13
October
2005
|
19:16 PM
America/Los_Angeles

Tales from the valley: Andy Lark is out and about; patents I'd like to own; it's only Web 0.2; the call of the Rooster; welcome to the Singularity...

By Tom Foremski for Silicon Valley Watcher.com


In the past, I've tried to spare you from my bit torrent of stuff and limit my posts. But, some days I need to get the current stuff out to make way for new stuff.


So, here is just one post (stress free), containing several items :-)


Andy Lark at Rivermark Peets


It's almost nine months since I spoke with Andy Lark, who used to run Sun Microsystems' corporate communications team for many years and left Sun less than a year ago.




He's got fingers in more projects than you'd think possible, given that nature allows us only 10 fingers. Among them: Andy has uncovered a search engine gold mine opportunity--and it is in the dark matter of our digital world.


When you hear about it on Monday, you'll be struck by its simplicity and its obviousness, the hallmarks of damn good ideas.


Andy is also one of the first corporate bloggers, and one of the savviest media profesionals you'll meet. Here is a quote from Andy Lark on blogging:


Not every company needs to have a blog, but every company needs to be involved in blogging.


That one piece of advice is worth millions. Here is his blog: http://andylark.blogs.com/


Patents I'd like to have...first in a series


What am I bid for the following newly granted patent? I guess the bids would come from Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Cisco Systems, Samsung maybe even Google, Ebay, Yahoo, Nokia, and ...?


Take a look, it is smack dab in the sweet spot:



United States Patent 6,952,409

Jolitz October 4, 2005

Accelerator system and method


Abstract


A network accelerator for TCP/IP includes programmable logic for performing transparent protocol translation of streamed protocols for audio/video at network signaling rates. The programmable logic is configured in a parallel pipelined architecture controlled by state machines and implements processing for predictable patterns of the majority of transmissions which are stored in a content addressable memory, and are simultaneously stored in a dual port, dual bank application memory. The invention allows raw Internet protocol communications by cell phones, and cell phone to Internet gateway high capacity transfer that scales independent of a translation application, by processing packet headers in parallel and during memory transfers without the necessity of conventional store and forward techniques.

Inventors: Jolitz; Lynne G. (22570 Citation Dr., Los Gatos, CA 95033)

Appl. No.: 756668

Filed: January 8, 2001


Here's the link to the patent office.


http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=ptxt&S1=6952409.WKU.&OS=PN/6952409&RS=PN/6952409




It's not Web 2.0 its Web 0.2


We haven't yet kicked out of early beta when it comes to the internet. That's why going to the Web 1.0 evening event last week was far better than staying at the Web 2.0 conference reception/dinner around the corner.


It wasn't such a good idea to skip dinner, but the company at Web 1.0 was very good and buzzing. It was at the House of Shields, a bar in downtown SF. Sarah Bresee from Outcast Communications and a couple of her coworkers had to drag me kicking and screaming to it. I protested that I would be missing John Battelle moderate a panel discussion--all the way through dinner.


But I figured somebody would blog it, so I didn't have to be there. Besides, I didn't have a conference badge and no badge, no dinner. Furthermore, the price was steep; $2800 per person and $30K for the vendors to take part in the multi-day event.


But down at Web 1.0 the cost of entry was nothing. In fact, I was up by a few drinks on the evening. The company was all top notch (and top Dogster, Slide, HotorNot and GoingOn, with Zazzle and many others...the (mostly) new geek generation :-)


At Web 1.0, I got into some great conversations, met new people and walked out with a ton of stuff.


More please...


The Web 2.0 conference is highly respected, and for good reason: it brings together so many key people. It has become a revered institution. But I also realized we can have some of the benefits of a Web 2.0 conference, at a Web 1.0 price--more of the time.


I've been testing an idea for The Rooster Club, an occasional get together, a salon of peers rather than podiums.


The Rooster is the perfect metaphor for the blogger (and the entrepreneur)--crowing away on its little patch of the farmyard, boasting and wanting attention. Look at me!


The Rooster is fluff, huff and air, but also cohones. It takes balls to be a Rooster, by definition :-) [BTW, that's not a gender distinction I'm making, it is a quality.]


The metaphor is fun to explore...The Rooster spots the dawn of the next day and wakes you up, and it is *always* way too early--but you can always go back to sleep if you want to :-)


Also, we are in the Chinese Year of the Rooster, and Time magazine will make it the year of the Blogger--because it represents the most disruptive force in society today. imho.


[We don't need to explore the rest of this avian metaphor right now...but I'm sure you could go further, and you would find it frightingly apt!]


We'll have a sign up for the Rooster Club soon, it'll be fun and you should come.


The Singularity is coming--Ray shows his graphs


I caught Ray Kurzweil's lecture recently, which had many provocative ideas and many very similar graphs.


The man takes 225 life-stretching pills per day, said Stewart Brand, the legendary media innovator and community builder (The Well, Whole Earth Catalog, etc), in his introduction.


Mr Kurzweil took a break from ingesting micro-nutrients and spoke for along time about the coming Singularity, detailed in his latest book.


The Singularity is an event that will meld our biology with our technology. It is the collision of many trends that are expanding on a logarithmic scale and they all meet at the same point. Ray has many graphs that prove it--in fact, they all look the same.


The Singularity will offer us mastery over our biology and our life span. Ray's ruler says we are 15 or so years away from the Singularity.


In fact, if we can make it through the next ten years without encountering our mortal nature, then we'll probably make it to the Singularity.


In this near future world our virtual-reality creation capacity will make the digital and analog worlds indistinguishable.


He described a future world that readers of Stanislaw Lem have known for decades. And Lem has already mapped out a lot of the philosophical, moral, ethical and comic dilemmas that such a future will bring. (Cyberiad is an excellent primer on Lem if you are curious.)


Lem might say: If we are so close to the Singularity, just 15 years or so away, then it is highly likely that we are already in the Singularity.


Does that change anything? Probably not. We are still bound by the rules of this world, whatever its source. But it is interesting nonetheless.