Here's the convergence I'm watching: wireless networking, mobile computing devices, and digital identity.
I haven't said anything about digital identity, despite the numerous conversations on this topic in other blogs. (Here for instance.) The basic idea is that internet commerce is being held back because we lack strong digital identities on the web. In other words, there is no way for people on one side of a transaction to be sure who is on the other side.
I've been uninterested in this discussion mainly because I don't care that much about internet commerce. But with the rise of wireless networks I'm starting to see how important this issue will be. And not just for commerce.
The cool thing happening now in terms of wireless has to do with auto configuration. Apple is leading the way here by implementing the open source work on zeroconf (i.e., zero configuration networking) as rendezvous:Rendezvous lets you create an instant network of computers and smart devices just by getting them connected to each other. The computers and devices take over from there, automatically broadcasting and discovering what services each is offering for the use of others. The network could be as simple as two AirPort-equipped PowerBook users sitting in a hotel meeting room miles from the nearest AirPort base station with some large files they need to share. Before Rendezvous, frustration. With Rendezvous, your computer will discover others, making file sharing completely simple. This technology is not allowing anything that wasn't possible before, it's just making everything much more simple.
Take iTunes for example. If I have iTunes set to share it's music, and I have wireless networking turned on (airport, 802.11b, wi-fi - these are all synonyms,) my iTunes library will show up in the iTunes library of any other computer within range that has been set to look for shared music. The cool thing here is that it just happens.
Same goes for rendezvous enabled printers. Plug them into your network, and bam, every computer on the network can print to it. Again, nothing new - people have been printing over networks for years - but the idea that the printer and all the computers auto discover each other is the important thing. When you plug it in it sends out a signal like "Hi, I'm a SuperPrinter 5000xl. You can send me things and I'll print them. I expect you to send them like this..." and all the computers see that message and register whatever services the device is offering. No drivers to install, no network configurations to tweak.
So far, so cool. But now think in terms of mobile communications devices. These are pretty basic at the moment. Cellphones, cameras, iPods, Palm Pilots, etc... Now attach wireless to everything and start moving around. Now my (future) iPod will automatically connect to every other iPod in my subway car, allowing me to browse and stream music from people around me. Or maybe my Palm Pilot holds my resume which is invisibly available to everyone at the trade show. Or maybe my camera is constantly looking for an internet access point, and whenever it finds one it starts uploading photos from it's memory to my webserver. Or maybe my cellphone buzzes whenever I come into the proximity of someone who is in my phone list.
These technologies are going to introduce a new way of socializing. Something like friendster, but operating locally, just in your immediate vicinity. Sit down at the bar and your iPod notices that someone else in the room really likes post war gospel music too. Maybe it's a city thing (where we all live so close together, yet seldom get to know people outside our circle,) but this kind of thing seems amazingly attractive to me.
But the missing piece is digital identity. Just who is this person on the other end of your automatically configured wireless link? Well, you know a little bit just by virtue of the link. You know what kind of music they like. Or maybe you can read their resume. Or maybe you know that one of your friends is in their phone list. But I wonder if something more structured is needed. A sort of universal "about this person" biographical resource.
And of course, we're already building such a service. It's called a weblog.
I once referred to weblogs as the internet age outgoing phone message. It's how you have your machine say who you are when you are not available to answer the call of identity yourself. And that is similar to what I'm proposing here. Weblogs can act as the basis for a free form, bottom up, digital identity. One that hangs in the digital ether all around you thanks to the wireless mobile computing devices we'll all soon be carrying.
Here's a funny / scary story about friendster if you don't know what it is.
And here's a sort of trivial (or at least very first generation) example of what I'm talking about: intelligent name tags.
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I haven't said anything about digital identity, despite the numerous conversations on this topic in other blogs. (Here for instance.) The basic idea is that internet commerce is being held back because we lack strong digital identities on the web. In other words, there is no way for people on one side of a transaction to be sure who is on the other side.
I've been uninterested in this discussion mainly because I don't care that much about internet commerce. But with the rise of wireless networks I'm starting to see how important this issue will be. And not just for commerce.
The cool thing happening now in terms of wireless has to do with auto configuration. Apple is leading the way here by implementing the open source work on zeroconf (i.e., zero configuration networking) as rendezvous:This technology is not allowing anything that wasn't possible before, it's just making everything much more simple.
Take iTunes for example. If I have iTunes set to share it's music, and I have wireless networking turned on (airport, 802.11b, wi-fi - these are all synonyms,) my iTunes library will show up in the iTunes library of any other computer within range that has been set to look for shared music. The cool thing here is that it just happens.
Same goes for rendezvous enabled printers. Plug them into your network, and bam, every computer on the network can print to it. Again, nothing new - people have been printing over networks for years - but the idea that the printer and all the computers auto discover each other is the important thing. When you plug it in it sends out a signal like "Hi, I'm a SuperPrinter 5000xl. You can send me things and I'll print them. I expect you to send them like this..." and all the computers see that message and register whatever services the device is offering. No drivers to install, no network configurations to tweak.
So far, so cool. But now think in terms of mobile communications devices. These are pretty basic at the moment. Cellphones, cameras, iPods, Palm Pilots, etc... Now attach wireless to everything and start moving around. Now my (future) iPod will automatically connect to every other iPod in my subway car, allowing me to browse and stream music from people around me. Or maybe my Palm Pilot holds my resume which is invisibly available to everyone at the trade show. Or maybe my camera is constantly looking for an internet access point, and whenever it finds one it starts uploading photos from it's memory to my webserver. Or maybe my cellphone buzzes whenever I come into the proximity of someone who is in my phone list.
These technologies are going to introduce a new way of socializing. Something like friendster, but operating locally, just in your immediate vicinity. Sit down at the bar and your iPod notices that someone else in the room really likes post war gospel music too. Maybe it's a city thing (where we all live so close together, yet seldom get to know people outside our circle,) but this kind of thing seems amazingly attractive to me.
But the missing piece is digital identity. Just who is this person on the other end of your automatically configured wireless link? Well, you know a little bit just by virtue of the link. You know what kind of music they like. Or maybe you can read their resume. Or maybe you know that one of your friends is in their phone list. But I wonder if something more structured is needed. A sort of universal "about this person" biographical resource.
And of course, we're already building such a service. It's called a weblog.
I once referred to weblogs as the internet age outgoing phone message. It's how you have your machine say who you are when you are not available to answer the call of identity yourself. And that is similar to what I'm proposing here. Weblogs can act as the basis for a free form, bottom up, digital identity. One that hangs in the digital ether all around you thanks to the wireless mobile computing devices we'll all soon be carrying.
- jim 5-05-2003 11:54 pm
Here's a funny / scary story about friendster if you don't know what it is.
- jim 5-06-2003 12:07 am
And here's a sort of trivial (or at least very first generation) example of what I'm talking about: intelligent name tags.
- jim 5-06-2003 12:21 am