Young Scientist ot Year - ya wha ?

zynaps

People (and big, dirty corporations) seem to do a lot of research on techniques of encoding data across different media more efficiently.
If they can come up with differential quadrature phase shift keying and make it work across power lines, which have random interference and so forth, hopefully someone will find some way of improving the throughput on pstn lines.
I just wouldn't expect it at the young scientist thing....

jd

I suppose the browser could follow links and download content before the link is clicked, but this has been done before..
It would be interesting to know who the judges are though

daveirl

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naitkris

if you ask me, the guy won the young scientist more because he created something people don't expect of someone his age rather than that he created something revolutionary or new. modem tweakers (BeFaster, MaxMTU...), browser enhancers, faster browsers (Opera...) and download managers (DAP, GetRight...) have been around for the last decade as far as I can remember - this guy has just packaged a product with lots of goodies that already exist in one form or another and got the attention of judges who aren't as aware of what was already available.

in other words, what he has created isn't anything revolutionary to us 56K dial-up users. heck, any decent programmer can create a simple browser tweaker to edit registry settings or request multiple sources/connections for the download to improve speed slightly.

i am not saying he doesn't deserve the award, he does, based on his age, but not so much on what he created. i would like to see his program in action though, to backup my point, but i have failed to find a webpage for his program anywhere despite searching google and other places relentlessly.

Gavin

As someone stated over in the nets/comms thread. I think it was longword. It offers a 400% increase in internet _usage_

It is a browser that I believe simply has 4 panes, so that one can look at four pages at a time... He also appears to have embedded a video playback component into the browser, which accounts for the claim that 'it can stream dvd quality film over the internet'.

This of course means.. provided you have the bandwidth in the first place. There is no way, no way at all, that software can increase the bandwidth on a pstn line by 400%, above current 56k speeds.

Gav

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Verb
As someone stated over in the nets/comms thread. I think it was longword. It offers a 400% increase in internet _usage_

It is a browser that I believe simply has 4 panes, so that one can look at four pages at a time... He also appears to have embedded a video playback component into the browser, which accounts for the claim that 'it can stream dvd quality film over the internet'.

An Irish Times article today mentions that the browser contains a DVD player so you can watch your DVDs while you browse. It also contains 50 search engines, according to the article, and some sort of speech synthesis that reads out what you are browsing.

The article also mentions that the judges took the browser over to the computer centre in UCD and verified that it was between 2 to 5 times faster than normal. The article did not say how this was done or give any other technical details.

I presume that in order to win he would have had to explain how the thing worked otherwise it would not be a 'science' competition, but it is a shame that the media does not go into any details on this.

One way to speed up the apparent speed of browsing is to use proxy software somewhere on the internet to further compress images. You connect to this proxy rather than directly to the Internet. I believe AOL used some technique like this, but there was also companies offering these services. Image quality would suffer but some people might prefer this on a narrow band connection.

De Rebel

why doesn't someone dublin based hop on a bus and get their arse into the rds and chat with him while he is packing up and stop speculating.

naitkris

SkepticOne - a proxy used to compress images is nothing new, in Ireland neither esat nor eircom have their proxies compression enabled, however were i used to live (bahrain, middle east) it was. i doubt however that this kid is going to provide a proxy server for everyone to use - the best way is to search google for a compression enabled proxy server and just enter it into your browser settings, typically web page surfing only (as downloading leads to very little compression as most files on the net are already compressed so much) gives the best compression and i have found you can get compression as high as 50% which in turn would mean double your speed while downloading web pages. trust me this is true and makes perfect, simple sense. why esat or eircom don't have their proxies compression enabled is beyond me. maybe IrelandOffline should bring that up as another gripe as it is a very valid one in my view.

back to this "new, amazing software"
what irritates me is that Irish Times say such and such, the kid says so and so, however not only is his software not available on the internet for download (according to good old reliable google, altavista and alltheweb.com) but there isn't even a single web page with both his name and his software "XWEBS" (tried also just "xweb") on the internet, despite him having worked on it for 2 years - to me this is very very strange! surely after 2 years of working on a piece of software with so much to do with the internet and him being called a "web wizard" by the reliable Irish Times he would have his own website about his "invention".

sure, testing it at the computer centre in UCD, great, though college internet access speeds (i'm at UCC) are somehing between 10 to 20 times faster than a 56k dial-up. i know a friend of mine on 2MB/s DSL in Sweden who optimised his connection with BeFaster and noticed a significant difference as it changed his registry settings to make the most use of high speed access, however Windows XP by default is optimized for 56K and network access by default, as is Windows 98, so optimising these systems to 56K is almost useless. so of course his software worked at UCD, but for us 56Kers - dream on!

if anyone finds his software or a web page to it, please post it here so everyone can waste time downloading it just to realise it does nothing for 56K users.

as for all the brilliant extras he has included, they are either all pulled from Windows Media Player and consequently embeded or he has used opensource plugins as those available for IrfanView. Either way, who cares, there are so many good DVD player and speech software already that having it in an all-in-one product actually is more of nuisance than a benefit to web surfers who prefer, well, just to surf the web.

naitkris

Originally posted by Guinness xtra
I'd say he just got the idea from the net. Downloaded all the necessary jargon. Manipulated it to suit himself. Then he made it sound so complex and ultra hip that the judges were confused. Then it was just a case of the Emperors new clothes. None of them wanted to look stupid so they gave him the prize. I mean come on, 16 years old. Don't think so. Arn't all the worlds telecoms engineers and programmers not searching for ways to increase bandwidth speed all the time. And if they cant get it faster than 8kb/s then it's hardly likely he can make it 16-20kb/s.
I think he'll have to read the patent laws.

can't agree more with you more, Guinness xtra. there's a good discussion going on at http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=706674 and you can read my 2 posts to further back up this arguement.

Hannibal_12

Originally posted by naitkris
if you ask me, the guy won the young scientist more because he created something people don't expect of someone his age rather than that he created something revolutionary or new. modem tweakers (BeFaster, MaxMTU...), browser enhancers, faster browsers (Opera...) and download managers (DAP, GetRight...) have been around for the last decade as far as I can remember - this guy has just packaged a product with lots of goodies that already exist in one form or another and got the attention of judges who aren't as aware of what was already available.

in other words, what he has created isn't anything revolutionary to us 56K dial-up users. heck, any decent programmer can create a simple browser tweaker to edit registry settings or request multiple sources/connections for the download to improve speed slightly.

i am not saying he doesn't deserve the award, he does, based on his age, but not so much on what he created. i would like to see his program in action though, to backup my point, but i have failed to find a webpage for his program anywhere despite searching google and other places relentlessly.

Agreed. It’s admirable that he has the capability at a young age and for that I commend him but this is no revolutionary new product. I never pay much attention to the event at all. I think the era of Watson and Crick type discoveries is gone; i.e. one or two men/ women stumbling upon something ground breaking. There are too many people in constant communication via the net (Pay attention Eircon) and large institutions working on the same goals for any one person to achieve something unique, it’s always team based now.
There may be exceptions of course, such as the Raelians lol :rolleyes:

GUI

lads,
mark my credability on this kid is bull****..

from i gather its a browser probably written in c++ with multimedia player tied in

is anyone reminded of realone player here?

oh ..
did i mention real one player went completely open source 2 months back

interesting the time frame considering when his was released. ;-)

sure they reckon opera speeds up internet browsing 300%..

i think he bull****ted the judges with technical terms
and its all software..

believe me if the smartest physicists cant get more data down the wire,
im sure this kid cannot !

seamus

Lads, the program itself runs faster, that's all. There is no way to install software on its own that increases the physical speed of a line.

If anyone's used Opera, you'll get what's meant by 'speed'. Opera (ime) switches between functions much faster than IE or Netscape. Using mouse gestures, for example, going back is instantaneous, whereas with IE or Netscape, there's a slight delay before it switches.

From what I've read in the papers, he's just used some efficient code, and integrated a whole pile of multimedia apps into a browser. *yawn*

Fair play to him, it must've taken a sh1tload of time and effort, and at 16, he'll go far. I didn't have even close to that kind of skill at that age (I was still just using comps to play games )

Calman

I downloaded software last night from http://www.ascentive.com/, it's a 30 day free trial using your credit card and I already sent them a mail cancelling my subscription. It says it can speed up browsing and downloading of files by up to 375%, it seems to speed up browsing a little but defintely not downloading of files. It's a 30 day free trial using your credit card, so feel free to double check it. The software's called "ActiveSpeed"

naitkris

Originally posted by Calman
I downloaded software last night from http://www.ascentive.com/, it's a 30 day free trial using your credit card and I already sent them a mail cancelling my subscription. It says it can speed up browsing and downloading of files by up to 375%, it seems to speed up browsing a little but defintely not downloading of files. It's a 30 day free trial using your credit card, so feel free to double check it. The software's called "ActiveSpeed"

it justs edits your registry... you can even do this manually if you don't mind editing the registry, save you the money.

naitkris

having just read today's Irish Times article and being a programmer myself, I am really amazed that the guy managed to write 1.5 MILLION LINES OF CODE IN 2 YEARS BY HIMSELF! I mean he was 14 when he started and, if it's true that he wrote it all by himself then the guys simply a genius, no questions asked, though I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS, that's the problem!

I just think that it is a bit far-fetched this whole thing. Someone in the "Nets / Comms" forum mentioned that RealPlayer or some other software went open source a month or two ago and that it is almost identical to the kids software to a certain extent - which is interesting without a doubt I think you'll agree.

Just out of interest, could you place your vote out of one of the following as to what you really think of the kids software so that we can all come to a swift conclusion as to what we as a majority feel is going (if he only had a web page outlining the software or let us download it or even just explained how exactly it works to get the high speed improvements he claims, then there would be no need for this!):
a) genuine, 100% written by him, working and revolutionary to the way we now will be able to use the internet
b) genuine, 100% written by him, working but nothing new that doesn't already exist
c) genuine, 100% written by him, doesn't work properly
d) non genuine, taken from an open source product(s) and redesigned, repackaged in order to win 3000 Euro
e) other? please state.

I have tried to make the options as clear-cut to what others have said previously, though if you feel your answer is very different from a) thru d) then use e) to give a completely new opinion.

The results should be interesting... and should hopefully rap up this thread.

daveirl

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De Rebel

i'd vote that someone should move this speculative carryon into one of the technology boards, or somewhere else where its relevent. its nothing to do with IOFFL

woodentopz

the most annoying thing about the whole affair is the quality of the reporting. The irish times is just a joke -- is that really the best science report that can be written on the subject? Does the author not even notice that he has forgotten to, er, tell us what the hell the thing is...

Pat kenny is equally sad on the subject. Why have none of the reports even asked basic questions such as "what is it". While RTE news does not even bother trying.

The funniest bit is the picture caption on the IT front page, saying that the guy won his prize for a "browser" (their quotation marks). Makes you wonder what a journalists job really is. Simply to promote a promotional event? to make up pretty stories about genius kids.

really annoying. Can these people be trusted to tell us anything we might need to know....

phaxx

I was up there today. Never actually got to speak to him, constant crowd around it going "ooh!" (except for the clued in people)

After discussing it with a friend, we've decided that he's simply very good at selling it - he gives no technical details at all[1] and whenever he's asked a question, he directs people to the fluffy and vague documents pinned up, or his flashy powerpoint presentation.

It seems to me that he took components from various[2] applications and just glued them all together, forming a horribly bloated and ultimately annoying application.


[1] - the one detail given of how it makes things faster is that it makes two DNS requests where a normal browser would make one. How this speeds up web browsing, I have no idea.

[2] - IE's rendering engine, some DVD player, Windows Media Player, microsoft's text to speech engine, (I believe he drew his own little cutesy character to go with this) a quick and dirty mail sender (to, from, message) and quick searches for all the major search engines.

naitkris

Originally posted by De Rebel
i'd vote that someone should move this speculative carryon into one of the technology boards, or somewhere else where its relevent. its nothing to do with IOFFL

sorry, you are completely right De Rebel, i forgot completely that this was an IOFFL board, but then again I wasn't the one who started the thread. also, i am a newbie to boards.ie

ozt9vdujny3srf

Originally posted by De Rebel
i'd vote that someone should move this speculative carryon into one of the technology boards, or somewhere else where its relevent. its nothing to do with IOFFL

k maybe the mods think different, but the reason i posted here is because if it were true then it would put a totally new slant on the ioffl campaign, where pstn+friaco would become a much more viable option for irish internet users.

I did not realise it was a browser and the pat kenny show gave me the impression that it was a lot more useful(i.e. quadruples bitrate than ithought

Maybe merging it with the thread in nets/comms would be the best option a this point.

sceptre

Moving to Nets/Comms then as requested.

(I'd suggest to Verb that it be merged with the other thread on this but it's up to him now:))

TruckledUncivil, no need to apologise (or anything similar) for posting this in IOFFL - too much info is better than none and it was presented on the Late Late as the saviour of every internet user's pay packet.

Discussion still open obviously:cool:

Cond0r

A friend of mine had a funny explanation for all this:

The guy had adsl at his gaf and didnt know it, so he thought he made his browsing faster haha

:rolleyes:

po0k

my opinion:
He got Mozilla, skined it, got an mpeg2 plugin, added WMP, RealPlayer and Winamp plugins and zipped it into a self-extracting exe.
And got a scholarship for it.

And what about that lad you were on about Phaxx, they gu who entered a linux box.
And the two entries for 802.11b ? The judges didn't notice any similarities between them...
Are these people qualified to judge such competitions?
If I'd known it was this easy I'd have entered myself with an IRC script and titled it a "Commuinications enhancing softwaredevice for realtime information relay and text-based comms over distributed networks and the internet".
Would've included a nice jazzy flash presentation for them to playon their laptops at meetings and seminars too. Just to clinch the cash like
I think I got all the major Irish Times Tech Buzzwords in there....
Muppets.

daveirl

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GUI

Original Quote By Phaxx

After discussing it with a friend, we've decided that he's simply very good at selling it - he gives no technical details at all[1] and whenever he's asked a question, he directs people to the fluffy and vague documents pinned up, or his flashy powerpoint presentation.

Phaxx i think you hit the nail dead on the head.

(1)the guy gives out no technical details in the inner workings
(2) ive read from a few different sources on it now and apparently its a browser+media player in one, i was the person who made the point the real one player went open source 2 months back, which does the exact same thing.
(3) consider the timing of both
(4) he spent 2 years coding it,i doubt it.reckon as some one said in earlier post he pulled alot code together from "alternative" sources

SyxPak

He got Mozilla, skined it, got an mpeg2 plugin, added WMP, RealPlayer and Winamp plugins and zipped it into a self-extracting exe.

agreed :-)

SkepticOne

RTE 1 will apparently be covering the event at 16:10.

What bothers me about this thing a little is the fact that no 'science' seems to be emerging from the event through the media. The claim of a 400% increase in speed is made as if it is a technical innovation (and it may well be) but no attempt is made to explain how he might have achieved this. I'm not saying that all the entrants need to do ground-breaking original work, but rather that the organisers should be encouraging a bit more science.

Some might say that he probably wants to keep the details of his invention secret, but surely that goes against the spirit of what is supposed to be a science competion. Other entrants did seem to have projects with actual results that they made public.

Fair play to him for winning, though. My only point of frustration is the froth surrounding the event and the disregard for what it is supposed to be about.

zynaps

Well it's sad that something seemingly with little real scientific content, and a lot of flashy hype and bold, obviously misleading statements (made by who?) wins a science competition.
Maybe the judges think "ahh they're only kids. Look at his little hat!", I dunno.

What I do know is of the two times it came up in conversation with friends, they both mentioned that it apparently could increase internet access speeds by 400%.
I argued their heads off, but it's somewhat annoying to see how easily people can be misled by rumours if they don't really know the subject matter too well.

Personally I'd rather see someone win for making a survey on cheaper alternatives to paper, or a more efficient way of making pizza crusts, than someone win with a slick looking, but ultimately empty submission, which gained public admiration because the public doesn't bother to question "400% faster internet!!!!!!"

crevan

Shannon Hartley Law is a fundamental theorem which states how much information you can reliably send down a wire. I went to Finians College Mullingar, and believe me, that school never saw a computer when i was there. This kid is talking pure horse ****. Its a sad reflection of the calibre of judges that are employed in the competion. Hes using mozilla and the judges don`t have a clue

eth0_

It certainly does sound veryyyyy dodgy, especially after someone mentioning RealOne going open source in the past couple of months!

Also, the fact his name or his 'invention' doesn't bring back ONE HIT from google casts aspersions on him as well. SURELY he'd have some kind of web presence?

Crevan, if you're sure he's ripping us all off...maybe someone should send a mail to a newspaper/Esat BT/whoever the judges are.