Penner Family Blog

Here’s an interesting article I just read:

Google Earth Heading for Extinction

Rather than being just about the possible phasing out of Google Earth due to Google Maps, for me it really became a discussion on blurring of what we currently call “Internet Apps” and “Local Apps”. My comment is listed below. It pretty much stands on its own, but feel free to read the article if you want the background.

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Actually, in contrast to many other comments here I think this article is in the right direction.

Google Earth (and almost any other desktop app) has incredible advantages over the web, but only for the moment. In my opinion things are moving back towards the client/server model such as Terminal Services or Citrix, virtual machines, etc. The web is just an extension of that.

After all, what is the difference between a “local” app versus an “Internet” app? Only the execution platform. A local app has full access to the available hardware. An Internet app is confined to the browser environment. It all still executes on your machine and, after that, data is just simply data.

Really, the main thing holding back Internet based apps is the browser itself. I could easily see future browsers allowing Flash, Silverlight, etc to interact with any available hardware acceleration, such as graphic cards. Faster engines for JavaScript and other popular interpretive languages would also be necessary.

I’m guessing on the bottleneck here. Perhaps a future version of Silverlight, Flash, et al will be able to take advantage of 3D hardware without newer browsers.

With “disconnected Internet apps” making use of offline features from companies like Google and Adobe the term “Internet App” is starting to loose its original confined definition.

If you have an “Internet App” that goes offline, even though it runs in the browser is it still an Internet App? If the offline portion can be compiled to run on the native machine (many offline projects are going this route) is it still an Internet app or is it now a local app?

Right now you download Google Earth and run it on your own hardware. Yet you got the initial app from the Internet, and most all the data used to provide the content is streaming from the Internet. Why isn’t this an Internet app?

Once the bottle neck issues get solved, or as programs get further and further away from browser dependency, there will be no such thing as an Internet App.

Years ago (~1996) when I worked in software retail and the Internet was starting to become mainstream, I was telling customers that in the near future all our apps would be hosted through a service provider and only our data and the O/S would be on our hard drives. While we aren’t quite there, and it looks as if our data may indeed be hosted online as well, this is still the direction I see things going.

In the next 5 years this is what I can easily see being my typical vacation routine:

Walk into an Internet Café. Logging onto Flickr and uploading the digital photos I’ve taken on my trip. Logging onto Adobe’s site giving me access to the software I’ve “purchased”. Running Adobe Photoshop Elements to quickly retouch my photos directly from Flicker. Finally posting my favorites to my blog.

While the brands, apps, and other details may change in my scenario, the basic point it this: As a user I will have access to all my data and applications from any Internet capable computer (device?) and, as a user, I wont even care about the “how”.

That’s where things are going, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see it this way (or pretty darn close) in the next 5 years.

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When I started my present job with the Val Verde Unified School District my position consisted mainly of working with GIS.  Most people said, "What’s that?".  Hehe, I’m not surprised. I’ve been in technology for years and barely knew what it really meant.

Well, here’s a great example of GIS in real world use.  GIS is literally the use of maps with computers (Geographic Information System).  Have you ever used a web site to find directions from your house to somewhere?  You’ve used GIS.

Anyway, I’m sure many of you heard about the Reverse 911 system San Diego used during the fires.

That’s a pretty amazing use of GIS.  It’s all done by calling houses that are located within a specific area, so emergency officials can call hundreds of thousands of people located in a very precise geographic area.  It’s pretty amazing.

Unfortunately I heard a Riverside politician make a terrible comment regarding the system.  When criticized that cell phones weren’t called this politician stated that the reverse 911 system wasn’t capable of that and they will be searching for a vendor who can supply this need.  This is dead wrong because the system San Diego uses can contact almost any type of device, including text messaging cell phones and pagers as well as interacting with hearing impaired equip.  They can even leave voicemail in a variety of languages incase the residents are not native English speakers.  In fact, during the fires San Diego County had a link on their web site allowing people to type in their home address and attach any phone number they wanted.  I’m sure this was always available but it was just more publicized at that time. 

Anyway, I thought that was one of the coolest applications of GIS I’ve heard.

If you’re interested check out the web site.  http://www.reverse911.com 

I should have bought stock before the fires.

~Matt

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