Bobbies on the byte. The police force in Britain is going electronic in an effort to cut paperwork and red tape. [BBC News: sci/tech]

Tie this in with the MS Mira tech, better antennnas,  and convert existing police boxes and phone booths to secure WAPs and you'll have Bobbies able to work from just about anywhere.

Alternately, use the above access points for both public access and police work, with preferred access for the police, and you have a solution to last mile broadband access issues in urban areas. Offer tax breaks to companies for serving as public service wireless carriers and you give businesses a reason to offer/carry the service. Having rugged servers in police cars that act as a part of the wireless network to serve out in rural areas would be a boost as well.

11:20:16 AM    

The Evolution of Rollovers. From JavaScript to CSS2, we chronicle the development of rollover creation techniques over time. By Andy King. 0312 [WebReference News]

Excellent resource for how to do rollovers in just about every method available.

11:02:27 AM    

Philips embraces Microsoft Mira [IDG InfoWorld]

Cool Idea, this Mira tech[2]. it would be neat to have a secondary display that I could haul around with me, being able to access info wherever I am, or update a page without having to have a laptop. I imagine that something like a Sony Vaio SR could serve the same purpose, as I would need to have wireless access no matter what solution I chose.

Still, being able to have the power of the desktop wherever I roam within range is appealing to me. Security question: How do I insure that no one can hijack my system? Given MS's history of security, this is a serious issue, especially given the range that antennas will soon have.

10:59:09 AM    

Feds: PayPal not a bank. Federal regulators have boosted the online payments company's contention that it is not a bank and shouldn't be regulated as one. [CNET News.com]

Which raises the question, just what is Pay Pal? It's more than a money transfer service along the lines of Western Union. Is it an Escrow company? It seems to fit the definition.

9:59:01 AM    

Pay TV giants at war over encryption. In a startling lawsuit, Canal+ accuses a rival of cracking its encryption system and providing data to a website [New Scientist]

One European provider sues another claiming they provided hacks for their system to the pirate community. That I can understand. But they are suing them in California, supposedly because that is where the serves that hosted the hacks was located. I think it is more likely that California has harsher penalties for providing means of bypassing copyright protection.

If the charges are true or not, I find the whole story hilarious.

9:45:02 AM    

Telera unified messaging 'delaminates' network [IDG InfoWorld]

This is the probably first version of what I was going on about the other day. While it doesn't have the self directed meeting scheduling I was talking about, it could be added in fairly easily either as a module, or as an interop via WSDL. Again, to have this living on a server in our home would be a huge boon for busy people.

The real trick is for the technology to get to the price point where it is reasonable to have it in your home.

Hurdles:

1. How do you get the system to interact with the user? The existing model above works over the phone, so I suppose you could dial into the local server, or enter a special code and have a phone line feeding into the server that monitors for it, activating the system. If this was a part of a wireless IP telephony system it could be done seamlessly. Ditto for a system like Siemens wireless system, with the server acting as the main unit for tracking messages.
2. Cost. How do you get the price point down to whre people will be willing to pay for it? Widespread adoption in the workplace is the best solution I can think of. By getting large companies to adopt it, you'll end up with a generation raised on and familiar with the technology. As more players enter the market prices will drop due to competition, and more features will be added.

9:29:39 AM