And if you think Google is god ... check out gurunet

… and if you ask “Yeah, but who created Google?”, Google will answer.

I am already using Google through GPRS WAP with my XDA from O2 here in the Netherlands (http://www.online.o2.nl/productinfo/xda/index). The URL to take a look at is http://www.google.nl/wml?hl=en (use a WAP emulator to get to this URL) specially made for mobile devices. So we are basically already setting the first steps.

A one and a two from earlier.

Samuel R. Delany proposed the logical extension of this in "Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand" .. where in this far future tale, human and alienkind alike had neural implants that allowed access to a vast interstellar knowledge base (read Google) directly from their heads.

cavalierfh - I guess at the moment I'm most interested in how those dynamics will impact U.S. domestic politics, espescially when one considers articles like this. Know of anyone doing work in that area?

"Our Google, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...!"

Well, given the choice, I do believe I'd worship google over the options presented by the "love thy neighbor whilst killing him for not sharing your beliefs" crowd.

Like in /., I don't understand why people are missing the subtext of Friedman's op ed. google/technology/wifi is just a lark in his bigger message, which goes something like..

America cannot be an ostrich, bury its head, and think the rest of the world cannot affect it. Globalization is still coming even if neocons are running around blowing countries up. Many tiny nations and nation states will be able to band together more effectively with the help of the internet. Tiny issues will become bigger issues as mass communication becomes achievable by the small and large alike. America must remember to act accordingly in a global neighborhood, and not be so arrogant as to assume that overwhelming power in the hands of a few is infinitely tenable in the face of millions of powerless.

Then again, maybe the google soundbite was his point, in trying to deliver the latter message. Blurg.

As usual, Friedman's arrogance defeats his necessity of checking on the details. He writes, VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet's infrastructure, was processing 600 million domain requests per day in early 2000. It's now processing nine billion per day. A domain request is anytime anyone types in .com or .net.

VeriSign runs one of the top-level root domain servers among a dozen-odd worldwide. They don't operate any infrastructure in a fundamental sense, and even the DNS operations aren't really entirely theirs any more, they're ICANN's. It's not a domain request, but a lookup. It has little to do with anything as local caching of DNS lookups by computers and servers completely offsets any information you could derive from it.

Gibson and Sterling have tackled the same topic here and here and done a better job of it, but as the folk at Slashdot point out, it's definitely interesting to see this aimed at a non-technical audience in a publication like the Times. It makes me think of Gandhi's tactic of making everything he did open to public scrutiny... will total transparency be the only way to maintain a poltical advantage and public opinion?