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Google shares latest focus areas for Internet policy and standards research proposals

 

Vint Cerf, Google Evangelist, The Colbert Report

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, posted the company’s latest policy and standards research proposal focus areas today on Google’s research blog:

We would like to share with you the areas of Internet policy in which we are particularly interested to see progress and stimulate further research:

  • Accessibility: Google is committed to supporting research that generates insights about what helps make technology a usable reality for everyone, regardless of cognitive, physical, sensory, or other form of impairment.
  • Access: What policies help bring open, robust, competitive and affordable Internet access to everyone in the world? What are the economic and social impacts of improved Internet access? In particular, what are the emerging impacts of gigabit access networks?
  • Intellectual property (IP) in the digital era: The growth of digital industries has meant that IP law is an increasingly important policy tool governing innovation and economic growth. We would like to better understand how IP legislation can enable new technologies, and what effect different national or regional IP regimes have on innovation, such as the effect of patent litigation on invention, and how copyright exceptions affect the creation of online technologies.
  • Freedom of Expression: As an advocate of freedom of expression on the Internet, Google is interested in research that produces insights into how discourse and expression in the global online (public) sphere happens, and how stakeholders best allow freedom of expression, balance it with other rights and resolve conflicts or interest/disputes.
  • Internet Governance: The Internet is a universal space that many expect to remain open, free, and borderless. Multiple stakeholders (internet companies, governments and civil society) work together to design the governance practices and institutions to maintain order and innovation in the global Internet ecosystem. We are interested in supporting top researchers who analyze and contribute insights into which practices and institutional structures work and which don’t.
  • Open Standards and Interoperability: Open Standards and interoperability of services are at the core of the Internet’s successful international propagation and usefulness. Google is interested in research that contributes analysis and best practices for standardization and interoperability. Among them we see resource management, access control and authorities for the Internet of Things, as well as questions regarding convergence and security. Also, cloud computing and storage could benefit from open standards that enable interoperability.

Additionally, there are several important research areas like PrivacyEconomics and market algorithms, and Security, which have a significant policy component but are dealt with as research topics distinct from policy & standards.

For more from Vint Cerf and Google’s role on shaping Internet policy, see the Google VP and Chief Internet Evangelist’s recent interview with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central as seen in the shot above.

Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf discusses the fate of the Internet w/ Stephen Colbert (Video)

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Vint Cerf, Google Evangelist, The Colbert Report

Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and general co-father of the Internet, stopped by The Colbert Report on Comedy Central to discuss the origins of the Web as well as where Cerf sees the Internet going forward.

During the conversation, Cerf noted that “about 3 billion people are online right now,” a number which is unimaginably larger than what the Internet was intended for when it was being developed for the military and academia, and Cerf says we have another 4 billion people to go with expanding online access.

While Colbert comically recommended dropping free AOL CD’s to developing countries to promote the Internet around the world, Cerf pointed seriously to the role of the smartphone in spreading Internet access to third world countries.
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Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Evangelist and father of the internet talks future technology

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[protected-iframe id=”9c85791dfebace56104a84ef59f613b4-22427743-3648805″ info=”http://present.knowledgevision.com/account/ftc/link/Live_Webcast” width=”600″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]

Vint Cerf, one of the two men known as “fathers of the internet” and Chief Evangelist at Google talks the future at a Federal Trade Commission conference. It’s an interesting look at the past, present and future of the “internet” of things from a man who has an incredibly deep resume.


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Google’s chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf talks interplanetary internet protocols

planet-internet

Wired has published an interesting interview with Vint Cerf, “Father of the Internet” and Google’s chief internet evangelist. The interview focuses on Vint’s work with NASA to develop protocols for the “interplanetary internet”:

Working with NASA and JPL, Cerf has helped develop a new set of protocols that can stand up to the unique environment of space, where orbital mechanics and the speed of light make traditional networking extremely difficult. Though this space-based network is still in its early stages and has few nodes, he said that we are now at “the front end of what could be an evolving and expanding interplanetary backbone.”

…it’s actually not new at all – this project started in 1998. And it got started because 1997 was very nearly the 25th anniversary of the design of the internet. Bob Kahn and I did that work in 1973. So back in 1997, I asked myself what should I be doing that will be needed 25 years from then. And, after consultation with colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we concluded that we needed much richer networking than was then available to NASA and other space faring agencies.

Head over to Wired to check out the full interview. 

Google exec Vint Cerf says real-name authentication ‘sparked intense debate’ among executives

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vint-cerfVint Cerf, “father of the internet” and Google’s chief internet evangelist, is speaking out about Google’s decision to push users toward using their real names across services. In a recent interview with Reuters, the Google executive said the initiative to get users using their real names across profiles on various services such as Google+ and YouTube has “sparked intense debate” at the company:

Over the past year, the company has strongly encouraged users to merge their accounts on YouTube, Gmail and other Google properties into a single Google+ identity, the company’s social network offering that asks users to use the “common name” they are known by in the real world.

“Using real names is useful,” Cerf said. “But I don’t think it should be forced on people, and I don’t think we do.”

Vint said not using real names is “perfectly reasonable” in certain situations, especially in countries with governments seeking to ban anonymity:
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Vint Cerf calls for free and open Internet as ITU meet in Dubai

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FreeandOpenWeb

Father of the Internet and Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf took to the company’s Public Policy Blog today to urge people to join the freeandopenweb.com petition hours before a closed-door meeting with governments and the International Telecommunication Union in Dubai. Google launched the Free and Open Web campaign in response to what it called the ITU and governments attempts to “further regulate the internet.” As noted by Cerf in the post, the ITU is holding a conference in Dubai from Dec. 3 to Dec. 14 that would “revise a decades-old treaty, in which only governments have a vote.” Late last week, Cerf outlined some of the topics rumored to be discussed at the meetings:

Some of these governments are trying to use a closed-door meeting of The International Telecommunication Union that opens on December 3 in Dubai to further their repressive agendas. Accustomed to media control, these governments fear losing it to the open internet. They worry about the spread of unwanted ideas. They are angry that people might use the internet to criticize their governments.
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Vint Cerf would fertilize his tomatoes with the WSJ’s ‘myth’ that gov didn’t create the internet

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[tweet https://twitter.com/timoreilly/status/228237813420785664]

Following an article on The Wall Street Journal from columnist Gordon Crovitz, titled “Who Really Invented the Internet?“, Vint Cerf, “father of the internet” and Google’s chief internet evangelist, is weighing in on Crovtz’ assertion that the government’s hand in creating the Internet is an “urban legend.” In an email interview with CNET, the man behind the evolution of TCP/IP networking protocols disagreed with Crovitz and talked about his involvement in the development of the Web:

In his Wall Street Journal column, Gordon Crovitz writes that the federal government’s involvement in the creation of the Internet was modest. Does that jibe with your recollection?

Vint Cerf: No. The United States government via ARPA started the project. (Bob Kahn initiated the Internetting project when he joined ARPA in late 1972. He had been principal architect of the ARPANET IMP (packet switch) while at BBN.


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Google homepage animates first drive-in theatre and announces IPv6 rollout [Video]

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Google’s homepage today features an animated video for the first drive-in theatre coupled with a notice below the search field that informs folks of the IPv6 protocol rollout.

So, lets discuss the cool animation first: Double click on the video for aggregated search results on the “opening of the first drive-in theater.” A quick perusal details how R.M. Hollingshead Corporation debuted the drive-in theater 79 years ago today in New Jersey. The original lot on Admiral Wilson Boulevard at the Airport Circle in Pennsauken squeezed in 400 cars, but it eventually inspired thousands of locations to pop-up around the country. Eventually the phenomena of watching a movie from within a car became a favorite American pastime.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=STXaUI67pyA]

Go below for more information on IPv6.


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Google applies for .google, .youtube, & other generic top-level domains

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As noted by Google’s chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf on the Official Google blog, Google has recently applied for .google, .youtube, and .lol, and other generic top-level domains. ICANN plans o publish a list of applied-for domains on June 13. Today is the deadline for submitting applications.

In 2008, ICANN announced a program to expand the number of generic TLDs (think .com, .org, .edu), developed through its bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process, in which we participate. Given this expansion process, we decided to submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories

Cerf continued by giving examples of the domains Google is requesting:

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