My Science School

In 1998, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, PhD students at Stanford University at the time, approached Yahoo! and suggested a partnership. Yahoo! declined supposedly because they didn't want to concentrate on search. Brin and Page went on to incorporate Google as a privately-held company on 4 September 1998. Yahoo! once again had the opportunity to purchase Google for $5bn in 2002. Although the price was high for Yahoo! in relation to its own value at the time, it would prove to be the last chance it had to acquire Google. It didn't. In January 2013, Google announced it had earned $50 billion in annual revenue for the year 2012.

Following the launch of Google X, the debut of Google Glass, and the unveiling of the company’s self-driving car project, the search giant turned its sights on the sciences. In particular, Page was interested in life extension. So the company, through its Google Ventures investment arm, created Calico, a company effectively aimed at curing death. It’s headed up by Bill Maris, the founding partner of Google Ventures, who recruited former Genentech CEO Art Levinson to be its chief executive.

It was yet another signal that Page’s Google was willing to put down huge sums of money toward problems far outside the realm of online search and mobile operating systems. Calico, however, has so far seemingly failed to yield any meaningful advancements in the life sciences, medicine, or biotechnology industries. It is unclear what, if anything, the company is focused on right now.

By the summer of 2015, Google was a remarkably different company than when Page had reassumed his CEO role four years prior. The company was involved in self-driving cars, wearable technology, the Nexus smartphone line, and numerous other product and experimental research efforts spanning artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing, and even fiber internet.

While Page and Brin receded from public view starting around 2015, they were reportedly quite active in Google’s famous weekly TGIY all-hands sessions, in which executives would answer questions from employees and address big-picture topics at the company and in the news. One such session, occurring just after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, was two years later leaked to conservative news outlet Breitbart.

Credit :  The Verge

Picture Credit : Google

The word netiquette is a combination of 'net (from Internet) and 'etiquette. It means being polite and showing courtesy when posting your views in an online discussion respecting others' views.

Some rules to remember

For online discussions, each group has its own accepted rules of behaviour. Here are the basic rules to be followed when using the Internet.

• Follow the rules about what is allowed and what is not allowed to be posted on any site
• When sharing your opinion, state it clearly. Avoid using non-standard or colloquial speech in your language.
• Do not use improper words or attack anyone personally. If you disagree with someone, express it with dignity.
• In discussion forums, do not deviate from the topic.
• Ignore others' mistakes, whether it's a spelling error, unintelligent question, or an unnecessarily long answer.
• Follow the privacy rules of the site and consider copyright issues when posting on a site.
• Respect other people's privacy.

Email etiquette

• Use proper expressions to greet and introduce yourself.
• Keep it short and to the point.
• Use spell check, full sentence structure, and proper grammar.
• Avoid using shortcuts for real words, emoticons, jargon, etc.
• Be clear in your subject line. Subject line must match the message.
• Do not use all capital letters, it reflects shouting. Similarly, typing in all small letters is considered informal.
• Always end the email properly using words such as Thank you', 'Sincerely, etc.
• Respond promptly.

Picture Credit : Google

We may often come across terms related to the Internet. Even though we may be familiar with the words themselves, we may not understand what some of those words mean. Here's a peek into a few such words

Webpage is a document connected to the World Wide Web. It can contain text, graphics, audio, and video files, or files that can be downloaded and hyperlinked to other pages or websites.

Website is a collection of webpages that are related to each other. They can contain multimedia. Websites can be owned by an individual, a business, or any organisation.

Homepage is the start page or the initial page of a website. Browser is a software program that assists in accessing the Internet. It helps send / receive emails, download/ upload data, audio and video files. Some of the popular browsers are Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox etc.

Search engine is a software program that searches the Internet for specified keywords and displays a list of websites that contain those keywords. Examples are Google, Yahoo, etc.

Keywords are the words used to search content on the Web. Downloading is making a personal copy of something you find on the Internet. When you download a file, a copy of the data is saved in your computer so that it can be accessed even when you are not connected to Internet. Usually we download audio and video files, data, and other software files.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the protocol used by the World Wide Web. It defines how messages should be transmitted and what actions Web servers and browsers have to take for different commands.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol SECURED) means that the web page can hide your personal information and passwords. For example, a banks website. When you log into it, you will see https at the front of the page address.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the language used for creating web pages. HTML keywords or tags instruct the web browser to display text and graphics in an orderly way. HTML tags are the hidden keywords in a web page. They define how the browser has to format and display the content.

IP (Internet Protocol) Address is a four-part or eight-part electronic serial number. It is used for tracking. Every computer, mobile phone, or device that accesses the Internet has a unique IP address.

Picture Credit : Google