Google founder Eric Schmidt has given a donation to Virginia Tech's School of Engineering in the sum of $2 million dollars. Schmidt grew up in Blacksburg and was the son of a Virginia Tech economics professor. He was also a neighbor to Paul Torgersen a former Dean of Tech's College of Engineering and president from 1993 to 2000.

Growing up Schmidt used to mow Torgersen's lawn. The two have kept in contact.

The gift establishes the Paul and Dorthea Torgersen Dean's Chair in Engineering. Torgersen was surprised that the chair was named in his honor. He thought it would be named after Schmidt. Torgersen said he was stunned and called it a nice gesture on Schmidt's part.

The chair will endow Engineering Dean Richard Benson. He will have control over allocating the funds.

Schmidt has given before to Tech. In 1999 he established the Wilson E. Schmidt Endowed Professorship in Economics in honor of his late father. The gift was in the amount of $250,000.

According to roanoke.com Schmidt wrote in an e-mail that the gift was a tribute to the Torgersen's for all the contributions they have given to Tech. He went on to say he did not know of anyone who had done more for Virginia Tech in the last 40 years.

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Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced today the release of Java technology as free software under the GNU General Public License version two (GPLv2). The first portions of source code for Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) and Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) will be made available today.

Rich Green, executive vice president of Software at Sun, comments on the announcement, "By open sourcing Sun's implementation of Java technology, we will inspire a new phase of developer collaboration and innovation using the NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and expect the Java platform to be the foundation infrastructure for next generation Internet, desktop, mobile and enterprise applications."

"With the Java Development Kit (JDK) released as free software under the GPL, Sun will be working closely with distributors of the GNU/Linux operating system, who will soon be able to include the JDK as part of the open source repositories that are commonly included with GNU/Linux distributions."

To provide support for the project, Sun has launched three open-source Java community websites:

OpenJDK
As the heart of the Java platform, Java SE is the execution engine and core development technology that enables the Java technology's "write once, run anywhere" promise. By open sourcing the Java Development Kit (JDK), Sun's implementation of Java SE, Sun hopes to make the Java platform a new foundation of innovation and enhance its value as the ubiquitous, essential infrastructure of the Internet experience.
Mobile & Embedded
The Mobile & Embedded community site establishes a central location for the collaborative development of open source Java ME technologies and applications. Deployed in over 1.5 billion mobile handsets, Java ME represents the ideal development platform for the creation and deployment of mobile data services. By open sourcing implementations of Java ME, Sun will enable the community to accelerate platform innovation, reduce development costs through the Java ME ecosystem, and, ultimately, drive a more consistent application platform.
GlassFish
The GlassFish open-source community collaborates on developing the Java EE Reference Implementation. The community delivers production-quality code, including a fully featured application server, TopLink Essentials, a Maven repository, and other components and tools that multiple companies and groups now use.
Tim Bray, Director of Web Technologies continues in his blog, "I'm committed to Open Source but not generally a member of the Free Software movement. For Java, though, it's the only thing that makes sense."

"It's been given away freely for so long, and it's worked its way into so many places, that it should belong to the community, and if anyone figures out how to make it better, they should just bloody well give that discovery back. So for my money, the GPL's the only sane choice."

More information on the launch of open-source Java can be found at http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/.

Tags: Sun, Java

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We managed to slip a few questions about WebmasterWorld's PubCon, which starts November 14th, to marketing guru Andy Beal as he was packing his bags for the trip to Las Vegas.

Andy makes frequent appearances in the Blog Talk section of WebProNews, and our readers likely know him from his regular posts on his site, Marketing Pilgrim. Like many search industry professionals, Andy will make the trip to PubCon, to be held in Las Vegas this week.

While some WebProNews folks will make the journey to WebmasterWorld's Search & Internet Marketing Conference (see why it's shortened to PubCon?), we wanted to get some insights ahead of the fun, and Andy was kind enough to respond to a request for comments.

I asked him who he felt would be the big attention-getter at this latest PubCon, and he picked author and Federated Media Publishing chairman John Battelle. "He understands the business end of the search industry, so his keynote will be very interesting."

If there is a can't miss session for this PubCon, besides the one Andy and our Mike McDonald will take part in as panelists, Andy thinks it will be the Interactive Site Reviews and SERP Quality Control Forum.

"Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Greg Boser, Todd Friesen, Danny Sullivan - how could you miss a panel as strong as this?" Andy asked.

How indeed. I think this one will be packed. Let's hope the air conditioning can handle the crowd.

Like the better conferences, PubCon has evolved over time. I asked Andy about his feelings for the upcoming version, given his attendance at past PubCons.

"I think it's stepping up to a new level," he said. "The quality of keynotes - especially convincing Danny Sullivan to keynote a rival conference - shows just how far PubCon has come."

WebProNews plans to bring our readers additional coverage of PubCon throughout the week. Be sure to check back with us for more news from the event.

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Tag: PubCon

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Universities in Canada fear the potential for abuse that could take place under the US Patriot Act, so to avoid the gaze of American investigators they have moved their RefWorks accounts to Ontario.

The RefWorks tool permits researchers to manage reference information and citations as they delve into a variety of topics. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing noted how a subset of researchers have become so concerned at the potential for running afoul of US authorities who may investigate their work that they have been moving their accounts to hardware at the University of Toronto instead of the US server they had been using.

"There's concern among scholars that they could be identified and flagged if they are doing research on sensitive areas (North Korea, terrorism, nuclear weapons)," Doctorow wrote.

The potential for a federal agency to sift silently through a resource like RefWorks increased after the passage of the Patriot Act in the US. The Patriot Act has been cited by President George W. Bush as a necessary tool in combating terrorists and those who aid them.

The recipient of a Patriot Act subpoena cannot discuss the request with anyone, including the person or persons being investigated. That has caused significant controversy in the United States.

In Canada, the system should be a little more friendly to researchers. An article published in The Globe and Mail noted the motivation for the move:

"There is certainly concern within Canadian university libraries. It's a concern about a foreign country having access to your personal information without good cause," said William Maes, librarian at Dalhousie University in Halifax. "That's the devious thing of the Patriot Act, they can do this without letting anybody know."
Academic researchers probe a variety of topics, and they can include ones that are also subjects of interest to counterterrorism efforts. Performing in-depth research into something like the potential agents for a biological attack could make a particularly paranoid investigator fear the researcher had a motive beyond academia.

If the researcher happens to hail from a country that the US considers a source of terrorists, a completely innocent academic could be incorrectly targeted for questioning by federal authorities. It is not impossible to consider that a Patriot Act inquiry could turn up a legitimate concern.

Now that Canadian RefWorks users have switched to the servers in Ontario, we won't be surprised if US researchers try to follow. The recent US election that displaced the Republican Party from leadership in the House and Senate could have an impact on that decision, as academics may think they have less intrusion to fear from a Democratic-controlled Congress.

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Tags: RefWorks, Canada

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A visitor hits your retailing website and waits, and waits, and by the time you finish reading this sentence, she's back to the SERPs to find a better site than yours.

Fast and furious doesn't come close to satisfying the need for speed online visitors crave when they arrive at your virtual doorstep. After four seconds, any patience that visitor had has left the pits in a roar of mouse clicks.

Gone in four seconds. That's a scary prospect during the big holiday shopping season. According to the JupiterResearch study commissioned by Akamai, that's all the time people will put in to waiting for your site to load.

So no pressure there.

Only high product prices and shipping costs rate as a higher annoyance than a slow site with consumers. With Cyber Monday rapidly approaching, it is time to do what you can to speed things up for new and returning customers.

JupiterResearch summarized the findings in their study of site abandonment:

• The consequences for an online retailer whose site underperforms include diminished goodwill, negative brand perception, and, most important, significant loss in overall sales.
• Online shopper loyalty is contingent upon quick page loading, especially for high-spending shoppers and those with greater tenure.
• JupiterResearch recommends that retailers make every effort to keep page rendering to no longer than four seconds.

Retailers should also consider the thoughts on website speed as discussed by Google VP Marissa Mayer. She told attendees at the Web 2.0 Summit that while users preferred thirty results per page from a search, they weren't patient enough to wait for more than ten.

Google is one of the fastest sites on the Internet, too, and people can get impatient with it.

People want to get in to your site, and get out of your site in short order. If there are obstacles to doing so once the pace of shopping demand rises for the holidays, they are likely to look for a brisker competitor.

It's a tall order. Some sites may need to reformat graphics to a more effective size and format, a process that could involve thousands of images. Other sites may be limited by their underlying architecture, like the middleware or the database connections they use.

There could even be operating system settings on a web, application, or database server that need to be adjusted to improve performance. If you can put fixes in place for any of these issues rapidly, the bottom line could benefit nicely.

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Tag: Online Retail

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Do you ever wish you could actually see things that you were searching for, rather than searches just returning results in word form? Riya.com has created the new wave in searching: visual search engines.

Just eight months after the launch of Riya 1.0, the company released the new visual search engine Like.com at the Web 2.0 convention.

Like.com is a visual search engine, meaning that instead of queries returning words to describe a site, it returns results in picture form. According to the CEO of Like.com, Munjal Shah, Like.com is, "the first visual search engine where you can click on / submit a photo as your search query." It was created specifically for searches that are hard to describe linguistically, such as a china pattern or t-shirt design.

Once results of the query are returned, the user may also click on the likeness search button and see items which are similar to their search in a range of prices. For now, the categories, which can be searched are shoes, jewelry, handbags, watches and celebrities. Representatives say that they do intend on expanding the content that can be searched in the future, but that items like jewelry and clothing were easiest to visually search.

I did a little searching of my own on Like.com and was very pleased with the results. While you can't search for a brand specifically, such as Louis Vuitton, you can search for specific details you desire. In a search for handbags, I selected the sub category "women's leather satchels" and received 953 results. For several of the pricier results, I did a likeness search and found 110 results in more desirable price ranges.

Some of the features of Like.com include:

• Likeness Search - the ability to search by image instead of text.

• Like Detail - finds items that have a specific feature you like (such as a buckle, straps, bezel, etc);

• Like Color - find color variants of the item you desire.

• Like Celebrity - find clothing, shoes and accessories similar to those worn by celebrities.

• Like Upload - the ability to upload a photo of your favorite item and find similar, which is coming soon.

Like is currently adding over 30, 000 items and numerous merchants a day and is kicking its plans to add new categories into overdrive. Will this revolutionize the way we search? Only time will tell.

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At Google, speed is important. The company's home page is well known for its quick-to-load simplicity, and a study found that although users claimed to prefer 30 search results per page, their limited patience was better suited to 10. The company has also established that a 30% cut in the size of the Google Maps home page corresponded to an immediate 10% increase in traffic.

Google executive Marissa Mayer talked extensively about "speed" at the Web 2.0 Summit, and ZDNet's Dan Farber recorded her comments. "If you have each transaction take less time, you have expert users more satisfied. You want lots of small and fast interactions if speed is important," she said.

Mayer was open about Google's shortcomings in terms of quickness. She gave one example by comparing Google Video to Youtube. "YouTube let people see the video right away," Mayer noted, according to Elinor Mills. "That's why it did so well." Google Video users, by comparison, faced a waiting period of two to four days.

Google is working hard to fix these faults, though. "Even applications like Google Maps for Mobile, while good, are fundamentally too slow. You will see improvements to speed that up," promised Mayer. There may not be much room for improvement in Gmail, though - "the key motivator for us developing Gmail in Ajax was speed," said Mayer.

Google's concentration on speed can only work to the users' benefit. And it seems that Larry and Sergey may have a special place for speed in their hearts - they both invested in the Tesla Roadster, the electric car that does 0 to 60 MPH "in about four seconds."

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Tag: Google

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Google blocks access for users outside the U.S. to public domain books, much to the dismay of some. To make matters worse, the reasons behind this policy were something of a mystery - until now. A post on the Inside Google Book Search blog explained the company's thinking.

"Since whether a book is in the public domain can often be a tricky legal question, we err on the side of caution and display at most a few snippets until we have determined that the book has entered the public domain," wrote Ryan Sands, a member of the Google Book Search Support Team. "These books . . . may be in the public domain, but until we can be sure, we show them as if they are not."

Peter Suber (respectfully) took issue with that explanation. "In most countries on Earth the duration of copyrights is the same as in the US," he stated. "So why isn't it easy for Google to provide access to all of those countries as soon as it decides to provide access to the US?"

"At least Google admits that these books ‘may be in the public domain' and that it's temporarily treating them ‘as if they are not,'" Suber continued. "That is, it hasn't wrongly classified them, but only delayed classifying them. Still, in most cases, it's hard to understand why any delay is necessary."

Sands's comments indicated that his team is addressing the issue. He admitted that, "while we face challenges due to the scale of our project, we're working hard to make the public domain verification process faster and more efficient."

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Tag: Google

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As more and more people discover the joy of keeping a blog on a global Web that zillions of anonymous surfers can peruse, it's probably a good thing to think about the approach to what you're writing about before launching it out into cyberspace.

The definition of a blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. There is also an area where readers can respond to what you've written and offer their thoughts on the subject.

Define the reason you have decided to keep a blog. Is it to promote yourself and your opinions on a variety of subjects? Or perhaps it's a business tool to make contacts and even get work in a profession or hobby. The again, it could be strictly for fun, targeted just at friends and family. Or maybe you have something totally unique in mind, such as connecting with fellow science fiction or racecar fans. There are no restrictions on motivation to keep a blog, but it's important to have a focus and direction in mind before you begin writing one.

Once you have the direction in focus, this will help you in how you plan to write. It's important to be yourself but at the same time you also don't want to offend, shock, or alienate friends and family that you want to keep in good standing. For instance, if you're going to use colorful expletives or talk vulgar, you might not want family members to see this side of your personality. Self-censorship can be a good thing for many bloggers and it's something to keep in mind before your start one.

With your purpose and writing style now in mind, just go for it! Be yourself and don't hold back, keeping in mind any restrictions you've decided upon. If you have no boundaries and plan to be a ‘blogging shock jock' of sorts, then be careful out there. You're bound to attract other people who will post their colorful opinions right back at you. If things get too heated, it's best to back off and cool down rather than getting into threatening arguments. (Although many successful bloggers might debate even this point!)

In the "blogosphere" (a.k.a. the world of blogging), politics is one of the hottest topics that bloggers write about. Not long ago, when politically oriented bloggers noted lots of mistakes in the media reports of vote tallies, many people asked if blogger roles hadn't transformed into journalists.

John Hiler, who edits a successful blog called "Microcontent News" that covers blogs and the blogosphere, asked that very same question: once bloggers go beyond venting their opinions and start researching and reporting information, do they qualify as "real" journalists? "How can they? Mr. Hiler asked, "when they don't have editors checking their facts, and when they openly harbor biases in favor of one political viewpoint or another."

Keep in mind that what you write on the Internet can last forever, even if you edit a blog entry or take the whole thing down. If what you've said has started to develop a following in niche market circuits, there's a good chance your material will be archived in some form on other web sites or web logs, perhaps one of your favorites! So don't forget this and let your posts get ahead of your thoughts.

A rule of thumb for heavy-duty bloggers is to be passionate about what you're writing about. If you're not having fun with it, being creative, and enjoying yourself, what is the point of doing it? The whole point of personal blogging is to get your opinions, likes, and dislikes out there and see what other people think, perhaps making some new friends (and debaters) along the way.

Don't forget to link to other sites and web logs when you write about things, this is a good journalistic practice and it will also show readers exactly where you are coming from so they can check your sources and facts out for themselves. This will also eventually help promote your blog, as other websites and bloggers will reciprocate the favor. Websites, blogs, and chat rooms have become an ‘extended family' or sorts for many Internet users.

Once things are rolling, it's good to keep the truth in mind. In other words, don't lie about anything or fall into the ‘gossip mill' trap, it can only hurt your credibility, other people, and boomerang back on you in the end, souring the entire blogging experience.

However, if you tell the truth with hard-hitting flair, it's possible to end up like Robert Scoble, the Technical Evangelist, Platform Evangelism at Microsoft, who pens Scobleizer, one of the Web's most influential blogs. Scoble stated in an interview question regarding the importance of truth that "you only get one chance at keeping your site credible. If you lie to your readers, it'll be quickly figured out. The rest of it? Be smart. Read my Corporate Weblogger Manifesto. That covers the basics."

Keep this advice in mind as you jump into the world of blogging and sharing thoughts with people from around the globe.

Tag: Blogging Tips Blogosphere

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Social media is rapidly climbing the ladder as a primary method in which news and information is communicated to the masses. Podcasting, in particular, is becoming increasingly popular among technology enthusiasts, industry insiders, and big-name companies.

IBM recently announced a partnership with the University of Arizona's business school aimed at offering a New Media curriculum to students. One of the major components of this curriculum will likely focus on the concept of podcasting as a communication resource.

In an effort to probe deeper into the importance of podcasting and new media technologies, I had the opportunity to converse with Dr. Kathleen P. King, Director of the Fordham RETC Center for Professional Development and professor of Adult Education and Human Resource Development at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education.

Dr. King comments on the podcasting phenomenon, "If students are studying communications in the specific efforts to understand newest digital media, this would be an interesting area of concentration to explore."

"However, it would be important to include trends in digital media and communications. Podcasting is one of the current forms that New Media is taking at the given time."

Acknowledging the importance of podcasting on the social media landscape, however, is only the beginning of the process. One must also understand that successful, informative, and meaningful podcasts are intricately woven together with the right mixture of technique and content.

Dr. King elaborates, "While technical aspects of "how-to" of course are important in such a program because they have the potential to really provide us with some leading edge developers, the technology will constantly change with time, even week by week."

"However, the myriad of options for developing content even within this one medium needs to be explored tremendously. For example, if you carefully comb through podcasts and listen to them, you can pull apart the ideas and see strands of ways that people address content in creative ways."

When the understanding of podcasting significance and the exploration of content come together in a harmonious way, the end result is significant content. That statement may seem a bit melodramatic, but the medium of podcasting offers an unparalleled platform for expression in today's digital landscape.

Dr. King considers the possibilities, "On an even more conceptual level though I believe the depths of sociological, multicultural and global relational dynamics and impact are real questions and issues that can be discussed and explored."

"We are spanning the globe in milliseconds with our podcasts. We are bringing people around the globe into partnerships and relationships in podcasting and broadcasting and Web 2.0 New Media development that would otherwise be so much further separated by time and space."

The ultimate significance of podcasting lies in its ability to give voice to the "average" person. Traditional media models are losing ground to social networking communities, and the commentary of popular podcasters is becoming more persuasive to public opinion than expensive marketing campaigns.

Dr. King summarizes these concepts nicely, "Podcasting and New Media is a nexus of innovation, technology and empowerment: these are generative elements."

So if you're college undergraduate with a nose for journalism and a penchant for new media, you might check out what IBM and the University of Arizona are doing with this new project.

Maybe your show will be the next big hit on the Internet.

Tags: Podcasting, IBM, University of Arizona

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