25 Years of Dot-Com. Predictions for the Future

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Rashid Faridi

March 15, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the first “dot-com” registration on the Internet. With over 100 million domain registrations and counting, we’ve witnessed an explosion of communication, commerce, idea-sharing, and human connectivity unlike anything else in human history. This truly marks a revolutionary and transformational shift in the way we live, gather information, do commerce, and connect with each other. No domain is unaffected. From societies, governments, communities, businesses to individuals and families, we have all been profoundly impacted by the massive migration to the Internet.

The impact on societies across the globe cannot be understated as the Internet has provided a democratization tool for people to access information in real time across all boundaries. Still, there are some countries battling the policy of free access to the Internet as evidenced recently by China’s confrontation with Google. However, people find a way to get what they thirst for and eventually get around firewalls in ingenious ways.

Who can forget the Twitter-revolution in Iran last year as thousands and thousands of Iranians took to the streets to give voice to their aspirations for legitimacy in their election outcomes? The human voice is deep and relentless. It cannot be suppressed. Our new Internet technology literally gives voice to countless people of all ages, ethnicities, race, gender, religions, political persuasions, rich or poor. People who were previously disenfranchised are now empowered and equipped to express their voice!

Recently, with the cataclysmic disaster in Haiti, donations poured instantly as people used their social networks and texting to pour their generous funds to the people of Haiti. It’s never been easier to click your way to making an instant impact in the lives of people in one’s own neighborhood or to far away neighbors across the globe.

What Do You Predict for the Future of the Internet?

At the 25th Anniversay of .Com Policy Impact Forum in Washington DC on March 16, many prominent leaders from different fields discussed the impact of the dot-com sensation. These leaders shared their excitement along with their concerns for a free-wielding Internet/ technology. They looked through their “crystal ball” to predict what the future would hold with this powerful but challenging medium.

So what are your thoughts? What do you predict is the future of the Internet? Are you better off today being connected 24/7? Are you feeling overwhelmed or do you feel more in charge of your life? Has your productivity increased or decreased? How do you discern the credibility or truth behind all the countless messages, ideas or agendas online? How are you using the Internet to find solutions to your pressing problems? How has the Internet brought you new opportunities or brought you closer to your family, friends, or loved ones?

I encourage you to ask yourself: Where do I need to connect more? Where do I need to simply disconnect to gain better balance and control in my life? I know my grandchildren are already natives to the Internet. I am not. They face many great opportunities if they choose to anchor themselves on guiding principles that will help them determine what is good and what is not, and what is simply distracting or negative on the Internet. Without that anchor they are at risk of being enslaved by forces that will pull them in conflicting directions, leaving them without a principle-centered compass to help them take charge of their own lives.

This is an exciting time with great opportunities for good. I look forward to the future and the promise of people all around the world and their desire for greatness. The Internet can be a powerful tool to fulfill that greatness!

Source: -Stephen R. Covey

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Asteroid Might Collide With the Earth in 2182

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Rashid Faridi

The potentially hazardous asteroid ‘(101955) 1999 RQ36’ has a one-in-a-thousand chance of impacting the Earth, and more than half of this probability indicates that this could happen in the year 2182, based on a global study in which Spanish researchers have been involved. Knowing this fact may help design in advance mechanisms aimed at deviating the asteroid’s path.

read here

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Era of Interceptor Missiles Began in India

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Rashid Faridi

India today successfully conducted the test fire of an interceptor missile to establish a Ballistic Missile defence (BMD) shield as part of the network-centric warfare.The mission was conducted successfully when the surface to surface Prthivi missile, described as targetted enemy missile, test fired from the launch complex of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea, was destroyed in mid air by an Advanced Air Defence (AAD), a single stage anti ballistic missile, test fired from the Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal.With this India has joined the elite club of nations having this technology.

read here, here, here and here

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Dark Energy and the Universe

Posted on July 25, 2010 by Rashid Faridi

Dark energy has the cosmoslogists scratching their heads. Observations taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and future space telescopes will be needed in order to determine the properties of dark energy, which makes up about 70 percent of the universe. Probing dark energy, the energy in empty space causing the expanding universe to accelerate, calls for accurately measuring how that expansion rate is increasing with time. Dark energy is thought to drive space apart.

Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart.  Astronomers used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to hunt for supernovae (an energetic explosive event that occurs at the end of a star’s lifetime), using their brightness, astronomers could measure if the universe was expanding faster or slower in the distant past. In its search, Hubble discovered 42 new supernovae, including six that are among the most distant ever found. The farthest supernovae show that the universe was decelerating long ago, but then “changed gears” and began to accelerate.

Albert Einstein coined the term “cosmological constant” to represent the possibility that even empty space has energy and couples to gravity. Like other astronomers of the time, he thought that the universe was static and so proposed there was a repulsive force from space that kept the universe in balance.

Einstein discarded his own findings in 1929, when Edwin Hubble found through his research that the universe was expanding and not static. Today, new data from Hubble may well prove Einstein was on the right track. The pull of gravity and the push of dark energy have been trying to outmuscle each other since the beginning of time. About seven billion years ago, dark energy got the upper hand because the universe had grown so large and matter (the source of gravity) had expanded and scattered.

Unstable dark energy could cause a “big rip” (the universe expands violently, then the stars, planets and atoms come unglued) or a “big crunch” (the universe implodes or compresses).  Cosmologists believe about 70 percent of the universe consists of dark energy, 25 percent is dark matter, and only four percent normal matter (the stuff that stars, planets and people are made of). Hubble observations suggest the dark energy may be Einstein’s cosmological constant, an energy percolating out of the vacuum of the space between galaxies. The energy of the universe is dominated by empty space emitting a repulsive form of gravity that is pushing the universe apart. But what does all this mean to Earth? Even if Einstein’s theory was correct, we won’t have to be concerned about the “dark side” for about 30 billion years, according to Hubble researchers.

For further information, visit: http://universe.gsfc.nasa.gov/progr am/darkenergy.html

source:http://www.nasa.gov/missions/deepspace/f_dark-energy.html

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