engineers it takes to keep such massive infrastructure up and running. If all it takes today is 2000 people, to manage the data of a billion people, then I really can't see a very __large__ need for software developers in the future.

Yup I dont get it either. From what I understand we are looking at things in different points in the past. So where is everything "today"?

That reef of yours looks amazing! Just wow! Great job.
Now I am a bit worried about what happens to it when you move.

You need to visit a Infosys or TCS campus in India to watch their training centers churning out "programmers" in the thousands. It will change your mind.

I don't think countries matter in this conversation. Bright people will follow the best opportunities and settle in locations with highest standards of living. The US still has both.

Well...Eric Schmidt has already said if a cop is interested in you, must be doing something you shouldn't be doing. So I can't see why that would be required.

This is going to be amazing in sports. Not just to the viewer at home (which itself will be fascinating), but also all the real time in game possibilities that might open up.

Just guessing what comes next...maybe the hardware of the nexus 7 shrinks down to the size of a usb stick, and can be plugged into screens of any size (phone/tablet/monitor/tv/google glasses) that have their own power supply, similar to what ASUS has attempted with padfone, but a couple iterations further down where the OS dynamically adjusts to whatever display the device is plugged into. I have a desktop at work 2 laptops and a phone. Would love to just shrink all that into a little keychain.

If Google is left to the likes of Steve Job wannbe's like Vic Gundotra we'd be sitting for hours listening to complete garbage. I was quite happy to see him getting kicked off stage to make room for Babak Parviz...a real engineer who builds shit.

Stackoverflow is, I think, a good example of how giving out badges and points helps. The knowledge base they have accumulated is amazing. Nowadays, I find most things I need, without even posting a question.

However, I realized it did have an interesting effect when contributing answers. This happened a couple times to me. I would contribute a long answer with all kinds of details and would get annoyed when the questioner would say a (genuine) thanks without upvoting the answer or marking it as the right answer. I mean, here I am, pissed off about some points that wont effect my life in anyway whatsoever, when I should just be happy, that I was able to help someone out.

I think the ideal evolution of such systems would get us to points where we just feel good that we are helping out, rather than reinforcing some mindless craving for a reward.

Very well explained. Here is a nice animation (which is very similar to what you just described) of how the drug Avastin works. It essentially interferes with the "signal" for new blood vessel growth. Is already in use along with chemo for many cancer treatments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xmlYr1AGx8

I'd love to see Zuckerberg pitching new features to grizzled old programmers at a design meeting.

1. People are stupid
2. People do what people around them do
source - http://edge.org/conversation/infinite-stupidity-edge-conversation-with-mark-pagel

This is like saying, to follow what is going on in the entertainment industry you have keep an eye on what Snooki and Kim Kardashian are upto. I am sure Jim Cameron and Peter Jackson agree with you.

In this case Google can do more. Google can open up its index to developers with unlimited API access. Allow local developers to use the latest NLP/datamining algo's to build better local indexes on top of Google data.