More PIMs
Diego Doval, whose Plan B blognovel has been rolling out here in Salon blogland, has unveiled the alpha version of a new personal-information manager he calls Spaces. I have not had time to check it out myself but it looks cool. [Link courtesy Metafilter.] [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

11:23:28 PM  #  

Blog worthy
Steven Johnson's books -- "Interface Culture" and "Emergence" -- represent some of the most thoughtful and idea-laden writing on technoculture you'll find anywhere. Johnson, who was co-editor of the late lamented Feed as well, is now blogging away at www.stevenberlinjohnson.com. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

11:22:10 PM  #  

My new P504iS. Joi Ito's Web]

 

LOOKS KOOL!!!

11:20:11 PM  #  

Doug built a handy resource for adding Google search to your weblog. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
7:31:24 PM  #  

Solar-powered wireless broadband smart spaces. The new solar technology will create "smart spaces," said UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock. "The concept of smart spaces," he told NewsFactor, "is to allow the services and capabilities of ... Internet technology to break loose from its confinement behind the screen on your computer and to appear in our physical world, namely in the walls, chairs, automobiles, desks, eyeglasses, et cetera, of our world."
Kleinrock envisions a future alive with technology. "When I walk into a room, the room will know it is me and can provide services to me in a customized fashion," he said. [Smart Mobs]
7:29:19 PM  #  

Ziploc bags that store paper. Ziploc and Glad both make one gallon zippered plastic bags. These bags are ideal for storing most papers, e.g., old phone bills. If they were a larger by an inch in both directions, they would be good for storing 8x11 paper. Write Glad and Ziploc to have them increase the size of the bags. A small improvement, but a painless one. [ShouldExist]
7:16:04 PM  #  

Googling bar codes. Howard Rheingold shares an anecdote about what happens when you combine a bar code reader with Google. He picked up... [Blog.org]
7:13:41 PM  #  

WSJ.  Computer use is driving productivity growth.  However, it only works if a companies use of computers is tied to sound strategy (obviously).

Here is an interesting stat from the article:

U.S. productivity zoomed by 2.75% a year in the quarter-century after World War II, creating the modern American middle class. Around 1973, productivity growth slowed mysteriously to 1.5%, and showed no signs of revival despite the spread of computers until 1995. Since then, productivity has grown by more than 2.5% a year. This is big. Adding just two-tenths of a percentage point to productivity growth over a decade works out to an extra $1,000 in income for each man, woman and child.

Obviously, we didn't see anything close to this growth in incomes since 1995.  Where did it go?  Into the pockets of CEOs like Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, and others is one answer.  It has also been siphoned off by corporations and Wall Street.  Imagine the improvement in personal incomes if American families got the full benefit of productivity improvements.

This chart shows the growth the "Productivity Gap" (note, this is median income which factors out the incomes of super-rich families):

 

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]
3:48:28 PM  #  

Reuters: "Grass-roots publishing tools are putting the power of authorship in the hands of millions." [Scripting News]
3:39:24 PM  #  

Bill Clinton.  Flawed man that he is.  Has a great message (real media).   Zoom to about 18 minutes in to get to Bill's speech.

This is a relatively intellectual speech given his academic audience.  The concepts are complex, but entirely correct.  This isn't the BS we are currently getting, nor is it normal political pablum.  I, frankly, don't know how he pulled it off.   Brilliant. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

8:49:55 AM  #  

Jon points out Delta's great information sharing system.  Now if the US system can automate to get rid of all those damn people in the process, like they do in Canada, everything would be much better.  I want to check in at a Kiosk. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
8:45:01 AM  #  

Alter ID.

Grounds for Identity is my latest thinky piece in Linux Journal. Bryan Field-Elliot has a nice response, too, pointing out that strong identity services go hand-in-hand with strong DRM. I agree, but only when the subject of the relationship between the customer and the vendor is that stuff we call "content." There are all kinds of other businesses that can be built on strong identity infrastructure.

For example, let's say you have a bunch of preference and relationship info that reside in your smartcard, or in a third party repository that keeps it for you (both, doesn't matter). You're travelling. You're in a rental car with a personal smart card interface. You put your card in the slot. Because you've expressed an interest in stopping for a cappuchino along the way, the car, which is equipped with GPS and receiving data from a satellite service that's already clue'd in (through your trusted repository) to your travel plans, tells you there's a Starbucks at the next exit.

Or lets say you want the travel plans that you make with United known to your preferred car rental agency, automatically. Or lets say you want your relationship with American Express to include more than your buying history, your credit history and your contact info. Maybe Amex, which has an exclusive relationship with Costco, could make a business out of intermediating purchases of stuff Costco doesn't carry, but you'd still like to buy. Making yourself and your repository of personal information selectively available to companies with which you have real relationships makes lots of fun businesses possible, and none of it has to take place anywhere near the content business and the DRM mess it's currently caught up in.

In any case, you're not going to get more than a tiny subset of the possibilities happening if all relationships are mediated entirely on terms suppliers alone set.

We need fully empowered customers. That's what ID infrastructure is about.

(By the way, I don't think Bryan and I are in disagreement about any of this. I just want to bring up non-DRM examples. I should also add that Bryan is actually doing the hard work of making this stuff happen. I'm just writing about it.)

[The Doc Searls Weblog]
8:44:07 AM  #  

Lot's of P2P papers from Stanford. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
8:43:07 AM  #