Information Overlap

I was briefly trying to explain the significance of Google to my 88 year old grandfather (who refuses to use email out of principle :-) today. He was largely uninterested. That didn't mean that he did not listen to me, however. Shortly after our conversation, he got back in touch to tell me about an article on the company's hiring process that he read in the Baltimore Sun. I tried in vain to search the Baltimore Sun's website with such queries like: "google hiring". Ironically, the search was powered by Google... When that didn't work, I searched for the phrase that he'd mentioned which caught my ear. Apparently, an ex-Google exec mentioned that during his interview with Sergei Brin, Brin asked him to take 10 minutes and then tell me "something I don't know." He was looking for how this potential employee could be innovative, and what he could offer that was original.

Once I googled "something I don't know," I quickly found the origin of the quote via this blog. He summarizes some stories told by Doug Edwards, former director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google, about his hiring interview with Brin. Doug Edwards blogs at Xooglers, "A gathering spot for ex-Googlers to reminisce and comment on the latest developments in search."

Outside of both links being a great read, I am very interested in the kind of corporate culture that digs new information so much. Beyond that, I am really interested in the idea of trying to tell an interviewer something he or she doesn't know. My knowledge is so vast that when I challenged myself to think of how I might respond I drew a complete blank. Outside personal secrets and say, family history, what do I know that is sufficiently non-mainstream that it might be original to a very educated person? I'm still working on that, and I'd like my fair readers to do so as well. Please comment by telling me something I don't know.


Raul

A Big Possible Change to Patent Law

SCOTUS is going to review their precedence that allows courts to grant injunctions againts patent infringers. This could be huge and most certainly will require some sort of groundwork to be laid for a mandatory licensing scheme. Keep in mind that mandatory licensing exists today. However, when the licenser is allowed to set license price at, say, infinity hojillion dollars, it might as well not.

Read the breakdown provided by Ars here.

Raul out.

Successors to Technology that's not even AVAILABLE yet.

Ars Technica has a great write up about next-next generation optical storage technology that promises storage capacities that can compete with current HD technology, i.e. hundreds of GB per disk. Of note:

The "new Ricoh optical disc format that stores 200GB and may be on the market by 2008" with the possible negative that the "format uses eight lasers to read data, which means that drives will be expensive."

Even more promising is a roughly DVD-sized, 300GB disc that will go on sale in 2006. The disc uses holographic memory technology, and was developed by Lucent spinoff InPhase Technologies. Hitachi/Maxwell will help manufacture and market the discs, so that means you should be able to get your hands on them. The drive uses a single laser to write the discs, so it might end up being relatively inexpensive."

I'm also interested that the latter solution (especially if it comes to market next year) so far has only hardware manufacturer backing. In the absence of the MPAA et. al., there might be a chance at the market deciding which next format would be good for HD video. Think of it this way, say InPhase's disks work out as advertised. Everyone who has big storage needs (video connoisseurs in the consumer market) will buy one. How long until either someone makes a set top box that can read content from the disks (in which case, whichever media format is big at the time wins, e.g. xvid, divx) or Media Center PC's catch on big? I think John Gilmore's famous words, "the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it" could just as easily be applied to any sort of DRM or content protection that interferes with free use.

Raul

Fuck Blu-Ray™ & HD-DVD™

Well, perhaps such invectives are a little out of line in light the fact that no one I know has EVER SEEN EITHER OF THEM (that might change soon). That said, between all the bending over backwards for the Television and Film industries, (learn you about "Blu-Ray Security", hint, it's not your security they're worried about) I am not really looking forward to these devices despite promises of enough space to actually back up our 200+GB HD's.

For those who are new to the HD-DVD & Blu-Ray formats, they are designed to replace the current optical media (CD's & DVD's) for some stated reasons:
30-50GB's per disk, HD video content, media transferrability (e.g. "Mandatory Managed Copy")

as well as some actual reasons:
reselling video content again (VHS->DVD->HD-DVD), phone-home security (player calls in for latest hacks and patches self against exploition), and forcing certain media formats on consumers


The gist of this whole thing is that the big movie companies have made a lot of money in the last decade driven in a large part by the sales of DVD's for both new movies as well as replacements for degrading VHS copies and people who want better video quality and audio options. Now that most of the people who were going to replace their cassette libraries have done that, and with nothing to blame stagnant revenues except piracy (be a good citizen), a new format that everyone has to buy would be great. If it happens to be the case that it fixes the mess that was CSS (DVD's *poor* encryption scheme) and also encourage Microsoft's video formats by making it so that the "transferrability" part of the disks is only in encrypted WMP derived formats, that's purely accidental.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hollywood gets it infinitely more than the Music Industry, which is to say not at all. Sean believes that the amount of money that there is to be made by licensing non-encrypted media on a GIGANTIC level will somehow open their eyes, but I just don't agree based on all of the behavior I've seen. The one message I keep getting from our IP banks (the **AA's) is that it's not about money, it's about power, it's about momentum, and it's about maintaining the bureaucracy. Mr. Collins' example was perfect. If it were about the money, Napster would have been bought outright, made available every song in the collective RIAA library unencrypted for $.25 apiece, and they would have made infinity hojillion dollars.

Via my head.

Raul