Friday, January 24, 2003

Inquiring minds want to know: what is Steve Wozniak's new company "Wheels of Zeus" up to? There's even a "Woz watch" website out there. Hell, maybe I'll get brave one evening and call Steve up and ask him what's going on. He still answers his email very promptly (I reported woz.com was down to him on Sunday night and he promptly kicked the server and got it running again). Maybe we'll call him during halftime at the Super Bowl. I know his cell phone number and he does answer it (he's had the same number for more than 10 years now). The last time I asked Steve what was up, though, (several months ago) he told me he couldn't talk about it. On the other hand, they are looking for a software engineer with SOAP experience (among other things). [The Scobleizer Weblog] 4:29:29 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

You know, one thing I love about Woz is he's still a geek. It's 11:33 p.m. here in Silicon Valley, and he's still fingering his Macintosh. Who said Woz is just a figurehead? I wanna see what he comes up with. After all, he's the guy who engineered my first personal computer. He's also the guy who programmed the game Breakout. That's two massive hits. Can he make it three? I just wish someone would put a mirror on the WozCam so we can look at what's on Steve's screen. Name any other Silicon Valley or Redmond famous person who has a webcam on them most of the time. Wild. Keep it up Woz! You're still my hero and my inspiration. [The Scobleizer Weblog] 4:28:53 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Open Standards Architectures. I wanted to start off this proposal with a pretty picture - to inspire people. This is a mockup of a tool environment which would take advantage of the types of standards I'm proposing.  But before I propose any other open standards, I wanted to start off clarifying my 'Free Media Management' proposal I floated last week.  I had to change the name from "Open Media Management" to "Free" - as Avid has a standard called OMM.  Ooops. I've been going over the idea with lots of folks all week, while writing the fuller Open Standards Arcitecture proposal.  As I explained the idea - over and over again - each person who listened to it heard a different thing, based upon their industry, constituency group or level of technical prowess. I realized that in fact, what we're trying to create is a 'mesh' of standards that unite on-line media, and that this mesh was made up of at least three different kinds of technology - merged together into one architecture.  These different modules will all share the same media object model and enable a standard way to address, index and manipulate media on-line. I - Existing Media storage and tools companies already have their own internal media management systems.  But each company's system is it's own separate island - hoping to lock customers and end-users into their format.  But as competition increases and media becomes more and more ubiquitous (and the conversations continue), we believe that companys will want a way to 'unite' or aggregate media from multiple sources. Look at the current situations with music jukeboxes - for instance. Right now each legal downloading solution deploys a different scenario for locking, controlling or limiting access to the music.  End-users are required to access their music through separate jukeboxes, because of these uncompatible systems.  It's as if you had a separate CD player for music you bought at Tower Records, versus another player for CD's from Sam Goodey! So module #1 would be some sort of 'proxying' system or redirector, which means that end-users would be able to access any media - anywhere - regardless of where it's stored or under who's rules.  Within the realm of 'fair use' - of course!  This proxying would also enable Ofoto albums to include images from Yahoo Photos or Xdrive or iLife could aggregate videos from Microsoft Media 9 libraries.  Any kind of media tool and/or storage service could utilize this proxying system. It would be stored on public servers and hosted by sponsors. II - Blogging and Journaling tools do not have media management right now. They treat an image as another HTML tag, which just happens to end with .gif, .jpg, .avi, .mp3, etc.  But increasingly bloggers are trying to plug in audioblogging or moblogging posts, or at least keep track of all the images they've included in their posts.  Media integration is going to be cruicial for the future of blogging. If you think of blogging as just one form of personal publishing, then your logic would flow and say: "gee blogging tools really need to deal with media (video, audio, photos) as special 'objects'.  We can then reuse our media in a wide range of 'micro-content' applications and services." So module #2 is really an object model, which is implemented in a storage system, and coupled to the proxying service, and interchangeable media standards (RSS extensions) and compatible with built-in content libraries of usable media.  This code could be baked into blogging tools (or be offered as add-on products.) III - New kinds of tools, devices and interactive experiences vendors will find a goldmine combining media, communications and personal publishing.  By having a standard media management system to leverage off of and build on top of, software developers can start to build interactive experiences which can directly attach to and support game machines, cell phones, TV sets, stereos, PVRs and all sorts of handheld devices.  So module #3 is all the code necessary for supporting and synchronzing with devices, working within a multimedia Home LAN and enabling all sort of cool, new interactive experiences to blossom. This all is crucial for the foundation for next generation 'digital lifestyle' products.  Standard media management stuff - is real important. Imagine what Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive would do with such a standard?  Or the Creative Commons? [Marc's Voice] 3:50:07 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

I have to go to this link of Clemns Vasters and read this article. Without reading the article I would love to see the US of A do something like this to unite our country again around a positive goal. Before the Decade is Out.... Clemens Vasters posts about a possible re-use of the famous Kennedy quote that landed a man on the moon in 1969. This time, it seems, Bush may challenge us to land on Mars. I'm all for space. I love science, and this country has hardly had the kind of pulling together like it saw during the space race with the Soviets. So, I think yeah, a landing on Mars would be a good achievement. Recently, the Monday work-day lunches (the day of the week when we're all together) have inevitably taken to the Middle East. My boss was thinking aloud that it would be the best thing a President ever did -- better than Kennedy's moon landing challenge -- to say something akin to: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of eliminating our dependence on oil." I have to side with my boss here. Our dependence on oil is essentially screwing up the entire world right now: not ecologically (I'm not a tree hugger), but politically. The universal dependence of the West on oil from the Middle East has our balls in a vice. It would be a much better proposition for this country to eliminate oil dependence than it would be to land on Mars (unless maybe we'll all move there when the terrorists decide to really get serious and start setting off nukes all around the world, I suppose). [The .NET Guy] 3:46:38 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Things to catch. Some of recent posts to catch: Content Management: Our Organized Future [elearnspace blog] Contagious Blogging [Ton's Interdependent thoughts] Conflicts of interest between publishers and information creators [Synesthesia] DeadJournal about LJ and blogging communities [Ross Mayfield's Weblog] Introducing: Seb's matchmaking service! [Seb's Open Research] Proxemics and knowledge management [McGee's Musings] [Mathemagenic] 3:27:12 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Having some fun with a post from my aggregator that has <P></P> posts around greater than 80 character lines. This template will then stretch to fit the line and it throws all of the template out to the longest line in the post. Taking out the <P></P> in an editor fixes the problem but then the post ends up getting bunched together into one mass. 3:18:48 PM    trackback []     Articulate []