Saturday, November 23, 2002

Extreme Tech: Do we control our digital identity?. Brett Glass laments the thinking of some who see our identities in the hands of large corporations or federations of them. Prediction: Naive users, and those who easily succumb to pressure from software vendors and online merchants to subscribe to digital identity systems, will give up their personal information too soon and too willingly. But most of us, thanks to healthy skepticism, will hold out for a system in which we, not a corporation, hold the keys to our digital identities. [Scott Loftesness] 3:42:39 PM

New York Times: Agency Weighed, but Discarded, Plan Reconfiguring the Internet. It's good at least to see this out in the open. Many ideas that sound reasonable at first would require changing the fundamental structure of the Net. If we've learned anything, it should be that the Net works for a reason. Its architecture has unintended positive consequences. Changing that architecture would have unintended negative consequences. [Werblog] 3:38:35 PM

Communications Hub. Apple has been making a lot of noise about the Mac being a "digital hub," that is, the central device that links your camera, PDA, MP3 player, etc. and provides the processing necessary to make them valuable tools.  For some time, I've been looking for the same thing on the communications side: a "communications hub," if you will.  [Windley's Enterprise Computing Weblog] 3:36:11 PM

There are many "convergences" but one that may not be immediately obvious is that of phone and computer. True, everyone speaks of it, but do we really understand how digital devices like PDAs, phones and services such as IM will interact? Will the idea of VoIP blend into these services or simply disappear as the various services blend into seamless "presence" communication? Economist.com Opinion, Nov 21st 2002 Computing's new shape As two industries collide, a new kind of computer may emerge... (Microsoft & Nokia) The fight for digital dominance The convergence of mobile phones and computers is bringing the giants of the two industries into direct conflict 3:30:06 PM

Bradford DeLong has a blog on economics and other thoughts. He writes, "I started out with a webpage, over time found that I was doing a 'thought of the week,' then shifted to doing a 'semi-weekly journal,' and now here I am......" 8:00:30 AM