n interesting story from Wired Magazine explores the early days of Google, the foundation of PageRank and some human interactions in Google. Primarily it addresses the personal lives of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

When he first met Larry Page in the summer of 1995, Sergey Brin was a second-year grad student in the computer science department at Stanford University.

…

As Page had learned from his father, a computer science professor at Michigan State, a dissertation can frame one’s entire academic career. He kicked around 10 or so intriguing ideas, but found himself attracted to the burgeoning World Wide Web.

The story appears to focus on the algorithms at a relatively technical level. It is made ever more interesting because it speaks of social aspects like ambition and aspiration. For example, it turns out that there was friction among the founders at times, but we all know that the story ended up as a smashing success. On a related note, there in another item from Wired News which suggests that AJAX can steal control from operating systems and take everything from a Windows-centric world over to the open Internet.

Software experts say recent innovations in web design are ushering in a new era for internet-based software applications, some of the best of which already rival desktop applications in power and efficiency. That’s giving software developers a wide open platform for creating new programs that have no relation to the underlying operating system that runs a PC.

Also see: Towards On-Line Operating Systems

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