Technology

Blog notes

I thought I would point a couple new features I’ve added to World Adventurers.  Other bloggers on MSN Spaces featured these nifty tools, and so I added a couple of them I thought would complement this blog well.  You can find them below our Profile at the top left portion of the blog.  One is called "Where are you from?"  It features a dynamic world map.  Click on it and place your avatar on the map and tell me where you live.  You’re welcome to post your web site there too.  I would love to see it filled with avatars from around the world.  If you would like to add a dynamic map and other cool Web tools to your web site or blog, visit Bravenet.
 
Secondly, I linked World Adventurers to Google’s automatic translator.  Although the translation is rough and only translates a couple of blog entries at a time, it is still a great feature for those who do not read English well.  I added Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.  I may add other languages in the future.  If only learning another language were so easy!  Anyway, enjoy.  If you would like to add translation to your web site or blog, visit Google Language Tools.  They’re one more reason why I think Google is great.
 
I’m happy to announce that World Adventurers is approaching 3,000 hits this month.  I am very happy to see it get some traction.  It took seven months to reach 6,000 hits, and this month the number of site visits really accelerated.  My review of the Baidu.com IPO and thoughts on CNOOC featured in Slate seem to have made the difference.  As always, thanks for stopping by World Adventurers.  I try to keep it entertaining and write about something new everyday to keep it interesting.

Will Google Sidebar Microsoft?

The Wall Street Journal reported that today Google will launch Sidebar, a customizable program that will allow users to build unique content on their computers.  While its functionality will probably be initially limited, it represents yet another small step by Google to wrestle control of the computer desktop away from Microsoft.  Google previously moved onto the computer desktop with programs such Google Desktop Search and Google Toolbar.  Sidebar will function much the same way, providing customized content from the Web, much like Yahoo! customizes content through a Web browser with its My Yahoo! page.  While the concept of customizable Web content delivered to the computer desktop is not new, it marks yet another step by Google to claim more computer desktop real estate.  The Los Angeles Times reported that Sidebar will include an updated version of Google Desktop Search.  Sidebar will also feature a text editor and a "to-do list" function.  The program is very much a beta-type program that can be scaled by Google to include other features in future releases.
 
Google is clearly moving toward to a suite-based approach to desktop applications.  It is conceivable that in the next couple of years Sidebar will provide the foundation for a suite of desktop applications that interact with the World Wide Web to deliver dynamic content to the desktop, content that can be uploaded to the Web (e.g. Google’s Gmail), or downloaded from the Web (e.g. Google-delivered news and information).  In the not-so-distant future, Sidebar could conceivably compete with Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Word.  It could become even more potent if Google bundles it with an enhanced version of Mozilla’s "Thunderbird," a free E-mail program that competes with Outlook.  While I do not believe that Google’s hodge podge of search and content applications will effectively compete with Microsoft Office in the near future, they add an intriguing Web component currently missing from Microsoft applications.  Microsoft applications such as Word and Excel can create Web HTML or XML content, and they download Help information from the Web, but they do not effectively sync with the Web.  For the most part, they are static programs that rely on the user to create content.  FrontPage is available for Web design and synchronizing, but the connection between Office and MSN/Microsoft.com is loose at best.  Google’s approach is interesting, and much of the buzz surrounding Google now comes from Google’s alternative approach to content development and delivery.  People are constantly looking for the next "Microsoft."  This is a testament to the fact that, like it or not, Microsoft is monstrously successful, and that Microsoft does not have a monopoly on killer applications.  Microsoft would do well to study and learn from current success technology stories such as Linux, Mozilla, and Google.  I think that Microsoft and Google can coexist and thrive in their respective spheres, but computing would be even better if they continue to move into each other’s territory–Microsoft into dynamic Web content, and Google into desktop applications.  The computer user’s overall experience would improve if these competing technologies do something greater than what they offer now.
 
Two questions come to mind regarding Sidebar’s potential.  Is Microsoft really a has-been whose best days are behind it?  And how will Google make any money if it keeps giving away free software programs?  To the first, I have to admit that since I am grateful that MSN My Spaces hosts this blog, I can’t be too hard on Microsoft.  I also have friends and family who work there, and I myself have consulted for Microsoft.  Plus, I lived for many years in the shadow of the Redmond campus.  The atmosphere at Microsoft’s corporate campus is extremely competitive.  Its employees are brilliant, albeit conditioned to groupthink (I learned firsthand that conformity to the Windows paradigm is paramount to success).  With so much money (over $1 billion in additional earnings generated monthly), and so many talented employees, I cannot say that Microsoft’s best days are behind it.  Whenever it sees a challenge, Microsoft has always risen to meet it.  It marginalized Apple/Macintosh.  It beat Netscape.  It trumped Sun Microsystems’ network computing.  It overcame AOL.  It is now meeting the Linux challenge head on, and in many cases, winning.  Google, on the other hand, is a different animal.  Microsoft will likely not be able to overcome the Google challenge.  With $2.5 billion in cash on hand and another $4 billion expected through a secondary IPO offering, Google now has a sizeable enough cash hoard to allow it to gear up for an impending battle with Microsoft over computing dominance.  I don’t think by any means that Microsoft will lose the war.  I think more likely is that the two companies will learn to coexist, much as Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (PlayStation) have an uneasy truce in the game console wars. 
 
So, how will Google make any money?  Through content, of course.  The Google revenue model is far different from Microsoft’s.  Microsoft earns revenues primarily through software licenses and service contracts.  Google earns revenue from search and content delivery.  By making its content delivery methods ubiquitous, Google extends its revenue streams.  The two business models differ significantly, but both are compelling and lucrative.  I decided to add MSFT to my list of stocks to watch.  I will start it with an "Accumulate" rating.  Buy shares, but don’t hold a large percentage in your portfolio.  MSFT is now a slow-growth stock, but it holds great dividend potential because its cash reserves are growing exponentially.  Plus, you never know if or when Microsoft will come up with "The Next Big Thing."  I’m not one who believes Microsoft always copycats pioneers such as Apple.  Microsoft is an innovative company and may hold the key to the next wave of technological breakthrough.

What will Korea clone next?

This afternoon, online magazine Slate highlighted my previous blog entry on mergers and acquistions in its feature, "today’s blogs."  Very cool!  I am honored.  Here’s the link in case you want to read the article:  http://slate.msn.com/id/2123951/.  It seems that what I thought would be a boring subject to read actually got some traction in the blogosphere.  I am apparently in the minority when it comes to opposing CNOOC’s merger with Unocal.  For those visiting World Adventurers for the first time, welcome!  I’m glad you stopped by to visit.  Post a comment.  Let me know where you’re from.  Surf on over anytime.  Every day I try to write about something different and (hopefully) interesting.  The general theme of my blog is Korea because I’m here for two years with my family, but I try to mix up the theme each night.
 
Here’s a hot topic related to Korea that has made the U.S. news headlines as well as the butt of late night comedy jokes.  Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk and his team successfully created the world’s first cloned dog, a 14-week old Afghan hound named "Snuppy."  Dr. Hwang, a professor of veterinary science at Seoul National University, also led a team of scientists in producing the world’s first cloned human embryos.  They also successfully harvested the first stem cells from cloned human embryos.  For better or for worse, Dr. Hwang is quickly leading Korea to the forefront of cloning science and stem cell research. 
 
Stem cell research and cloning are extremely controversial topics in the United States.  This is underscored by the fact that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), a social conservative, was not invited to an upcoming Evangelical rally in his home state of Tennessee following his announcement that he supports expanded human embryonic stem cell research.  Likewise, Ron Reagan, Jr., son of President Ronald Reagan, devoted virtually his entire speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to supporting stem cell research.  It’s not my intention to focus on the ethical controversies surrounding cloning and stem cell research.  Rather, I want to highlight the differences between Korean and American attitudes on these subjects.  I won’t say what I believe is right or wrong.  I leave that up to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself. 
 
Korea is a very family-centric culture.  Families, particularly children, play a central role in Korean society.  Family-related issues that make the news headlines in Korea would leave Americans scratching their heads, confused, and amused.  For example, the Korean Supreme Court recently ruled that women are equally entitled the share a family’s inheritance and cannot be discriminated against based on gender.  The Korean Family Census Register (FCR) is the official record documenting Korean families.  Until recently, women could not be the head of a household on an FCR, and a single mother had to either designate their father or son to be the head of their household.  Changing the law to allow women to head households in Korea created a surprising amount of controversy in Korea.  When a foreigner becomes a Korean citizen, they must adopt a Korean surname.  There are no Korean Joneses or Smiths, only Kims, Parks, or Lees, etc.  Preservation of the family is ingrained in Korean culture and rigidly enforced by American standards.
 
Interestingly, hot button, family-related issues in the U.S. such as gay marriage are rarely considered in Korea.  It is very unlikely that gay marriage will be legalized anytime soon in Korea.  Abortion is not a controversial, divisive topic in Korea as it is in the U.S.  According to the Korean calendar, a child born in Korea is considered one year old at the time of birth.  However, Koreans seem to treat life before birth differently than many Americans do.  Family values are extremely important in Korea; yet at the same time, Koreans generally support cloning, stem cell research, and abortion.  Koreans tend to approach embryonic and fetal research from a scientific rather than moral perspective.  They tend to support the scientific benefits of such research and do not consider such research to be a moral issue.   Koreans’ attitudes in this respect are neither liberal nor conservative, at least by American standards.  Their attitudes are simply different from those of most Americans.
 
This brings me to the question in the title of my blog entry–what will Korea clone next?  As I mentioned in my July 30 entry on Children’s Grand Park, it would not surprise me at all if Korean scientists will be the first to clone human beings.  Americans make movies about cloning, and Koreans just do it.  They may first move on to another animal to clone, perhaps something bigger such as a bear, but eventually they will likely clone a human.  One wonders if the world is ready for that reality.