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Posted on 01/14/2003 8:48:53 PM PST by Prodigal Son
DUBLIN--A computer web browser that is said to least quadruple surfing speeds on the Internet has won the top prize at an Irish exhibition for young scientists, it was announced on Saturday.
Adnan Osmani, 16, a student at Saint Finian's College in Mullingar, central Ireland spent 18 months writing 780,000 lines of computer code to develop the browser.
Known as "XWEBS", the system works with an ordinary Internet connection using a 56K modem on a normal telephone line.
The software was tested by scientists at University College, Dublin last week and they found it boosted surfing speeds by between 100 and 500 percent depending on the basic dial-up connection rate.
Adnan says a six-fold increase is about the maximum practical boost.
"At seven times it actually crashes so I have limited it to six."
Other special aspects of his browser are the fact that access to 120 Internet search engines other features such as music and video players are built in.
"It has got every single media player built in. It is the first Internet browser in the world to actually incorporate a DVD sidebar. So you can watch a DVD movie in whatever screen size you want and browse the Internet at the same time."
To make the software more user friendly, it features a talking animated figure called Phoebe.
"The character interacts the entire way through the software. It can also read out web pages and e-mail, and I thought it would be really useful for the blind and young children because they can't really experience the Internet.
"Someone like parents or guardians can load up some webpages and it can read out the pages to them," the young programmer said.
A number of communications and computer companies have visited Adnan's stand at the Young Scientists exhibition in Dublin. He only patented his invention to protect it last Thursday.
"Five or six companies have approached me about it. I am keeping a lid on it for the time being. I am just waiting until after the exhibition and then I will try to get it all organized."
He said he was still in a state of shock as he had not expected to win and had only told three of his teachers last week about his competition entry.
"I thought I might get a good place."
He wants to study computer engineering in Harvard University and eventually set up his own Internet or computer company.
"Winning is a nice boost to my university application," he said.
Why do I expect there to be some huge unstated stipulation on when this will work (i.e., only on previously visited sites, sites that compress their pages specifically for this browser or something like that)?
I see. This is the modern day equivalent of the mythical 100 mpg car engine that got bought out by big oil.
Don't forget the one that ran on water....
I agree. A co-worker and I coded around 100,000 lines of assembler in 10 months. Non-stop, little sleep, and we both ended up in the hospital due to weakened immune systems (he of exhaustion, mine -- 10 days for Lyme disease/meningitis).
Then there's all of the testing. Pure balderdash.
I computed through standardized man-day calculations, that 100,000 lines of assembler represented 35 man-years of work (if each line of assembler is bug free).
We had 13 total bugs after release, and only three were major.
There is no WAY this kid did 780,000 lines of code in this little time.
He's probably reverse-engineered all of the DLLs that he uses, and counted their lines as well. MFC alone would do the trick.
Question. Outside of the time parameters for the code writing thing- what could he have done to get that kind of increase in speed? Assuming he's not lying about it.
I doubt if he could have typed 1400 correct lines of code a day if it was already written.
If you believe that it's that fast and full featured you will love the one about the secret carburator that lets your car get 100 mpg on WATER.
So9
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