New Google Services Could Burden Networks, Benefit Scholars

Yesterday Google unveiled three new services — two that may make campus-network administrators groan and one that could prove to be a boon to researchers in a number of disciplines.

The search giant’s voice- and video-chat offerings could encourage more campus-network users to switch from low-bandwidth communication technologies — instant messaging, e-mail, social networks — to chat applications that consume considerably more network resources. Voice and video chatting have been available for some time, of course, through Skype, Apple’s iChat, and other applications. But Google’s search and e-mail functions are widely used, and the software is easy to install and use, so more people may be drawn in.

Source: Wired Campus/Chronicle of Higher Education

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 and is filed under Education, Search News, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.