Evolution, What’s next?

September 7th, 2010 § 0 comments § Categories: Tech

Tonight is one of those nights in which I get lost in a limbo thinking about something different to do which usually doesn’t make any sense once the sun rises. Here I write my thought on evolution of Internet and what’s next.

Internet is an enabler for people to different things easily like shopping, communicating etc etc. In early 1990s, World Wide Web (WWW) was proposed as a way to share information across Internet using webpages and hyper links.  Information on the web were mostly static then like company information, how to do stuffs linked by hyper links.

In mid 1990s, it was used by people to communicate between each other and contents were dynamic based on the user. User can login to see there emails (AOL), Yahoo chat rooms, Yahoo Games, eBay, Amazon and others.

By late 1990s, there was information overload as every company had a website and every one was adding information online like using Yahoo Geocities. All the information were online now except that you can’t find that easily. This is when Sergy and Larry felt the need to search for information through this massive web and came up with Google in 1998. By 2000 with Internet booming, every service was online and this was the culmination of boom and it finally burst in 2000.

It continued to grow after that too and by mid 2000, many people were using Internet and they were using mostly for one-to-one communication like GMail, MSN Chat etc.  By this time, overall infrastructure of the Internet has grown and it can support Voice over IP VoIP (Cisco) as well now.

After 2005, Internet has taken us to next level where it is a community on its own and we form network of friends online and share information with them through social networks like MySpace, Orkut, Facebook etc. It went further into our lives by tracking at real time what we are doing with Twitter. Internet infrastructure did grow with time as well and application services like Google Docs where offered online through Cloud Computing.

I think current trends are social networks (Facebook), real time data mostly using mobile clients (Twitter, Four Square), business case of social network like an online agent (Covestor, Groupon), Cloud Computing (Google Docs, Google OS, SaaS) and Video.

The million dollar question is, What’s next?

Video would be the next big thing as it is natural progression from static data to dynamic data to voice to video. It is no brainer, Cisco as a networking company is going after video.

With Cloud Computing, I think we should see more desktop applications and services moved to the cloud and I think it is a natural progression for networks to become powerful to support these kind of applications. We would be less constrained to our desktop and I believe we should be able to login to our desktop online in the future.

Tablets would be the enablers for cloud computing as everything would be online and we just need a way to access it online like iPad, Cisco Cius. What’s cool would be as something similar to what Cius does, we use it as tablet when we are mobile and when we go to the desk we hook it to a desktop and it becomes powerful machine.

I am not sure what would happen to our phones though. Sure they would be smarter and I think we  will carry a smart phone and a tablet with us at least for the next leap.

I think identifying these areas is an easy one, if I am correct that is but the actual million dollars question is in what we can do in these areas to earn million dollars! If you know the answer let me know : ) I don’t know anything now and no more in limbo state as its 5 AM and sun is coming out. : )

 

PS: I dint do much research into this post, just wrote what I know. If some information is wrong excuse me.

PSS: After completing this post, I realized I dint mention Microsoft at all in this post. I think Microsoft has not done much with the whole online use case and should be interesting to see their strategy.

10 reasons to do Masters

May 5th, 2010 § 2 comments § Categories: General

As I am about to complete my masters, it seems like yesterday I landed in US. Two years have flied and looking back it was a good journey indeed. Here is my compilation of top 10 reasons from tenth to first on why you should do Master’s in US especially in Virginia Tech.

#10. To put mokkais (PJs), it is an art if you like : P I happened to be with a group of friends who always make PJs and I must stay I am still no way close their PJs : P

#9. To learn to cook : D I had no clue on cooking before I came here and I would say I have learnt a bit.

#8. To gain technical knowledge in Computer Science. Through the courses I took and the projects I did, I must say I got a broader scope of Computer Science like HCI, Networks and also gained some in-depth knowledge on the subject.

#7. To mingle with completely different environment. I had no clue of how this place would be and dint know many people either when I came. So it was good to experience life; if you like, from scratch : )

#6. Learn to manage yourself and be completely independent. From washing clothes to bank account everything is on you.

#5. To experience new things! ; )

#4. To do creative and innovative projects. This is technical, on the courses I took, couple of courses emphasized on creating a new innovative tools to solve common problems like teaching and visualization. This was a new experience, as it involved not just implementing something based on requirement but thinking out of box and doing something new no one has done before.

#3. On Virginia Tech and Blacksburg, I really like this place. Virginia Tech and Dept. of Computer Science is a great place with all the facilities and Blacksburg is small, cheap, safe college town which I really like.

#2. To meet smart, interesting people and make new friends. I made few good friends and came across people whom I liked from the day I met them because of their character, charisma and work.

#1. Ssssshhhhh! Figure out yourself whats yours : )

 

Somethings may be silly but these were the things came to my mind when I thought about it. Life moves on and its moving pretty fast, should experience it too see what it holds!

Cheers,

Rahul

CS ‘n’ Life

April 15th, 2010 § 0 comments § Categories: General

Lately everything in Life seems to be related to Computer Science from relationships to counting things everything!

Other day, I was counting something and I started counting from 0 (because Arrays start with 0) and then wondered why it is 1 less. : D

From traffic signals to parking lots to playing cards everything is a Computer Science problem and Java class design : P Because Java has such a good Object Oriented concepts and we CS guys are good at it, Life is good, mind you! : )

Btw, for complicated relationships too sadly we are responsible. You know complicated relationships are nothing but a circular single linked-list which creates a deadlock? A guy loves a girl but this girl doesn’t love him, happens always right?! this girl loves someone else who in turn loves some other girl forming a linked list and somewhere down the line this link forms to be a circular one causing deadlock! As defined in CS, deadlocks happen when two or more process wait for resource in a circular chain. We are very seriously working on solving this problem! : )

So Computer Science is nothing but Life and Life is nothing but Computer Science. I am writing this mokkai post when I am suppose to writing my project report. Having attained this eternity, shouldn’t I be awarded a PhD in CS?! : P I know, I know.
System.exit(‘Rahul’);

2 Countries

February 21st, 2010 § 1 comment § Categories: General

Recently I went back to India for a vacation after more than a year and half. It was a welcome break and more than anything it was good to be back home sweet home : )

It was afternoon when I landed in Chennai and climate was not so hot and thankfully it was good for most part of my stay there. One thing I immediately noticed was of course traffic.

On the way from airport to home, I seriously thought traffic was bad and people were driving crazy, wondering how did they change so much in just a year and half. But I was told the traffic hasn’t changed at all just my perspective has. I used to make fun of my friends who tells me how different it would be when you go to India after an year for the first time. Just being used to traffic here in US for one year, you will see the difference and feel awkward. But it was just for one day, after that I was back to where I truly belonged and I was driving on the roads as crazily I was before. On the way though to compensate for the crazy traffic outside, enjoyed the sweets mom has bought to the airport, it was good to see them after a long time. Reached home just in time to see my sister who was “seriously” preparing for her afternoon exam and wished her best as she left. She has grown a lot in a year and was good to see her and hang around with her.

Spent first two weeks going to my native place and other places down south Tamil Nadu. It is always fun and this time around it was more fun as we went with cousins and aunts and also now you go with a different perspective. Other than that met friends and relatives and went around Chennai.

Most of the days relaxed at home, having good food, watching TV and sleeping. Went back to those good old days and did exactly as I had wished here : )

While here in US, I thought I have changed a lot but your character is defined by the environment you are in and mostly while in Chennai I was as I was before. I understood that culture, environment and people around you influence your behavior and its very different out there from what it is here but to me both are equally fine.

There are two things I felt has changed from the time I was there. One is really the traffic as I have told before. But one another thing which may seem silly is Ear Mufflers. Oh man! I have never seen any new thing being used by people before in this scale. Every other person was wearing one and I don’t know how it caught up among people in every place in Tamil Nadu. Every shop was selling them and it was really cheap. Although being in cold place like Virginia here, I never used them, so it amused me when everyone was using it. It made me wonder, is this real indication of how the climate has changed and effect of climate change?!

Overall, it was fun and relaxing but dint know how days had passed and suddenly realized I will be leaving back in few days. It was sad to leave but at least I dint feel bad to be back here, I should thank those who make home away from home here. Don’t know when I will be back home but till then these memory of it will be there for sure.

PS: Post title is inspired from the book “2 States” by Chetan Bhagat, which saved me in the long flight on the way back. It is a story of a boy and a girl from two different states in India getting married, it was a good read.

What a semester it was!

December 15th, 2009 § 0 comments § Categories: General

Reflecting on the fall 09 semester went by, what a semester it was! Had a great time in the past six months and wish it stays the same.

Somehow I think I dint work much this sem but did a decent job on the courses. I dint code much too in the course projects which is rather disappointing as I like to code but happy that my teammates did a good job on it. Grades are not out yet but hoping to get fair grades.

Experienced new things and tried few things, some things turned out well and some things failed. Thinking of missed opportunities I feel bad but at least I tried and learnt from it!

One thing for sure, I have changed a lot and I know it! Not sure if people around me see it that way or whether its for good or bad … but change is constant and change for the better.

Everything has to come to an end one day and it will be written as past but not the memories of it! As this semester comes to an end and with it 2009, hope you had a great time as well and wish you a great year ahead. Happy new year : )

PS: I wish to write a lot but can’t find words to express and few things cannot be expressed! Unnai ennip paarkkaiyil kavidhai kottudhu … Adhai ezhudha ninaikkaiyil varththai muttudhu … Abirami abirami : )

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