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Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet
Evangelist, and Bill Coughran, Senior VP, Engineering

"Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic." href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws"
id="n:2z" >(Clarke's Third Law)

How do you summarize a man like href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke"
id="z0vx" >Arthur C. Clarke? The 90-year-old futurist and
science fiction writer, who

href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.03/clarke.html"
id="gh5." >described himself as a "serial processor",
died yesterday in Sri Lanka, his long-time home. Among the authors
of the Golden Age of the genre in the 1950s, Clarke is a giant
whose creative ideas have found purchase in the real world — most
notably the notion of a

href="http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/" id="x9hu" >synchronous
communication satellite, which he envisioned in 1945, but which
did not become a reality for 20 more years.

Clarke's href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deep_Range" id="f8sr" >The
Deep Range (1957) painted a world economy that harvested the
bounty of the sea and incorporated humans adapted to that
environment. In his earlier works, there is a strong scientific
element that lends credibility to the worlds he envisioned. His
more recent work has added more deeply philosophical themes. Clarke
is probably best known for his book and co-authorship with Stanley
Kubrick of the screenplay for the epochal

href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)"
id="a8v6" >2001: A Space Odyssey and the sequels to that
cultural milestone — but his two most compelling contributions may
be the ability to envision worlds and societies based on premises
other than our own, and his dramatic and effective advocacy of
science and technology.

He has not squandered celebrity, but used his iconic status to draw
public attention to things of href="http://www.clarkefoundation.org/about/accfmission.php"
id="hq-z" >global importance. We owe him gratitude not only for
his remarkable talent for cerebral entertainment, but also his
exceptional ability to make us think. Especially noteworthy now is
this 9-minute video, which he prepared on his 90th birthday last
December — as usual, rich with forward-thinking ideas.

Not a few Googlers are who they are today because his work has been
a source of inspiration and aspiration. We take a tiny bit of pride
in the fact that Google is a "sufficiently advanced
technology" that will make it easy for millions of people to
find him.

Perhaps the most fitting summary of his life, paraphrasing the
famous Vulcan greeting, is that he lived long and prospered! May
his views continue to inspire for eons.

Tags: , Bill, Cerf, Chief, Evangelist, Internet, Posted, Vint

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet
Evangelist

We know that technologies like the "v-chip" can be used
to keep kids from seeing inappropriate content on TV. And while
technology has an important role to play in protecting kids online,
it's as important that parents implant a symbolic
"v-chip" in their children's minds to guide them when
it comes to deciding what online content is and is not
appropriate.

That was one of the observations I shared this week at the href="http://www.fosi.org/"
id="n4.j" >Family Online Safety Institute's conference in
Washington, D.C. The Internet provides an amazing opportunity for
young people to express themselves creatively and access immense
quantities of useful information. Kids are using geospatial, mobile
and social networking technologies, for example, to learn in new,
interactive ways. The Internet also provides unparalleled
opportunities for free expression, enabling kids and adults alike
to deliver tremendous benefit to society by voicing sometimes
unpopular, inconvenient, or controversial opinions.

At the same time, there is some online content and activity that is
unsuitable for younger users. Google is dedicated to supporting
parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when
they go online. We've invested in developing family safety
tools that empower parents to limit what online content their
children can discover. Our href="http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe"
id="mr5-" >SafeSearch filter, which users can adjust to block
explicit content from their search results, is an example of this
type of technology.

On id="f.y-" >YouTube, where we host user-generated content, we aim
to offer a community for free expression that is suitable for
children and protects them from exploitation. Our work to keep
YouTube safe for children includes href="http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines"
id="e886" >clear policies about what is and is not acceptable on
the site; robust mechanisms to enforce these policies, such as easy
tools for users to police the content by flagging inappropriate
videos; innovative product features that enable safe behavior; and
YouTube href="http://www.youtube.com/t/safety" id="emco" >safety
tips.

We've also partnered with child safety organizations, including
href="http://www.commonsensemedia.org/" id="fu1r" >CommonSense
Media, id="x1md" >i-Safe, href="http://www.ikeepsafe.org/" id="iliq" >iKeepSafe, href="http://www.netfamilynews.org/"
id="rc.q" >NetFamilyNews, and, of course, the Family Online
Safety Institute to increase awareness about online child safety.
In addition, we cooperate with law enforcement and industry
partners to combat child exploitation and help minimize the
uploading of illegal content, offering training and technical
assistance to law enforcement officials and providing groups like
the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children with
technology tools to help them be more effective in their
work.

Keeping children safe on the Web is the shared responsibility of
parents and families, educators, industry, and government. We have
a shared responsibility to help teach children the media literacy
skills they need to become savvy online and offline information
consumers and, working together, we believe this goal is
attainable. height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Cerf, Chief, EvangelistWe, Internet, know, Posted, Vint