Google Aims To Expose Network Meddling

Former Vice President Al Gore talked at Web 2.0 Summit, covering topics like his company Current TV, the democratization of the Web, the recently-concluded election and his favorite topic, renewable energy. Web 2.0 Panel: The Web has changed the way politicians raise money, it has transformed the level of engagement people have with the political process, and it will help shape policy and presidential agenda. Baynote's retail and social networking search software can help Web sites keep their customers and subscribers satisfied with an Amazon-like experience, CEO Jack Jai explains.
Baynote's retail and social networking search software can help Web sites keep their customers and subscribers satisfied with an Amazon like experience, CEO Jack Jai explains.
Measurement Lab is backed by Google, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and other academic researchers. It aims to provide Internet users with network-diagnostic information that can be used to identify network performance degradation. It also aspires to make such information easier to share.




"At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation," said Cerf and Google engineer Stephen Stuart in a co-authored blog post. "No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they're getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy. Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet."




Google's support for net neutrality is well known, and it's clear that by making network performance data more accessible, the company hopes to make it more difficult for telecommunications providers to degrade or block certain protocols or applications, such as BitTorrent or Skype, that undermine certain business models.

MS Access Project

We got a project in ISS1101 from Gay Kiely. It involves using a combination of both Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel to combine records for both clients and employees and have both of these joined together with their related projects! The project outline can be found here. I've got to get back to this project anyways, so I'll post another one soon!

The After-Christmas Game Summary

Ok, over Christmas I've been able to get my hands on a few of the newer games I've mentioned in earlier blogs, and had time to play them and form an opinion on them! Here's how they stand:

Guitar Hero: World Tour:



Ok, This game was a little bit of a disappointment, after the great quality of it's predecessor, Guitar Hero 3. The new guitar controller features a touch pad which can be used to add a 'wah' effect to held notes, or for tapping fast solo's, but I think that it ends up feeling more gimicky than useful. The drums have better to be said about them however, although the 'symbols' pads feel a bit weird to play on, but the 3 regular drums feel really high quality, and the entire drum controller is velocity sensitive, so the harder you hit it, the louder the notes are! The kick pedal feels a bit too springy and sometimes if you try to use it it will give off a double note, but other than that I've no complaints. It's wireless, which makes it much easier to move around than the rockband 2 drumset, but I don't know how long batteries in it will last, only time will tell! It's still going strong since christmas though, so it seems solid enough!

Moving On:

Gears of War 2:



Eh yeah.... This game is just gears 1 again with some nice bells and whistles. They have some very creative campaign levels, and the AI in them seems to be smart enough. They've added some things like chainsaw duels, and the option to choose your starting weapon in multiplayer, which does help combat lag a little bit, but there's still server-side hit detection, which makes the game very biased towards the host player when playing online. They havn't added too many new weapons, but there are a few, still though, at the end of the day it really just feels like Gears 1.5 instead of 2.

Left 4 Dead:







-Full-length review coming soon, I've only played it so far for about an hour on a friends laptop, but it seems like it's an unreal game!