World Wide Google

Google hires a lot of PHDs. Google hires a lot of very good programmers. Google always buys something. Google always manages around it's stock. Google is always on the move. Google always invents something. Google always thinks big.

Google is hard at work on a nation-wide (US) high-capacity data network, buying up unused fiber lines and cheap backbone access to really flesh out their capacity. B2 theorizes this could result in a massive digital video db, on-demand television (IPTV) system, or free ad-based WiFi network.

Could Google really power not just Internet search, but a sizable portion of the Internet?

Related stories:
engadget: GoogleNet - massive Google WiFi in the works?
The Register: GoogleNet - the ultimate embrace and extend? & World Wide Google
The Register: Google puts the break on Web Accelerator
Daily Wireless: GoogleNet?

WinFS beta available to MSDN subscribers

Although it didn't make the cut for Windows Vista, a beta of Microsoft's next-gen WinFS file system has been made available to members of the Microsoft Developer Network. The availability of this first beta release doesn't indicate that WinFS will arrive earlier than expected, though. According to Microsoft, the file system will still be in beta when Windows Vista ships next year.

Link to the original article.

G5 vs x86?

I've just got my eyes over an interesting article 'bout what G5 and OS X can and cannot do. Apparently, G5 is the most successful processor in the G series (and perhaps even in the PowerPC series), BUT the x86 outstands it (I would say, by far). Mac OS X (Darwin 8.1, Mach kernel 3) cannot compete with it's free adversary: Linux, even they have a little bit of common ground (FreeBSD 4.4 was the model and base for Mach kernel). they are both: 'NIXes.

I can run two conclusions:
1. If OS X is so successful on the client side, maybe these rumors of OS X ported on x86 are not so far from truth after all, and OS X should be even faster than on Mac.
2. If XBox 360 has 3 PowerPC cores it will be, as Carmack said it will be, "about 50% slower than a high end x86 machine). So that's not that good.

Windows update without IE?

Yes! They say it's possible. You can use it with Firefox, Netscape, Mozilla or Opera. It pretty much works as IE (download a plugin, check the local system, present a list of updates...) but without IE :). I've tied it myself but I was already "up to date!", so I couldn't see any "real" action.

You can access it here. And, let's hope it lasts.

I wonder how it's going to handle Genuine Windows Adavantage...

Update
On a clean system, being kicked off by the Genuine Windows Advantage system (dam!), I logged on this site, I chose Firefox from the alternative list of browsers (it detected that I use IE and proposed an alternative), I downloaded it, installed it, logged back to the site using Firefox and started downloading updates. After installing the first 3, Firefox says "ok, we have an situation here... Firefox Is Down/Dead!". Ok, no problem, logged back, started the update (all the downloaded updates were already on my disk, so a download wasn't necessary. A few installations and "Bang!", believe it or not, Firefox is down on the battlefield, doing it's job? After a few sessions of this kind, and few restarts later (you need to restart because some of the patches will not be effective until you reboot - but no info about this, you have to figure it for yourself) you have all the updates provided by the site (possibly all the updates in Windows Update?)

Hey! I had little problems but not major ones. Firefox is unstable (low probability) or this plugin is doing some powerful stuff to Firefox...

Reporting on the battlefield: GWA was defeated

Quake 3 Sources Out

Ok, I'm a little late, but I had (and still have) all this stuff on my head. As you know, Carmack hold his word and released Q3 Source (3.32b) & Q3Radiant. That's awesome! (you can look at a bunch of neat stuff in their ftp)
I took a short look at the sources. C. That's a little depressing :( (Doom3 is implemented in C++, maybe in about 4 years from now...) Still, there are important lessons to learn from this. The code is clean, has relevant comments all over and it's just cool that you can do what you want with it. (Ok, I'm a little over excited, but I'll be fine)

For all you people who just want to do a Mod, and not deep modify the engine, you can look at this very good page: code3arena. A lot of very good and gradual tutorials about q3 moding are presented.

Doom 4 iPod?

Hey! Have you heard of pozilla? If not, you've just lost 1/2 of your life. Well, Doom has been ported on podzilla. So it is a little sluggish so it's hard to control, but what the hell? It's Doom on a mp3 player!

The really cool thing it's the engineering related stuff, not the app. You really can do so much with Linux & free software, even it's on a crappy hardware.

Ok, Stallman gave us GNU, FSF & GPL, Torvals gave us Linux, Carmak gave us Doom, Leach gave us podzilla and now, guess what? Doom 4 iPod. "You've come a long way baby!" (Fatboy Slim).

You can read more, see pictures, watch some videos or download it here.

Another interesting site is about Doom modifications. Nice to see an old legend still kicking a leg after such a long time.

Archy

Archy it's an eccentric interface/platform, built in mind with some interesting philosophy like "Your Data is Sacred", "Your Train of Thought is Sacred", "A Computer Should Not Make You Do More Work Than Is Necessary" etc. It was invented by Jef Raskin (created the Macintosh project). For now, a alpha build is available and kinda' works only on WindowsXP (and I tend to believe them), but Linux and OsX are in progress.

I tried it for a bit... what can I say... "weird" it's the first word that comes out of my mind. No fancy interface, just keys. Is Jef the creator of vi too?

John Carmack's QuakeCon 2005 keynote

You all know John. A few interesting subjects (I'm exaggerating a little bit, but a little about these is mentioned):
- Multithreading
- PC vs Consoles
- XBox 360 vs PS3
- Physics acceleration
- Small budget & Creativity vs Safe play & Big (read Bloated) budget
- But what about Q3 sources?
- Nice features to have in next gen video-boards

Read more in Tech news
Update
Or better... download the movie
Or, if you don't want 'bout 250MB on your drive just to see Carmack speaking for 90 minutes (but hey! you're missing "The man!" :) ) you can read a very good article about what he had to say!