GIF redemption

The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) format has had a checkered history. Introduced in 1987, it has had widespread support in browsers, making it one of the most commonly used image formats on the internet. The format has also had it's share of controversy and patent issues, which led to the creation of free alternatives but never really impacted it's use.

The defining legacy of the GIF is not its ubiquity, or the controversies. Instead it is its capability to show animations that simultaneously made it irresistibly over-used and notoriously hated. Animated gifs, along with the HTML <blink> tag are single-handedly responsible for the seizure inducing pages of the 90's.

Now, the animated GIF is making a comeback of sorts, as nothing less than high-art. The blog From Me to You, has a section called cinema-graphs, which are essentially beautiful photographs, embellished with Harry Potter style animations.

Consider the following:

And this

The blog, which is primarily fashion focused, has a lot more of this. Animated GIF as high-art. Who'd have thought that was possible for redemption.

FCC - Open Internet Rules

It was just a matter of time after the last cave-in by Google, that the FCC was going to make it all official. Today in a rather curiously timed vote, the Federal Communications Commission passed a set of rules that ostensibly seek to establish a framework for net-neutrality but in effect sets the idea of network neutrality down the path of exceptions which can only end in one day becoming as mind-boggling as the tax code. The illustrations are screen captures from the live hearing the FCC held for this event.

Network neutrality is a simple concept. Network providers, that is your ISP that links you to the Internet, should have no say in the way the network is being used. In other words, as a service provider, their job is to link customers up, not limit or influence what the customers do with the link. This is important because the current innovation on the web required a significantly low barrier to entry. The bandwidth hungry YouTube of today would not have existed if the network deemed it to be less desirable compared to the much lighter Twitter.

The business argument against network neutrality is that investment in network infrastructure depends on the amount and type of usage. And not having a seat at that table will result in a worse experience for everyone. Till date there was not explicit rule guaranteeing the protection of network neutrality. All that changed with the latest hearings by the FCC. We have rules now, but they are the strangest set of rules for the weirdest of reasons. And toothless to boot.

Starting with the images at the top, the current FCC proposal includes three rules - Transparency; No Blocking; and No Unreasonable Discrimination. First off the good - the principles themselves are robust enough. There is always going to be someone that seeks to circumvent the spirit for the letter, but in a broad sense these could well be the pillars of the definition of an open Internet. The fun is however lies in the details.

Firstly, creating a rule that includes the word "lawful", includes just enough leverage to establish a monitoring and inspection regime to prevent illegal activity. The two biggest excuses - security and copyright protection. This has got to be one of the myriad goals of these rules.

Second, apparently the Internet is different when you are walking on the street as opposed to sitting at home (see fourth slide). Google said so. This doesn't make much sense until you realize it is all about the apps. The apps have already created a form of stratified, non-interoperable web on the smartphone. And what is more, your telecom provider can unreasonably discriminate between the apps. Would you then be surprised if YouTube on your telecom's $1.99 app played better than on Google's app?

Thirdly there is no real enforcement. During the hearing, the counsel mumbled something about self-regulation. Though you do get to submit informal complaints to the FCC, for free!

So in effect net neutrality gets more reports, and a promise for no unreasonable discrimination in traffic as long as you are sitting down. All bets are off if you use apps on your phone. And if things go south, there isn't much redress beyond what we have today - start a twitter campaign and pray.

The life and decline of WWW

The world wide web, has been one of the biggest success stories of the Internet. So much so that the two are often used synonymously. While the world wide web spawned and initially grew with the Internet, the predominant trend in recent times has been an implicit demotion of the web, in favor of the Internet. In hindsight, it seems obvious the success of the Internet would bring with it the seeds for the destruction of the world wide web.

The terms first. How is the Internet different from the world wide web or WWW? The Internet is the means to connect all of the world's computing devices together, while the WWW is that part of the Internet you access with your web-browser. The world wide web includes every website you visit, in all of its textual glory sprinkled with the innocuous yet wondrous invention - hyperlinks.

The evolution of text to hypertext is perhaps the single most powerful inventions in modern times. With the ability to embed links in text, suddenly it was possible to organize and access information in ways unheard of. A single link was all that separated any two pieces of knowledge. In fact, the two pieces of knowledge did not even have to reside on the same physical machine - as long as there was a means to connect two or more computers together, hypertext would allow anyone to access the information. With such power in the hyperlink, it was a shame not to pursue the goal of connecting all of the world's information stores together, allowing one to link to and access all the information from anywhere. Hence the Internet.

The success of the Internet beyond the initial goal of hyperlink oblivion, was its flexibility. Now that we had all these computers linked together, it was possible to exchange a lot more than just text through hyperlinks. And one did not have to limit the end points to computers. Instead you could connect PDAs, phones, music players or even refrigerators.

Initially the Internet was constrained - by lack of bandwidth. Exchanging anything more than text was painful. With the increase in bandwidth, communication was no longer limited to text. First it was images, then music. The increase in capacity contributed directly to increasing links between text and other multimedia. But this was still the days when downloading a picture meant waiting for it to arrive line-by-line across a phone line.

Even at this point, the principal means of getting to that picture or mp3 was via the world wide web, using your browser. As long as the multimedia was being linked to, the WWW was still the best way to get to it.

Thanks partly to the dot-com boom, there was a massive investment in opening up the capacity for communication across the Internet. This explosive growth in bandwidth, along with retail broadband communication, came the next era of accessing multimedia - streaming it instead of linking to it.

As the Internet grew into real-time capability, it was suddenly possible to cut out the middle man - WWW. Hypertext that began with the humble idea of linking information, had grown to assume the role of carrying multimedia to compensate for the lack of speed of the Internet, was suddenly irrelevant. It was now possible to go around the constraints and freedoms of hypertext. But there was still the need to have something to receive the streaming media - enter web applications or apps.

It is no accident that the era of the apps coincided with the growth in streaming capabilities of the Internet. Apps demand cheap bandwidth. Unlike the robustness of the WWW, apps are built around user experience. And unlike the WWW, apps allow end-to-end control. Doesn't matter if the app was built on the iPhone or popped off a browser, effectively it isolates user experience away from flexibility of the WWW to the immersive capability of the app.

The data is firmly pointing in the same direction. The above is a dated graph courtesy UC Berkeley, but showing the relative drop in bandwidth used by the web as compared to the other protocols. Updated data is available with the Wired article here. Notwithstanding very pertinent arguments to the contrary, the definitive move away from the broad set-up called WWW, into the narrower app-based is an eventuality. Something directly precipitated by the success of the Internet.

Condemned to browse

Slate magazine has an awesome science section. Found this article in the section. Now I finally understand why I love Stumbleupon so much, even though I do not always spend time with the results of the stumble.

Research, as quoted in the article, has identified two distinct types of stimulation centers in the body - one that deals with seeking/wanting and another that deals with liking.

Seeking or wanting is the dopamine-based ultimate mammalian motivational engine. It is what makes us want to get up, seek, be curious, forage, crave, expect etc. Scientists have found that this is distinct and different from the opoid system of experiencing pleasure and satisfaction. In other words, the seeking system stimulates us to hunt, and the pleasure center makes us happy after success.

In human beings, the stimulation of the seek is stronger than the pleasure of success. Which makes evolutionary sense. Any animal with the pleasure center stronger than the seeking center quickly dies out, though completely satisfied. Humans, along with many of our contemporary mammals love the stimulation of seeking more than the satiation of success.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love to stumble so much. And you like to use Facebook, or twitter, or Google. Our evolutionary seek centers are driving us to distraction with the easily availability of the 'seek'.

Google -> Topeka

Updated: Seems like a very Happy April fool's day from Google

Official Google Blog: A different kind of company name: "Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore."

Standard Voicemail Mode: Do you ever grow nostalgic for your old voicemail system and its long list of idiosyncrasies? That's where Standard Voicemail Mode comes in.

Introducing Translate for Animals (beta): Bridging the gap between animals and humans.

TEXTp saves YouTube bandwidth, money: It’s great news that there are 24 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, we support 1080p and HD uploads are rising quickly, but that’s also meant increasing bandwidth costs cutting into our bottom line. And so, in our drive to keep expenses under control, we’ve decided that April 1 is the perfect day to take the important step of offering a new way to experience YouTube: text-only mode, or TEXTp.

The Google Annotations Gallery is an exciting new Java open source library that provides a rich set of annotations for developers to express themselves.

Upload and store anything in the cloud with Google Docs: In January, we added the ability to upload and store any file in Google Docs, and in response to your feedback, we increased the maximum file size to 1 GB a couple weeks later. Based on the overwhelming response to this feature, we're happy to announce a big update. Starting today, you can upload and store anything in Google Docs. With this change, you'll be able to store items in the cloud and access them from any computer - all you need is an Internet connection and a Google Account.

Try out new Google Wave wave notifications!: We know that one painpoint for people using Google Wave is that sometimes they don't know when others are trying to wave with them or whether anyone has responded to their waves. In designing notifications, we realized that people use lots of different tools on the web, but one system that is compatible with everyone is the physical world. So, today we are excited to roll out an early preview of Google Wave wave notifications.