William Gibson on Google

William Gibson is one of my favorite authors — reading Neuromancer when it came out was a life-changer for me in terms of literature, science fiction and general outlook — and he has an interesting op-ed at the New York Times on the global reach of Google. He describes the relationship between the behemoth tech company and its users this way, “We are part of a post-geographical, post-national super-state.” And adds, “We’re citizens, but without rights.”

From the third link:

We have yet to take Google’s measure. We’ve seen nothing like it before, and we already perceive much of our world through it. We would all very much like to be sagely and reliably advised by our own private genie; we would like the genie to make the world more transparent, more easily navigable. Google does that for us: it makes everything in the world accessible to everyone, and everyone accessible to the world. But we see everyone looking in, and blame Google.

Google is not ours. Which feels confusing, because we are its unpaid content-providers, in one way or another. We generate product for Google, our every search a minuscule contribution. Google is made of us, a sort of coral reef of human minds and their products. And still we balk at Mr. Schmidt’s claim that we want Google to tell us what to do next. Is he saying that when we search for dinner recommendations, Google might recommend a movie instead? If our genie recommended the movie, I imagine we’d go, intrigued. If Google did that, I imagine, we’d bridle, then begin our next search.

Web surfing good for the aging brain

KurzweilAI.net — This is good news since we’re all getting older and if you’re reading this I guessing you do at least a little web surfing. Surfing the internet increases brain activity in older adults.

Surfing the Web Stimulates Older Brains

WebMD, Oct. 14, 2008 In an experiment, adults 55 to 78 years old who have regularly searched the Internet showed twice the increase in brain activity in MRI scans when performing a new Internet search than their counterparts without Internet search experience, especially in the areas of the brain that control decision making and complex reasoning, UCLA researchers have found.   Read Original Article>>

Infovell mines the deep Web

This may turn out to be a very important tool specifically for research, but really even for basic web searching for detailed information.

From the link:

According to a study by the University of California at Berkeley, traditional search engines such as Google and Yahoo index only about 0.2% of the Internet. The remaining 99.8%, known as the “deep Web,” is a vast body of public and subscription-based information that traditional search engines can’t access.

To dig into this “invisible” information, scientists have developed a new search engine called Infovell geared at helping researchers find often obscure data in the deep Web. As scientists working on the Human Genome Project, Infovell´s founders designed the new searching technology based on methods in genomics research. Instead of using keywords, Infovell accepts much longer search terms, and in any language.

 

And:

Infovell is being demonstrated at DEMOfall08, a conference for emerging technologies taking place in San Diego on September 7-9. Users can sign up for a 30-day risk-free trial at Infovell´s Web site, and Infovell is initially available on a subscription basis. Later this year, Infovell will release a free beta version on a limited basis without some of the advanced features in the premium version.