Exciting news in Web search programming:
Since 1996, Alexa has been crawling and storing the Web at millions of pages per day. Alexa has also been building out the infrastructure to store and analyze the data and serve it to toolbars, browsers, and websites worldwide...Alexa is releasing the Alexa Web Search Platform Beta, effectively opening up the Alexa Web Crawl and ushering in a new era where anybody can create new search services without having to invest millions of dollars...
Just imagine all the talented entrepreneurs who have been stymied by a lack of web-scale tools and data. Now, for less than the cost of an iPod, they can get into the search field and begin inventing and creating...
The Alexa Web Search Platform will unleash the best minds in search everywhere...
This happened last week, by the way, so it isn't brand new. But what caught my eye was their language about "all the talented entrepreneurs" who can "begin inventing and creating." Alexa says this "will unleash the best minds."
Almost two years ago, I wrote:
Among the many remarkable benefits accruing to humanity from nanofactory proliferation will be this unleashing of millions of eager new minds, allowed for the first time to freely explore and express their brilliant creative energy.
This would happen because:
The combination of user-friendly CAD and rapid prototyping will result in a spectacular synergy, enabling unprecedented levels of innovation and development.
It's not just poetry to say that "unleashing of the best minds" is largely what drove the 20th century's surge in innovation and productivity. In fact, since the invention of the printing press, our world has been made immeasurably better by allowing more minds to invent and create. Education, democracy, free markets, better communications technology, and improved travel and transport options -- all have made possible this spectacular liberation of human potential.
Computers ushered in the Information Age. The Internet and Open Source development allowed millions of people to play an important role in designing the future.
Soon, nanotechnology will focus humanity's enormous energy and talent into creating not just Web applications, but new and better physical products. Just imagine...
Mike Treder
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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