Welcome to "Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century" with Vinton G. Cerf. This event is organized by TDM and is kindly sponsored by Google and IDA.

Vinton G. Cerf is the VP and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and was also the co-designer with Robert Kahnfor the TCP/IP and the basic architecture of what we know now as the Internet. He’s also commonly known as the Father of Internet within the community. Today, he’s here with us to share with us on how Internet is going to be like as we move into the new century.

Editor: As it turns out, I couldn’t find any power sockets and the laptop will die half-way into the live blogging. The editor apologises profusely for this but hope that you’d still be able to enjoy it as much as possible.

7:00pm: People have streamed into Suntec Convention Hall by the hordes and food is being snapped up quickly. Hey, we are talking about really hungry people out here on a Friday evening. How else to bring everyone together other than food? There are puffs, and cakes, coffee and tea. Yummy! =) Registration have so far been smooth because there’s no walk-in. Yes, this even is so popular until it’s completely filled up. There are strictly no walk-ins and if you really want to crash into the event, well… just… point at a random name on the list. Shhhh… don’t quote me. =P

Aaron Koh is doing the recording for the event and I am assuming that he’s the official recorder. James was also here, but for the countless time, he’s given me a miss. This is sad. Really sad.

7:22pm: The event has started with an opening address from Wayne Soh of TDM. To run through a bit of the program - we are going to have some updates on TDM and Google and Vint will be giving the main course for the event; followed by a forum, some networking and supper. =) We have Google, Microsoft, MINDEF, and MCYS amongst the rest. Asking the crowd how many are here to meet Vint - the entire crowds raised their hands! Indeed, it’s all really for Vint, isn’t it? =)

Howie is now addressing the crowd and is highlighting that TDM is going through a very interesting transition now and is welcome to comments and ideas because we (TDM) really want to be known as social connectors and to bring people together. Essentially, we want to be known to be sharing and propagating ideas. Importantly, we should all have fun tonight.

7:26pm: We now have Derek, who is the regional marketing manager of HK and SEA of Google, to address the crowd. Something that most people will agree is that after hearing Vint, there’s a chance that people will walk away a little more intelligent. =)

James is now addressing the crowd and introducing Vint to the crowd. Indeed James is correct in pointing out that Vint is one of the founding fathers of the Internet, without both of whom, there will be no Internet today. For that work, they were award various recognitions by the US President. More information about Vint is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinton_Cerf. As James began reading out Vint’s awards, I lost track of it because the list is really far too long. =)

7:30pm Vint is quite stunned that there are so many people here on a Friday night and he’s speculating that perhaps we are all here because of the free food! Heh. He’s actually quite excited to learn about the TDM idea because all of us come from varied backgrounds and that it’s good to see everyone get together to make a better digital environment for everybody. While Vint is here to predict what the Internet looks like 27 years down the road, he thinks that it’s really going to be off. Still, it’s fun to do so because we can all see how deviant it is going to be. =P

He’s presenting the Regional Internet Statistics which primarily talks about the penetration rates and he’s basically given up about counting for Europe because they kept adding countries!

Moving on, if we were to fast forward 27 years later, the Internet will be 52 years old. He’s clear that it takes a lot of persistence in bringing new ideas to people and getting people to accept it. Up till today, we have just over 15 years of commercial exposure and it is predicted that by 27 years later, we will have about 70% penetration rate. He also believes that penetration rates may go well beyond 100% because each person will have more than one device that is being used to access the Internet. Vint also recognise that almost every other thing under the sun and the moon will be connected to the Internet - including your refrigerator!

He also recognise that the IP standard is going to be IPv6 and that IPv4 is going to be in places where IPv6 doesn’t matter much because they are perhaps going to be private nets. He believes that by 27 years later, cables are going to be in the fibre range and that WiMax will probably be replaced. We will be having very advanced radio based technology then.

Vint recognise that we will be having very widely, horizontal standardization where commercial and Internet is concerned - pretty much different from vertical standards that we know today (i.e. standards that are specific for a particular industry). Vint mentioned that cloud computing is a very odd revisit today. Back in the old days, it was thought that computers will fill up entire buildings and that people will access them remotely. However, today, with advanced microchip technology, Google is able to make use of many microprocessors to do effective stuffs like indexing. He also believes that by 2035, virtual environments will be very common and that we will get very advanced 3D holograms - nothing like Star Trek, but something good enough.

He believes that there is nothing stopping us from mixing up real life and virtual life to give us virtual interactions. These virtual interactions and environments is something that Vint thinks students will be seeing and doing in 2035. In fact, students will be making use of science to do science.

Next, Vint covers domain names and IP addresses, where by 2035, we would have implemented a higher level naming system where domain names will never expired or be reused (hands up those who lose their domain names because they forgot to pay for it). These "personal identifiers" will stick around for years which are more permanent through some mapping scheme that will eventually eliminate what we all hate most - HTTP 404.

Vint also covered on using Google in the medical sense because there are people who search the Internet for medical conditions. An example that’s given is that the CDC is unable to track queries made by people which are specific to a disease - in particular epidemics. If there’s a way for CDC to determine what searches people are making, especially in the health areas, then there is a possibility that they will be more ready and alert to sudden spikes in particular diseases. This is also application in many fields as long as people are able to spot trends in searches. This is expected to be common in 2035.

Next up, socio-economical effects of Internet in 2035. Virtually every single type of media that’s available now will also be available in the Internet. There will be more Internet group interaction with political actions, polling and market places. Information consumers will also be the producers particularly in the areas of blogging, Youtube, personal web pages and wisdom of crowds. There will be innovation at the edge, in particular, Wikipedia is one such example. It’s also thought that 10 hours worth of video is uploaded eery minute. What’s important here is the vast sharing of information. Again, Wkipedia is an example where it is possible for experts to correct something that’s not accurate on the Internet.

At the same time, there will be more social networking (Facebook, My Space, Linked In) and game playing. However, instead of seeing people on the screen (for social networking), Vint is speculating on the possibility of actually having a Rent-A-Robot where the real person can remotely control something that’s as real as him - as opposed to seeing someone in 2D on the screen.

Touching on storage, a terabyte of storage will probably cost about $100 million dollars back in the 1970s - something that he paid a fraction for now. If he indeed have $100 million back then, there’s no way his wife is going to let him spend it on storage. =)

IPTV - today, we hear a lot of concerns on streaming video and if it’s ever possible for this amount of video to be supported. In reality, there’s more than enough capacity to support what we are doing now - and even in 2035. In fact, Gigabit connections will be very common in 2035. With that kind of bandwidth, it’s possible to download a gigabit of video in 16 seconds! Moreover, if video is downloaded instead of being streamed, this will become more popular and video streaming will be reserved for real-time events like live conferences.

Editor: Oops. Battery died. Sorry, but that was almost all about it. =)

The verdict on the Pedra Branca case (yes, the one where I wrote about the other side using a fake blog). Of course, the blog has since became a "private blog" which was still public except that readers can’t leave comments and that there hadn’t been any more updates since then. I still can’t get over the use of the blog as evidence to present to the courts. Goodness!

Nonetheless, the hearing begins at 10am Netherlands time, which is 4pm Singapore time. Instead of getting the verdict there and then, the judgement will last for about 2 hours before the final verdict is given. During the 2 hours, various points that were bring brought up in court will be discussed. It’s definitely going to be a nerve-wrecking 2 hours for everyone in court and for those in Singapore.

If anything is to go by, the dispute between Malaysia and Indonesia was ruled in favour of Malaysia and being a pessimist, I think Malaysia will emerge victorious in today’s ruling. Of course, I am hoping that Singapore will get it, but again, being such a pessimist, I would say that Singapore will get the 1 of the 2 rocks at the outskirts of Pedra Branca at best. Or should I start calling it Pula Batu Puteh now?

Malaysia boleh! Umno boleh!

IN THE HAGUE - THE Singapore delegation is in for a nerve-racking couple of hours this afternoon at the Peace Palace here, where the world court will deliver its judgment on the Pedra Branca case.

Leading the delegation are Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong and Ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh.

Only a handful of the original 33-strong team involved in the hearing last November are in The Hague this time.

The rest from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Attorney-General’s Chambers and other agencies will catch the live telecast of the judgment in Singapore.

Malaysia’s delegation to The Hague is led by its Foreign Minister Rais Yatim and Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Mohamad, who is Adviser to the Prime Minister.

Today’s judgment will bring to a close a 29-year dispute between Singapore and Malaysia over the sovereignty of Pedra Branca, a small island that is home to Horsburgh Lighthouse.

The hearing begins at 10am Netherlands time (4pm Singapore time), when Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh, acting president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), will read out the judgment.

If the court’s 2002 judgment in favour of Malaysia in its dispute with Indonesia over the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan is anything to go by, one can expect today’s reading to be a suspenseful session for the two legal teams.

The court will first recount the arguments they had presented in several rounds of written and oral pleadings.

It will then explain why it does not accept certain arguments of one state, and the same for certain arguments of the other state.

Only at the end of the hearing - expected to last up to two hours - will the disputing parties find out the outcome.

As Ambassador Koh said with a smile at a press conference on Wednesday: ‘Those of us in court will have a nervous breakdown before the judges tell us the conclusion, to whom they will award sovereignty.’

Pedra Branca, which Malaysia calls Pulau Batu Puteh, is strategically located at the eastern entrance of the Strait of Singapore, the world’s busiest strait that is used by 900 ships each day.

DPM Jayakumar said last week he was ‘quietly confident’ that the judgment would be in Singapore’s favour.

But he added that the nature of court proceedings was such that the judgment could go the other way, and Singapore must be mentally prepared for such an outcome.

Leaders on both sides had said they would accept the court’s decision and stressed that whichever way it went, it would not affect bilateral ties.

The two countries have also set up a Joint Technical Committee to enforce the court’s decision.

Its members have agreed to meet for a second time shortly after today’s judgment.

lydia@sph.com.sg

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 23rd May 2008

It was splashed all over the newspaper. Now, not only forummers from Hardwarezone know about it, not only forummers from SammyBoy Unmoderated know about it, but the whole of Singapore and possible the whole world know about it. That there’s a video sharing site that’s somewhat like YouTube, except that it’s not your usual blonde girl singing off-key Karaoke, nor is it some up and rising superstar hitting the videos.

It’s a porn-sharing video site!

Well, there’s as far as the "good news" end. The bad news is if you didn’t know about it, knowing it doesn’t help, and if you already knew about it, then there’s nothing you can do. It’s been added to the MDA’s list of severely objectionable sites, which comprises of the top 100 sites. In fact, there were 2 of them, ranked 19th and 33rd in Alexa, and both had been added to the list. But get this - since it’s the top 100 objectionable site list, that means 2 sites have apparently been removed from the list and the MDA ain’t telling ya.

SINGAPORE’S two most popular pornographic websites, both of which allow users to upload porn videos for others to watch, have been banned here.

Home Internet users visiting them since last Friday have been flashed a message that the sites have been blocked by the Media Development Authority (MDA), the content regulator.

The two sites rank 19th and 33rd in popularity among all websites visited here, said web-tracking service Alexa.

Much like popular video-sharing site YouTube, the sites allow users to watch videos posted by others and upload their own - in these cases, pornographic - videos to share with others.

MDA senior assistant director for media policy Jason Hoong said the agency decided to block the two sites when it realised how easily accessible by the young its hardcore porn videos were; the videos, which are free, start playing when the user clicks on the links.

MDA restricts access to 100 ‘mass-impact objectionable websites as a symbolic statement of our core societal values’, Mr Hoong said in an e-mail reply to The Straits Times.

To keep the list at 100, two other websites would have had to be taken off the list. Mr Hoong did not say which two sites were de-listed. The MDA has never revealed the sites on its list.

It is not clear how successful the ban can be: As it covers only home Internet access, users can still visit the two sites and the other 98 banned ones from their office computers.

But if they do this, it could well put their jobs on the line as most companies have strict Internet-usage policies that prohibit visiting porn sites at work.

News of the ban, predictably, riled some online users. Some ranted on popular forums like Sammyboy and HardwareZone.

One of them, going by the online nickname ‘thegame’, said on the Sammyboy forum that MDA was ‘just like a parent’ who ruled over his children ‘with an iron fist’. Others lamented the loss of access to the sites - then solicited suggestions for alternative sites.

Parents like Mr J.W. Chee, 38, a father to two boys aged 10 and seven, hailed the ban. But he added that a ‘better long-term solution’ lies in educating parents and raising their awareness to put them in a better position to advise their children on the use of the Internet.

If some online users are not too bothered by the ban, it could be that they are Net-savvy enough to know how to circumvent it, for example, by using a proxy to masquerade as a non-Singapore user and thus gain entry to the sites.

YouTube’s video-sharing concept has spawned a host of clones focusing on niche themes - from the religious (www.godtube.com) to more frivolous (www.shoetube.tv).

YouTube had previously been banned in Thailand and Turkey for hosting videos deemed insulting to the Thai King and the country’s founder respectively. It remains banned in Turkey.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 23rd May 2008