Growth & Success eNews No. 14, August 29, 2000

JimPinto.com - Connections for Growth & Success™
No. 14 : August 29, 2000

Contents:

The "Deep Web"
The Future is peer-to-peer
Self-organizing "Emergent" Behavior
Electronic Signatures
HP & Compaq - new CEOs with different styles
$ 26m telescope for Alien Contact
Find Consultants or a new Career : online
Quote to think about

The Deep-web

According to several estimates, the global Internet community is around 275 million people, growing to a billion people by 2005. Cox News Service says that traffic on the Internet is doubling every three months - faster than Moore's law (computer power) and Gilders law (bandwidth). Will this continues, or will things slow down in "cyber-traffic-jams" - due simply to inadequate hardware resources?

As the web grows - can hardware keep pace?

BrightPlanet has uncovered the "deep" Web - a vast reservoir of Internet content that is 500 times larger than the known "surface" World Wide Web. What makes the discovery of the deep Web so significant is the quality of content found within. There are literally hundreds of billions of highly valuable documents hidden in searchable databases that cannot be retrieved by conventional search engines. BrightPlanet has recently published a 41-page white paper on the "deep Web" which quantifies the size, importance and quality of the deep-web.

Public information on the deep Web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined World Wide Web.
The deep Web contains 7,500 terabytes of information, compared to 19 terabytes of information in the surface Web.
The deep Web contains nearly 550 billion individual documents compared to the 1 billion of the surface Web.
More than an estimated 100,000 deep Web sites presently exist.
60 of the largest deep Web sites collectively contain about 750 terabytes of information - sufficient by themselves to exceed the size of the surface Web by 40 times.
On average, deep Web sites receive about 50% greater monthly traffic than surface sites and are more highly linked to than surface sites; however, the typical deep Web site is not well known to the Internet public.
The deep Web is the largest growing category of new information on the Internet.
Deep Web sites tend to be narrower with deeper content than conventional surface sites.
Total quality content of the deep Web is at least 1,000 to 2,000 times greater than that of the surface Web.
Deep Web content is highly relevant to every information need, market and domain.
More than half of the deep Web content resides in topic specific databases.
A full 95% of the deep Web is publicly accessible information - not subject to fees or subscriptions.

You can view the BrightPlanet summary or full white paper online

The future is peer-to-peer

The peer-to-peer revolution, championed by Napster (people downloading music from each-others computers over the web) will change computing.

This is according to Pat Gelsinger, Chief Technology Officer at Intel, which is spearheading a number of efforts to make sure that peer-to-peer networking receives wide adoption on the part of service providers and consumers.

Gelsinger says: "This could be ushering in the next computing revolution. Our job now, as an industry, is to change our perspective and build the infrastructure that allows peer-to-peer computing to emerge in a broad way."

Intel's overall peer-to-peer networking vision expects consumers and companies alike to create "self-organizing webs." These webs could consist of employees at a company, family members or any group with common interests or goals. Users in this private network would be able to share spare systems resources, such as storage, or use the system to exchange files.

Intel: peer-to-peer - eWeek story

Self-organizing systems - Emergent behavior

The internet is already the most significant example of "self-organizing" intelligent systems. Chaos Science shows how life and nature are organized through peer-to-peer communication between intelligent nodes, leading to "emergent behavior". This is what Dick Morley is excited about and is proselytizing at his annual "Chaos in Manufacturing" conferences in Santa Fe, NM.

Summary of the most recent (May 2000) Morley Chaos Conference

Visit Dick Morley at his barn in the wilds of New Hampshire

The Symbiotic Man, the new book (March 2000) by Joel deRosnay discusses a vision of the future, where the vast, interconnected array of intelligence, will dramatically recast our concept of nature and mankind's place in it. To read reviews and excerpts of deRosnay's book, or buy it online, click here :

Look at The Symbiotic Man by Joel deRosnay

Electronic Signatures

In June 2000, the US House and Senate passed the Senate Bill 761 (S761) titled the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" (E-Sign). President Clinton also signed this important new bill, which is expected to increase growth of electronic commerce by removing a significant barrier to online transactions.

During a recent online marketing discussion, the subject of "what exactly is an electronic signature?" came up, and Jacques Chevron, JRC&A Consulting, gave this excellent summary :

An encrypted signature is just a few lines of encryption at the end of a message. Those lines are based on the full text of the message. The message itself remains. If the original message is changed in any way, then the signature doesn't verify.

There has been a lot of lobbying and discussion on this important subject - browse on-line :

Electronic Signatures Act

Clinton Signs Electronic Signatures Bill

Commission on the use of electronic signatures

HP and COMPAQ : A tale of two CEO's

Like their first-year CEOs, HP and Compaq are traveling divergent paths in their transformation from hardware maker to e-business solutions provider. Carly Fiorina's flash provided a jump-start to HP; Michael Capellas’ low-key style maps Compaq's slow and steady rebound.

Read A Study in Contrasts

Alien Contact

Two former Microsoft employees have donated millions of dollars to fund a massive new telescope that will scan the heavens for intelligent life on other planets.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen has given $11.5 million and former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold is contributing $1 million to the $26 million project that will include a field of hundreds of linked radio telescope dishes in northern California.

The Allen Telescope Array, will be the world's most powerful instrument designed to seek out signals from civilizations elsewhere in our galaxy, according to the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute.

Myhrvold said : "One thing however, is beyond dispute. That is, if we don't continue supporting projects like the Allen Telescope Array, our chances of discovery will remain at zero."

This is first time that SETI will have its own telescopes; previously it has had to buy time on equipment owned by others. A prototype should be operational by 2003 with the full telescope working by 2005.

Alien Telescope Array - Press Release

Visit the SETI Institute online

Find the right Consultant - or Career

I'm happy to see industrial automation publishers and magazines migrating to online services.

Looking for a Qualified Consultant in your industry? I&CS magazine Online is partnering with ProSavvy, to offer Consulting Procurement Service. More than 150,000 business users from companies of all sizes are registered members of ProSavvy. With more than 16,000 consultants and 1,600 pre-qualified consulting firms, this no-cost, easy-to-use service enables you to quickly find consultants from every major consulting practice area.

Find the Consultant who meets YOUR needs

Similarly, pennNET.com and Headhunter.net have joined together to provide new career services on the icsmagazine.com website, with free Job Search and Resume Posting. The service is designed for people who are looking for jobs currently available in the control technology industry. You can search by employer, salary, location, job function and more. Your career move could be a mouse click away.

Visit the Headhunter website

Quotes to think about

Greg Estes, VP, Telecomms and Media, SGI.

Read the related Sony/SGI story

"In 3 to 5 years, [the Internet will] be like water, gas, and electricity. The Internet will become a utility, and it will always be on and in the home, your car, and many other places."
Michael Moone, VP, Cisco's Consumer Business.

Read about The Always-on Internet Home

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If you have comments or suggestions for Growth & Success News, please contact me directly at : Jim@JimPinto.com