The Future of Computing is Google – Should we be worried?

The Future of Computing is Google – Should We Be Worried?
By Jonathan Huie

I didn’t just say that Google is the future of the Internet – that is scary enough – and virtually true today. I said, The Future of COMPUTING.

Google has always been a gentle giant – unlike the bravado Microsoft. No rantings and ravings – no pronouncement that “our way is best,” or “we know what is good for you.” No, Google’s way is to welcome open standards and actively promote their competition. For example, their tool to move a blog off their (free) Blogger service is fully as complete and usable as their their tool to transfer a blog onto Blogger. Try getting your data out of a Microsoft product such as Outlook or Hotmail.

Perhaps Google has learned from Microsoft’s mistakes. Gentle wins in the long run. This is really good for Google, but is it good for the rest of us. Because Google take such great pains to offend no one, because it is so capable, and because it now has tremendous momentum, Google is taking over more of the world of technology every day.

Google completely dominates my own professional life as an author and blogger to an extent that is more than a little concerning. Google search and Gmail are the least of it. My blogs are on Blogger, but I could use another service. It’s not even Picasa, or YouTube, or FeedBurner.

AdSense/AdWords – that’s the stranglehold. Google is essentially the only channel for a small business to either advertise of receive advertising revenue on a website or blog. Yahoo and others aren’t even on the radar. If I had to, I could use Yahoo’s search engine, but if I lost AdSense/AdWords, 80% of my professional activity would vaporize.

In its own gentle giant kind of way, Google is now creeping up on computing and enterprise information sharing. Shared calendars and shared documents for starters – moving quickly toward a complete collaborative computing environment. Just watch – for most users, personal and corporate, the only local software will be a browser, perhaps Google’s Chrome. Google’s individual and collaborative on-line productivity and authoring applications will dominate for all but the most demanding users.

Should we be worried? Perhaps not, but don’t become too complacent.

For blogging tips, visit Jonathan’s Blogging Tips – Techniques blog.
To brighten your day, visit Jonathan’s Daily Inspiration – Quote blog.

Jonathan Lockwood Huie is an author of self-awareness books. He has been dubbed “The Philosopher of Happiness” by those closest to him, in recognition of his on-going commitment to seeing Joy in all of life.

** “Today is your day to dance lightly with life. It really is.” – jonathan lockwood huie**

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Vote for Google’s St. Patricks Day Logo

Past to Present
Ireland is represented by the two chimneys of Dublin Bay which are a great symbol of Dublin, our capital city. The Luas represents the new and modern Ireland while the horse represents the famous Irish horse fairs that have been on for hundreds of years – it is a symbol of our past and future.

• Name: Kelly Kiernan
• Age: 16
• School: St. Paul’s Secondary School
• County: Dublin

Google are taking public votes for which logo it’ll display on Saint Patricks Day 2009.

The entries are from junior 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th/5th & 6th class, 1st/2nd/3rd year and transitional/5th/6th year students respectively from all over Ireland. The images are categorised by their revelant classes, and the images reflect this.

My personal favourite, shown to the right here, by Kelly Kiernan (Age 16) was in the transitional/5th/6th year section.Ironically, perhaps from a school I went to for a sum total of one day, back in days of old. Perhaps not, it’s still an awesome picture though!

vote for your favourite at [Google]

Google Earth just got a bit more awesome

Silicon Republic has noticed a very interesting feature of the new Google Earth 5.0 software application:

The newest version of Google’s globe-trotting desktop application Google Earth is bringing us into uncharted waters, literally, with the ability to explore the ocean floor in 3D and swim with the fishes as they travel on their migratory paths.

Google Ocean has 14 different layers including Shipwrecks, Ocean Expeditions, Animal Tracking and Cousteau Ocean World.

more at [Google Earth] via [Silicon Republic]

Google’s privacy councel charged with defamation

The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) reports via [Slashdot] that Google’s global privacy council have been charged with defamation after a video was uploaded which was captured in a Turin classroom. The video depicts four boys taunting a young man with down syndrome, and hitting him with a tissue box. The video was uploaded by one of the boys, to Google’s italian video site.

Google’s global privacy counsel will appear in Italian court this week on criminal charges of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data. The charges follow a two-year investigation by Italian authorities into footage uploaded onto Google Video that showed a disabled teen being disparaged by peers. Google’s Paris-based Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer and three other executives charged in the case will appear before the Criminal Court of Milan on February 3. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 36 months.

more on this at [The IAPP]