A few weeks ago, I wrote about Human Computation and how it is used for labeling images.

Now, Google has its own Image Labeler. I haven't played with it yet, but I have opted in as a publisher, so my site's images can be used by Google in this project.

The inner life of the cell is a great simulation video by BioVisions at Harvard University.

First, it was email, then newsgroups.

Then came and web 1.0: Search (Alta Vista, Google, Yahoo), Web-based email (AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo! mail), Forums (Slashdot), Blogs (Blogspot, Boingboing, ...), and finally social networks (Friendster, MySpace, FaceBook, ...) and web 2.0 sites built on social networks (Delicious, Digg, YouTube, ...).

So, with cool new AJAXi websites, what would be the next "big thing"?

Looks like in the next few years, we will go back to "Terminal-Server" mode. Light-weight (and cheap) terminals at home connect to big machines in server farms that will do all the computation for you. And where do all your applications live? On the server.

Google has already released their cool new Docs and Spreadsheets, which enable users edit their documents and spreadsheets on the web and start collaborating with other users, all through a web browser. Google's purchase of writely was just a start to build the largest "Online Operating System" on the web.

But there are other competitors in the market, which might be a part of the next big aquisition. Look out for Zoho and ThinkFree, two bay-area based start-ups, who offer office-like applications on the web. Is this going to be the next "Big Thing"?

Teddy is a drawing program that takes the 2D images you draw and renders them in 3D. Some features including adding shadows, smoothing, extracting parts of the picture, and connecting two objects together. See this demo and this video (48mb).

Also, don't miss video a similar program developed at MIT that brings 2d objects to life. (Thanks, AliZ)

Have you ever been asked to enter a number that you see in a box, when applying for an email address or leaving a comment on a blog (captcha)? Have you ever wondered if there is any computer program that can automatically detect the numbers embedded in that image? If yes, watch Luis von Ahn talk at Google about human computation.

Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2005. Previously, Luis obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University in 2000. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research Fellowship.