The place for finding syndication …
This is a very cool site that has a focus on gathering and categorizing RSS syndicated content. It’s a cool concept, and they are setting up the structures to be very successful. I wonder when Google might catch on and do something in this space …
Syndic8.Com is kickin butt. It’s great to see a community develop around this stuff.
[Scripting News]
From mail to e-mail … from travel to e-travel?
I too agree that these anthrax mail scares are going to make people think about mail and “junk” mail. One of the areas that I wondered are what new lawsuits might erupt from this whole affair?
One area will be companies that “force” a person to accept mail. For example, if you receive bills for services from a vendor – say your credit card bill, or electric bill – and they do not offer an alternative e-mailed e-bill, then are they potentially endangering your life by “forcing” you to accept potentially lethal mail?
E-mail a savior amid anthrax scare. Use of e-mail could skyrocket as an ever-widening anthrax investigation turns “snail mail” into a suspicious and potentially lethal form of communication. [CNET Tech News]
But what about privacy when speaking to your devices?
One of the things that I have found using wearable computers and various devices is that there are times that you want privacy. Using voice recognition is difficult in a loud place filled with other conversations and most of the current systems are not the best at discriminating a voice, unless it is by the loudness. There are, in addition, times that I want to be able to interact with my computer privately without others being aware. For example, I might be working on business applications, wanting to call someone and keep the name private, or I might want to be making “notes” to my computer while interacting with another person.
All of these, IMHO, indicate that computer interaction can be by voice, but only for a small segment of the interaction that I want to have.
Speaking of Voice Recognition. Intel, Microsoft and other top technology companies form a group to develop speech-enabled software that will allow communication without pushing buttons. Elisa Batista reports from Mountain View, California. [Wired News]
An Open Source Wearable Computer software project …
This appears to be a cool little project exploring the various UI aspects and human interactions of wearable computers. I’m not quite able to understand some of the objectives yet, however I am going to keep reading … I like the direction of this project.
I also found some very good links and references through this site … I really like Nooface … and I had not heard that Steve Mann had a movie – Cyberman made about his life and his experiences.
jAugment 2.3.134 (Unstable). A software infrastructure for wearable computers. [freshmeat.net]
Why our 80211.net project can rule!
I spoke with Stewart at one of the Telecosm conferences, and we talked about the subject of viable business models. At that point I suggested that both Metricom and Mobilestar were on interesting paths that I could not see sustainable. Both of these organizations have run into extreme trouble. In my opinion Metricom went off track with it’s proprietary solution, and Mobilestar was never going to be able to finance the deployment of an “owned” infrastructure.
My team and I have developed a much different business model … and we are looking to deploy the first tests around the time of the Olympics here in Utah. Keep watching http://www.80211.net
Stewart Alsop: “Wireless rocks! Wireless stinks!”
Richard Dawkins on the programming of humans …
Richard Dawkins is am amazing man, and the creator of the term “meme” in his book “The Selfish Gene”. In this article he discusses some perspectives about humans and the September 11th attack on the United States.
Although I disagree with his perspectives on “religion” as a whole, I do believe that there are a variety of ways that organizations create stories which assist in furthering their intentions. He does a great job of explaining a scenario in which the humans who committed the terrorist acts, and died in the process, might have been convinced to do this.
The area that I do disagree is the requirement of some “religous-like” practices which I believe were culturally evolved to provide forms of memetic maintenence. I think that there are numerous distinct aspects of a “religion” and that several of them might provide valuable contributions to an effective organization or society. It seems that every race and culture has developed some sort of “wise man”, “guru”, or “religion” of some kind … or the converse is that it seems that communities that do not have some sort of “religion” no longer seem to exist.
I plan on writing more on this subject in the future …
Richard Dawkins: “Testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next.” [Scripting News]
3d Semiconductors …
At several of the George Gilder Telecosm conferences that I have attended, there have been discussions about the evolution towards 3 dimensional semiconductors. It has been said that this will be a huge leap in semiconductor fabrication which will provide huge leaps in capabilities and power.
One of the most amazing presenters was Carver Mead (now at Foveon), who indicated that with no new knowledge or further advances in semiconductor science we can expect to see a 100,000 times increase in the compute capacity of our home computers … all in the next decade or so! All of this continues to feed the acceleration of technology and what we can create. This article is a great one that outlines the details of 3d Semiconductors, the history, the issues, and the solutions.
More Wearable Computer fashion … from e-Holster …
This is a cool site that is offering some new fashion for the fringe crowd that is into wearing their electronics. Of course in the coming years these guys are going to be bought, or put out of business, as the big fashion and clothing vendors jump in and begin to address the needs of the electronic consumer …
Amazing vision! An Identity Management solution that is well thought out …
This is a very cool find … it appears that Mr. McCandless was working on the same ideas at the same time as our team at Novell! When we were working on digitalme we realized that identity was something that had to be collected in a “Personal Directory” (e.g. Novell’s Personal Directory – Leading Edge Downloads #138) to be an effective solution. Although Novell has not done anything with this since, we now have a new project that will demo in January. We will be releasing our “FreeID” agent as a tool for automating the collection, distribution, and coordination of identity information.
I’ll have to get in touch with Mr. McCandless to see what he thinks!
Nice Jabber IM Programmers Overview …
Jabber is a open source solution for Presence and Instant Messaging. I am still a big fan of Jabber … I believe that it is still looking for some big visibility, and I’m thinking that it will get this through a killer-app that will support Jabber. Here is a good start for developers to write support for Jabber into their code.
Jens Alfke: Jabber Client Developer’s Cheat Sheet. [Scripting News]