Google’s distributed search model is at the foundation of the Internet giant’s current dominance in search. In the video below, one of Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, speaks at length about his company. You’ll need to turn the volume up on this one.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Google is rejecting claims of patent infringement made in a lawsuit brought by the Jarg Corporation, a Massachusetts-based technology company.

Download Squad to the rescue! The popular and useful downloads blog from Weblogs Inc. posted about a utility that can help you monitor your own network.

Wireshark is a free network protocol analyzer that’s available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD and many others. Download Wireshark here.

Wireshark is long since well-known to networking professionals, perhaps under its previous name, “Ethereal.”

In fact, our colleague Sue Fogarty posted about SHARKFEST over at The Network Hub, an event about protocol analysis specifically for developers and users of Wireshark.

Sue says that Vint Cerf wowed ‘em at SHARKFEST. No shock there — the “father of the Internet” is well-known for that sort of thing.

In his post on Download Squad, Ian Dumych also links to a white paper posted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Detecting packet injection: a guide to observing packet spoofing by ISPs. Check in there if you want to learn more about the practice and how monitoring your own connection can help others.

In this Google TechTalk, Ted Nelson discusses implementing the original hypertext concept and how transclusion should be used now to fulfill its original potential.

While Nelson is credited with coining the term “hypertext, Vannevar Bush is responsible for inventing the concept, which he described as “instant cross referencing.”

As usual, we tread in the path of giants.

There’s no question that living in Cambridge and writing about technology has its benefits. The city is swimming in startups, geeky events and plugged-in discussions.

Last month, I was lucky enough to score an invitation to a Q&A session with two distinguished MIT physicists focused upon the theoretical underpinnings of teleportation , followed by a roundtable discussion that brought in with “Jumper” director Doug Liman and Anakin Skywalker himself, Hayden Christiansen. The movie will be in wide release tomorrow, so I thought it would be timely to offer a comment or two concerning this confluence of fact and fiction.

You know you’re in a special place when professors receive enthusiastic applause comparable to the reception given to a Hollywood director and bonafide heart throb movie star. That being said, Hayden was clearly the focus of considerable adoration, expressed at his entrance and in more than one invitation to dates and afterparties.

Serious students of quantum physics are going have to employ the classic “willing suspension of disbelief” to fully embrace this picture. In other words, when questioned, both Dr. Edward Farhi and Dr. Max Tegmark kindly but firmly ruled out the possibility of human teleportation any time in the near future. The current state of this branch of science is exciting, however, given that experiments have successfully teleported the properties of photons over a distance. This sort of quantum teleportation relies on “quantum entanglement“, whereby the properties of two particles can be tied together even when they are far apart, a phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

I managed to capture the presentations of Professor Tegmark and Farhi on the physics of teleportation on my webcam and stream it on uStream. My apologies: The quality of both the audio and video is regrettably poor. Still, I’m happy to share. Jumper’s plot relies on a staple of science fiction, however, not fact: genetic mutation. In other words, some evolved version of CERN’s large hadron collider or a hitherto undiscovered means of stabilizing worm holes powered by cold fusion is not at at the heart of the film. Some people are born with the ability to teleport from one place to another. Off to the races.

Mr. Liman’s direction of Swingers, Go and the Bourne Identity , however, recommends taking a chance on his vision of the moral and ethical challenges presented to someone with the power to teleport at will. I found his willingness to research what the event would actually look and sound like was impressive, particularly the collapse of air into the vacuum left by the removal of a body. He said he fell in love with the script when he read that the first action of the character upon discovering his power was to rob a bank.

For more coverage of the event, check out:

• Doug Overbye’s “Quantum Teleporting, Yes; The Rest is Movie Magic” in the New York Times
• Jess K’s hilarious blog post, Hayden Christensen Comes to MIT, Looks Pretty, for some perspective from a current MIT student
• Sharon Gaudin’s “Teleportation: The leap from fact to fiction in new movie Jumper“
• Jim Rapoza’s “Hollywood Jumps to MIT” at Emerging Tech

Following is the trailer, if you’ve somehow missed it theaters, on TV or elsewhere on the Web.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten some anecdotal feedback that “Jumper” isn’t exactly Citizen Kane. RottenTomatoes.com has delivered a dire rating of 15% while imdb.com users are being considerably kinder with a rating of 6.4/10.  That being said, the film raking in $27.2 million at the box office this past weekend, so tastes may be for forgiving out and about.

This past weekend, many of the world’s foremost thinkers gathered at the Singularity Summit within the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. You might ask what the Singularity is, of course, as the focus of all of this heady cogitation?

It’s the point where a consciousness is comes into being (usually an AI) that is itself smarter than the humans who created it.

According to the Summit’s overview:

Vernor Vinge originally coined the term “Singularity” in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the center of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human.

The summit’s Web site features videos, podcasts and coverage from all over the Internet of the yearly event, including a great piece from Peter Thiel on Wired.com exploring how to invest in the Singularity.

I can’t help but think of SkyNet, the decidedly nasty entity depicted so dramatically in the Terminator series, but there are more positive outcomes, many of which are amply explained here, where the summit’s organizers explain why the Singularity is worth working towards.  Whether humanity is willing or able to do so is another question entirely. We can only hope!

Speaking from a somewhat philosophical perspective, Joe Foran also had some deep thoughts regarding the concept, articulated in Virtualization and the Singularity on the Server Virtualization blog. If you’re wondering how virtualization and futurism blend together, look no further.

Hard to believe, but the White Stripes are playing my sleepy little home town, Charlottetown, PEI. It would be hard to believe, that is, if I didn’t know about their Canadian tour, ocean to permafrost.

And from ocean to ocean, and all the way to the permafrost, the Stripes are setting new standards of cool on this tour, especially with their secret shows. Unscheduled pre-concert gigs are a tradition for many big acts. However, as you might expect, the Stripes are doing it a little differently. On the flash mob model, Jack & Meg have been getting the word out to fans — via texting, forum posts and WOM buzz — about free appearances where no band has gone before:

They played an inner city youth centre in Edmonton

They played a transit bus in Winnipeg

The Stripes also played a little backup for a local busker in Winnipeg. (See video.)

They played a bowling alley in Saskatoon

They played for 40 seriously ill kids at the Bronson Center in Ottawa.

Occasionally, I become a little disenchanted with technology, and daydream about going incommunicado on some remote desert island. But tech is constantly expanding our ability to connect, and making events like that secret show possible. And — really — how cool is that?

~ Ivy Wigmore

Seriously. One of the top articles on Lifehack.org this month is 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life. Here’s an excerpt:

Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one.

Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general impression that you give through your words and actions. If your personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it, so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s personality in one place is a determined effort on their part—usually through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are, make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your way.

The article’s by Adrian Savage, who blogs on Slow Leadership.

Another helpful post is Leo Babauta’s Wikify Your Life: How to Organize Everything, a hands-on practical explanation of how to keep track of just about every component of your life from within your own personal wiki. Babauta, of zen habits, has more good stuff on offer. From the site:

Babauta blogs regularly about achieving goals and becoming productive through daily habits on Zen Habits. Read his articles on 10 Ways to Reduce Your Work Week, Zen To Done (ZTD), the Top 50 Productivity Blogs, doubling your productivity, keeping your inbox empty, becoming an early riser, and the Top 20 Motivation Hacks.

Oh, I just spotted How to Become a Creative Genius by Kim Roach of The Optimized Life. Ok, I’ve got to go read now. The next time you see me, I’m bound to be new and improved.     ~ Ivy Wigmore

Welcome to “pro-am journalism,” “an attempt to bring together professional writers and editors with citizen journalists to collaborate on reporting and writing about the rise of crowdsourcing on the Web. Inspired by the open source movement, the goal of Assignment Zero is to develop a working model of an open newsroom.” [Full Press Release]
AssigmentZero is bankrolled by Wired and led by Executive Director Jay Rosen, founder of NewAssignment.net and NYU journalism professor. If reporting in this proposed “open style” works, according to Rosen, it could “change journalism and expand what’s humanly possible with the instrument of a free press.” You can read Jay’s full essay on the subject here. The project has also partnered with citizen journalism site Newsvine with an eye to engaging that site’s users and involve them in selected assignments. “Essentially, we’re building a software platform for journalism 2.0 — open source and extensible – which we believe will bring new dimensions of creativity to news gathering.” said Evan Hansen, Editor in Chief, Wired News.

Jeff Howe, who we interviewed about crowdsourcing earlier this year, will be drawing from the project for his upcoming book on the subject. Make sure you check out our crowdsourcing podcast if you missed it the first time around.

A new messaging service has gained some real traction in the blogosphere and offline among the “digerati,” though to be fair most of those coders, writers and futurists are rarely truly offline anymore. Just look at how often they are creating “tweets” with Twitter.
While Twitter was born as a side project within the offices of Odeo in March of 2006, it’s taken adoption by A-list bloggers like Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel to raise the profile — and usage — of the tool. Twitter allows members to effectively “lifestream,” constantly providing details, mundane and trivial as they may be, of their daily lives. One user, David Troy, created an extraordinary mashup Google Maps and Twitter, Twittervision, which tracks “tweets” in real-time on a global scale, moving from one post to the next.

Twitter, along with its founders, was recently profiled in the New York Times’ Business section, along with the service, in “From Many Tweets, One Loud Voice on the Internet.” Jason Pontin, the author of the article, described Twitter as :

“…a heady mixture of messaging; social networking of the sort associated with Web sites like MySpace; the terse, jittery personal revelations of “microblogging” found on services like Jaiku; and something called “presence,” shorthand for the idea that people should enjoy an “always on” virtual omnipresence. “

As Jason points out, Twitter is currently one of the fastest growing trends on the Internet. Adoption really took off after the 2007 South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Conference (SXSW) which was absolutely saturated with Twittering. And it’s not just bloggers and new media mavens — U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards is using Twitter as he moves around the country.

What is Twitter? It’s a simple service with an Ajax-y Web presence that allows users to share where they are, what they’re doing and how they can be contacted. You can post to Twitter using SMS, much like Blogger or other tools. The difference is that the platform then sends those posts to a group of subscribers (friends, clients, family) by phone alerts and to your channel on Twitter. Users can turn off mobile alerts if they like — an important feature, judging from the feedback that, for some, Twitter is rather addictive. The service is currently free, though interested parties should check with their mobile telephony providers regarding SMS charges, which are certain to rise with greater use.

Twitter is part of Obvious Corporation in San Francisco, California. For up-to-date info about Twitter, make sure to visit the Twitter blog.

Tweet, tweet!

Dennis, one of our most dependable sources for interesting links, submitted “Videopedia” today. It’s quite interesting — think of it as a sort of Wikipedia, where the content is not just text, hyperlinks and Creative Commons images but instead user-submitted videos.

The vision is quite straightforward: Everyone is an expert in something. Knowledge of that something can be visually explained in less than 5 minutes. Users can easily upload their shorts, using a visual storyboard to annotate videos and add outbound hyperlinks. While the Web site is still relatively new, there’s already some useful content in the tech section including Running ScanDisk in XP and How to do a Google Search.

Krugle is a search engine that allows developers to find and interactively browse source code files, code documentation, discussion forums, knowledge base information and relevant open source projects.

Craigslist just keeps expanding, bringing its transformative mix of forums, apartment and job listings, want ads and personals to many more communities. Craigslist now offers listings for jobs, housing, goods, services, romance, local activities, advice and much more for 450 cities worldwide, all community moderated, and, astoundingly, largely free. Has your city — or country — been listed yet? If so, keep an eye on your local newspaper, as the free and fluid online marketplace for classifieds and apartment listings that Craigslist provides are a primary driver behind the financial woes of traditional newsprint journalism.

Craigslist was founded in early 1995, by Craig Newmark, in San Francisco, CA. According to Craigslist, the networks of sites receive over 5 billion page views a month, serving more than 15 million users during that span month. In fact, Craigslist users self-publish 14 million new classified ads each month, to go with more than 750,000 new job listings each month and more than 50 million user postings in 100 topical forums.

All of that is managed by 23 Craigslist employees working out of a Cictorian house in the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. The site supports those modest operations by charging below-market fees for job ads in 7 cities and for broker apartment listings in NYC. By doing so, Craigslist may now be the leading classifieds service in any medium.

We’ve certainly found great deals on apartments, event tickets, used electronics and all manner of other good, along with thoroughly outrageous personal ads and even a new friend or two. In fact, this editor found a job, a large CRT TV on the cheap and a new place to live this year though “CL.”

Channel 9 is a discussion forum used to promote conversations among Microsoft’s customers, hosted by Microsoft, featuring video interviews with developers, podcasts, forums and a wiki. More than twenty different podcasts and IPTV shows are available for download and subscription as well.

According to the first video ever posted on the site, the name “Channel 9″ was chosen after the on-board channel #9 on airplanes. When the flight crew turns on Channel 9, passengers can listen to cockpit conversations. The metaphor makes sense in describing a forum between developers and users — and both the site and the name stuck. Microsoft’s application development teams use Channel 9 as a platform for aggregating user feedback and responding to it, publishing production notes and occasionally posting quirky videos like a “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Microsoft.” You can learn more about the story of Channel 9 by watching this video or reading the Channel 9 Doctrine.