecast period, and number of smartphone users, which will grow 5.5 fold by 2014.

Table 1. Percentage of Install Base of Smartphones over all Mobile Handsets

Region or Country

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Asia Pacific

China

10%

11%

13%

15%

18%

21%

India

4%

5%

6%

8%

10%

12%

Korea

14%

15%

17%

21%

25%

30%

Rest of Asia Pacific

8%

8%

9%

10%

11%

12%

Total Asia Pacific

8%

9%

10%

12%

14%

16%

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)

Rest of CEE

5%

7%

9%

11%

13%

16%

Russia

6%

7%

9%

11%

15%

17%

Total CEE

6%

7%

9%

11%

14%

16%

Japan

Japan

4%

4%

5%

6%

7%

8%

Total Japan

4%

4%

5%

6%

7%

8%

Latin America

Brazil

1%

1%

1%

2%

2%

2%

Mexico

3%

4%

5%

7%

10%

12%

Rest of Latin America

1%

1%

1%

1%

2%

2%

Total Latin America

1%

1%

2%

2%

3%

3%

Middle East and Africa (MEA)

Rest of MEA

3%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

South Africa

1%

2%

2%

3%

4%

4%

Total MEA

3%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

North America

Canada

30%

31%

34%

40%

47%

50%

United States

32%

33%

37%

44%

51%

55%

Total North America

32%

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Intelligent Home Energy Management by Intel & IDEO

Wading through the sea of new processors in Intel's 2010 CES booth, we came across the Intelligent Home Energy Management proof of concept. Based around a low-power Atom processor and OLED touch screen, the concept aims to make energy management in the home fun and easy for the whole family.

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While energy monitoring systems were a clear trend throughout the show, Intel's system differed by putting both hardware and software design at the highest priority. Developed in partnership with IDEO, the system features a large Hello/Goodbye switch on the top of the device which activates pre-arranged settings to help the users save energy and money.

Intel2

Wireless outlet sensors feed energy usage data to the dashboard, which also acts as a centralized home information center, monitoring security systems, package tracking, home maintenance and more.

Intel3

The energy management screen enables users to keep tabs on their real-time energy usage, reduce costs, pay bills, and earn rewards. With individual sensors monitoring appliances, family members can see exactly where energy is being used and learn how to improve performance.

Intel4

With a fully expandable platform, applications such as a UPS package tracker add additional functionality to the dashboard. Other applications supplied by Intel include baby monitors, weather updates, traffic reports, family video memos, and emergency-broadcast applications.

News Alert: Bill Gates is officially redeemed from presentation purgatory [TED Conference]

Wow, Gates did a great job at TED this year. Why is he suddenly a great communicator and presenter? What has driven his transformation? I think it’s because he moved from presenting about his job to presenting about his passion, and suddenly he communicates well. So, is it possible that we can be so passionate about what we do that we can present software upgrades with as much care and thoughtfulness? I think so!

This year at TED, Mr. Gates talked about climate change. Not sure who’s building his content or slides, but please keep them employed!

Here’s his presentation and slides:

Gates claims there’s a mathematical equation we can use to get carbon emissions down to zero.

1

The goal is to innovate to the zero emission point.

2

We’re producing tons of CO2 each year.

3

Here’s the formula. And mathematically for this to come to zero, one of these has to go to zero or it won’t work out.

4

He then gave an overview of the formula:

Sometimes we take our energy for granted because it’s so readily available. Here’s a shot of kids doing their homework under street lamps because they have no electricity at home.

7

Can we generate an energy source that doesn’t produce carbon?

8

We need a miracle, and miracles are tough to plan.

9

TED loved the release of the mosquitoes last year, and this year he released fireflies, because they produce light. At the same time the bugs were released, a lovely animation on the screen simulated an evening sky with lightning bugs. (And when the talk ended, he played the song 10,000 Lightning Bugs.)

He then explained the five areas in which we need a miracle.

Wind and solar energy aren’t constant enough to be stored, and won’t fit in batteries.

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He did a good job showing data without data charts.

He made a case for nuclear by showing how reactors burn like a candle via a lovely animation sequence.

There is enough nuclear waste stored in KY to power the country for 200 more years. (Yikes, my family almost moved to Paducah when I was a kid.)

24

We have a long term score card, but what’s our short term one?

25

He made a wish. Of every wish he could make, he would solve this one problem. More than vaccines, more than wishing leaders into office. He wants us to innovate to zero.

The presentation ended with Mr. Gates standing in front of a huge zero symbol, emblazoned against a beautiful shot of the earth and he garnered a standing ovation.

Well done, Mr. Gates. You’ve redeemed yourself.

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