Future

After The Crash Tomorrow

Kaliya Young · January 22, 2008 · 1 Comment

Apparently the markets are going to crash tomorrow.

It should make for an interesting time at O’Reilly’s next conference Money:Tech – Where Web 2.0 meets Wall Street.
I have also been reading this week Fooled By Randomness. I very much enjoyed The Black Swan and would recommend both books.
The Crash is sort of depressing to think about – but so is the conventional money system that got us to this place in the first place. This weekend Raines shared this video about the Story of Stuff. Makes you think hard about the overall ecology of the system we are all living in.
Knowing that the economy was not doing so well I have been working with Chris Lindstrom on a conference that considers Money and value exchange in our economies.
It builds on a conference that Chris produced in 2004 about Local Currency (there are details about the topics covered in their Conference Report).
It will be an unconference about money. But not ‘regular money’ instead about these topics:

We are going to have a special focus on digital tools and systems for mutual credit creation, value measurement and wealth acknowledgment.
Because it is about money – but not just ‘regular’ money – we are calling it the unMoney Convergence. (we haven’t even got our logo up yet but I thought I would announce it given the forthcoming events of tomorrow) It will be in Seattleon April 14-16 following the Green Festival.
The unMoney unConference would have been a silly name.

Soon we will know what you are thinking

Kaliya Young · September 17, 2007 · Leave a Comment

This came through Slashdot and was on the BBC:

Since 9/11, some of the best scientific minds in the defence industry have switched their concentration from tracking nuclear missiles to tracking individuals such as suicide bombers.
This quote is in the side bar make it sound all OK. Opinion polls, both in the US and Britain, say that about 75% of us want more, not less, surveillance

Ian Kitajima flew to Washington from his laboratories in Hawaii to show me sense-through-the-wall technology.

“Each individual has a characteristic profile,” explained Ian, holding a green rectangular box that looked like a TV remote control.
Using radio waves, you point it a wall and it tells you if anyone is on the other side. His company, Oceanit, is due to test it with the Hawaiian National Guard in Iraq next year, and it turns out that the human body gives off such sensitive radio signals, that it can even pick up breathing and heart rates.
“First, you can tell whether someone is dead or alive on the battlefield,” said Ian.
“But it will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We’ll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they’re actually thinking.”

Please Answer this Survey about the FUTURE of Internet Scale Identity

Kaliya Young · August 20, 2007 · 1 Comment

If you read this blog I would like input into the slice of scenario planning exercise that I am working on for the Sunday prior to Digital Identity World September 23.
We would like you to answer some or all of the questions here about the future of Internet scale identity. (thanks to Eugene Kim for helping with the logistics of doing this survey)
From these answers we will shape some headlines for future events that we will as a group process and think about on Sunday Afternoon. The results of this will be presented in a panel on Monday afternoon at DIDW on a panel about the Future of Internet Scale Identity.
You are welcome to answer the question even if you can’t make Sunday afternoon. It will be free and open to anyone in the community (exact time and place TBD still).
Sign up on the wiki if you are planning on coming or e-mail me kaliya (at) mac (dot) com if that doesn’t work.

The future of VRM – serving community not profits

Kaliya Young · December 26, 2006 · Leave a Comment

This incident went by on a few mailing lists I am on. The CEO of Craigslist talking to “Wall Street types ” who were “Confused capitalists wondering how a company can exist without the urge to maximize profits.” (ZDNet)
From the NYTimes:
Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates — and not so much to make money.

Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a “a culture clash of near-epic proportions.” She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn’t, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). “That definitely is not part of the equation,” he said, according to MediaPost. “It’s not part of the goal.”
“I think a lot of people are catching their breath right now,” Mr. Schachter said in response.
From ZDNet:
On text ads: Buckmaster, who says he’s only taken one economic course in his life, reiterated that the company “is not trying to maximize revenue.” Although Craigslist has been approached by the likes of Google and Yahoo about deploying text ads the decision comes back to what’s best for users, says Buckmaster.
“No users have been requesting we run text ads so that’s the end of the story,” says Buckmaster.
From NYTimes:
Following the meeting, Mr. Schachter wrote a research note, flagged by Tech Trader Daily, which suggests that he still doesn’t quite get the concept of serving customers first, and worrying about revenues later, if at all (and nevermind profits). Craigslist, the analyst wrote, “does not fully monetize its traffic or services.”

Polar Rose soon to search photos for faces on the web

Kaliya Young · December 23, 2006 · Leave a Comment

This story comes from Slashdot. A startup Polar Rose is about to launch a face search tool.

Polar Rose relies on a combination of our unique face recognition algorithms and the collective intelligence of our users….we don’t and can’t rely exclusively on face recognition, but also harness the collective intelligence of our users who help train our software and tag names on people we haven’t seen before.
We will open up for a royalty-free use of our API’s, which will allow for partners to integrate the Polar Rose functionality into existing sites or create stand-alone applications of Polar Rose, for example:
* A news site that wants to let users help tag photos, and link stories together based on who appears in photos.
* A photo-sharing site that wants to let users automatically tag new uploads, and search and sort archives based on the people in a photo.
* A social networking or dating site that wants to wants to help users find more pictures of a person, elsewhere on the net or just in the photos of the person’s friends.
The only significant requirements we put for the use of the APIs, is that the Polar Rose signature rose is used, and data that users generate is passed back to us on a non-exclusive basis. The reason being that every piece of data helps train our engine.

Some have privacy concerns. I certainly do – when Riya was pitching similar face recongintion for a flickr like tool I was creeped out. They are now doing a visual search engine so you can put in a purse or boot that you like and it searches for purses and boots like that.

Privacy concerns from New Scientist:
Polar Rose and future developments that make facial recognition available to the masses risk encroaching on people’s privacy, warns Yaman Akdeniz, director of the UK non-profit group Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
“Although this sounds like a great idea, I would not like to be searchable in this way, or so easily tracked without my consent,” says Akdeniz. The database compiled by Polar Rose is similar to the kind of biometric database some governments wish to use, he points out.
“I wonder whether they have a right to build such a database,” says Akdeniz, he suggests people think twice before embracing such potentially intrusive tools, and consider which photos of themselves they allow online.
Others agree. Simon Davies, director of the campaign group Privacy International and a specialist in technology and privacy at the London School of Economics, UK, says face-searching technology is valuable but must be used responsibly.
He fears Polar Rose could help identity thieves or stalkers, or even be used by the police to monitor protesters. “They could use the service to find where people have been, what their activities are, or who they associate with,” he says.
Search engines should allow users to prevent their photos being searched, says Davies. “There should be a way to put code in a webpage that signals you want to opt out,” he told New Scientist.

The Trustable Web(log) begins

Kaliya Young · December 19, 2006 · Leave a Comment

I met Mike for the first time at IIW2006a in May. I am not totally sure how he got there (I am sure that is a subject of a few blog posts) but some how it was through the Imergence project.
He is a non-engineer and relative “newbie” in the community. In discerning what identity is all about he has come to the conclusion that it is about the “trustable” web….“the continued evolution of the Internet to the point that it can deliver what I want, how I want it, in a way that I can control…and trust.”

The third great evolutionary phase will be a “full service” phase. This will be characterized by letting “others” do the work or provide the service, without an undue amount of work on the part of the individual receiving the benefit. This is the “set it and forget it” model where we get what we want, when we want it. This phase will be enabled by technology, but it will rely more on how people come to “trust” those with whom they interact. This is the “trustable” web.
The trustable web will come about as the result of three fundamental changes: one technical, one structural, and one relational. The combination will result in a new user-experience, where an individual can “empower” or “trust” the “network” to do things that simplify, enrich, and improve everyday life. The trustable web will be: (1) user-centric, (2) user-controlled, and (3) user-empowered.

I have had a few conversations with him about the intellectual and market framework outlined. It is quite exciting and I can’t wait to keep reading in the new year.

2006 Predictions: How good were they?

Kaliya Young · December 19, 2006 · Leave a Comment

Last year’s predictions included this:

4. Collaboration applications will get in the identity game.
One of the areas that will suddenly find itself in the middle of the identity conversation will be collaboration applications — by that we mean blogs, feedreaders, wikis, etc. The new “social networking” applications will start to seriously go after the identity game in 2006.

Grade: 1.
Reasoning: I could argue that this prediction should be graded higher in light of the blogosphere’s adoption of identity protocols, but alas, my general sense is that collaboration applications (and those in the “web 2.0” world) are still largely seeing identity as somebody else’s problem.

I think that this year will see collaboration tools begin to adopt. It took a while for this to happen because OpenID was not there yet and none of the collaboration tool folks want to worry about which protocol will win they just want it to work. With my position on the ground in the Web2.0 market I have had conversations with small ecologies of companies who ‘get’ that their users are shared with other companies. The Office 2.0 crowd was very enthusiastic about the potential for OpenID to offer SSO to their ecology.

5. URL-based identity will gain some traction.
Yes, we’re following the URL-based identity work. Yes, we think its important. Yes, we think it will accomplish some interoperability tests in 2006. Yes, we think it will gain some traction with the alpha geek community — and stop just short of a critical mass. Watch for URL-based identity to create a deeper understanding of identity for a larger community.
Grade: 5.
Reasoning: OpenID, OSIS, Higgins, Cardspace, Sxip — the list goes on and on. The work happening in the URL-based identity space is now not only driven by the smaller players, but the larger ones (like Verisign) as well. URL-based identity made an *awful* lot of progress in 2006, but didn’t reach critical mass.

Yep. Lot so of good stuff happened this year. Congratulations to everyone on working hard together to make all this good stuff happen.

6. Identity comes to Search.
Call this one something that happens in an alpha state in 2006. Either Yahoo!, Microsoft or Google will either announce or release an early version of a search product that brings identity profiles to bear. Somebody get me Vint Cerf on the phone! 😉
Grade: 1.
Reasoning: Another one that I *wished* would’ve happened, but didn’t. While Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google all made some pushes into personalized search (close), no one truly launched identity-based search based on profiles (but no cigar).

Yes this certainly didn’t happen this year. I think that all will happen is market setting so it can maybe happen in 2008. With Doc’s work on VRM and the coming of several identity across the web aggregation tools (ones that you do like ClaimID and ones that happen to you like Wink, and Spock). The ground work is being laid for this to become more real.

10. The Divide between User-centric and Enterprise Identity management is the number one conversation in 2006.
Its something we’ve identified and focused on for some time — the two different conversations that are “user-centric” identity and “enterprise identity.” The historical gap between these two areas is now being addressed by serious folks in the identity game — and 2006 will see this be the most powerful conversation in the land.
Grade: 5.
Reasoning: I’d give us a “10” on this one if I could. User-centric identity dominated the discussion in nearly all identity circles in 2006.

We were the talk of the town this year. It was fun to have so many great conversations at so many event. Next year hopefully more of the legal folks will join in so we can get some of the governance right. Code 2.0 goes on and on about the coming identity layer and governance.

Highlights from Accelerating Change:6 (Brains, Spirit, Sex, Knowledge)

Kaliya Young · September 30, 2005 · Leave a Comment

From Dr. Amen: Brain protection is essential. The Brain is very soft like tofu and the skull is really hard. Brain injuries matter and we need to take care of young brains (like not let kids play football).
The conference took a spiritual theme at the end with the presentation by the chair of the leading private university in Taiwan with a major focus on Future Studies. Their conference coming up is Global Soul, Global Mind, Global Action.
Spiritual Technology is essential to support us slowing down enough to absorb and process the accelerating change of technical technology. Janardhan Chodagam presented about the Brahmin Kumari World Spiritual Organization and highlighted how meditation can transform deep rooted personality we don’t like.
Ray thinks we are going to have sex in new ways with nanotechnology and sensations evoked with direct nerve inputs over riding our regular sensory inputs. I really can’t imagine real sexual activity between real people being replaced by nanobots.
Ray highlighted some key elements of what makes human is how knowledge it transfered from generation to generation. It is this transfer of knowledge that is expanding exponentially and why computers and other tools are needed to cope.

Spaces for Identity

Kaliya Young · July 12, 2005 · Leave a Comment

This was from the Future Salon:
Outer Space (the world around us: science, the natural and built environment, universal systems theory)

Human Space (the human world: our bodies, behavior, minds, human systems theory)

Inner Space (the world below: energy, small tech, computer “bodies”, inner systems theory)

Cyber Space (the virtual world: computer “behavior”, computer “minds”, cyber systems theory)

Hyper Space (the world beyond: new paradigms, phase transitions, hyperphysics, hyper systems theory)
Relationships are the crossing of boundaries between things.
This happens within our selves and between others.
Maintaining right relationship and boundaries between these is what helps energy flow well.

Cato: Radical Evolution – Joel Garreau Pt 1

Kaliya Young · July 12, 2005 · Leave a Comment

So this a reprint… it was on my old blog.
To clarify for those of you confused my comments are indented and in italics. I never did get to publishing part two either. Hopefully this week.
I heard this talk on June 17 at the Cato Institute / The Economist Luncheon LIberty, Technology and Prosperity in San Francisco by Joel Garneau author of Radical Evolution.
Joel’s introduction was given by The Economist SF corespondent.
He has five hats the most interesting of those seemed to be a TROLL as in the norse mythological figure who hangs out in the woods and looks after the forest.
He is editor of the Washington Post Style section. Is a scenario planner at the Global Business Network. He also has a consulting firm the Garneau group – with him and his best sources. He also dabbles in Academia.
He has authored three books – The
Nine Nations of North America, Edge City – life on the new frontier and the topic of today’s talk Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies and what it means to be human.

Joel Garneau

We are at turning point in human history because of the fundamental changes in what it means to be human in the next 10-20-30 years. The change in the technologies we are working on today is that they are not focused outward on – fire, cloths,
They are focused inward on us – Modifying our minds, memory, metabolism our kids and what it means to be human.
These changes in science have significant political implications. They are changing VC’s have to look at the world.

When I heard this I mentally noted the oddity of it being the next statment. It sort of implied that there was a way in which their decisions had a profound effect on the future – and perhaps they do but should they have this big a power to shape it – how do we discuss and discern about these issues that affect the whole of society?

Their will be changes in cultures and values on our watch in real time. The future is being driven by the curve of accelerated change. How many people have heard of Moores Law – about 1/2 of the audience raised their hands. The data point on this is that normally only 10% of the audience does. We have had 29 doublings of computing since 1959 – that is 40,000,000 times.
This curve did not suddenly start out with the chip. We are in a third sort of evolution of what it means to be human. Darwin and chimps it took 8,000 years to get reading and writing.

Technosis is a great book to understand ‘writing’ as a technology that profoundly shaped culture.

To give perspective rail roads changed everything they touched and the number of miles of rail road miles was only 14 times.
In 1800 we started the industrial age an example of this curve is that in 1903 we had the first flight and 66 years later we were on the moon.
These changes are exponential and change all of society. This curve that we are riding – I don’t see where it levels off.
The limitations are – Quantum Mechanics – The Marketplace – Human ingenuity (he sees no limits to these three)
Finally our willingness to shape culture and values. I am interested in human relationship and love and lies.
WE ARE IN A TIME OF RADICAL EVOLUTION
We are charging the shape of what it is to be human.
Fleet of technology – affect how mind, memory and metabolism works.
I spent a year with DARPA Spent Year with DARPA. They see the week link in the war fighting machine as us – humans themselves. Lets meet the first telekinetic monkey who can move objects through her thoughts.
We hook her on computer games moving a cursor with a joyce stick.
Drill hole in head near motor quartex and put in a mesh of extremely fine Wires that connect with neurons.
See the patterns in the mind when operating the joyce stick
Disconnect the joyce stick.
Just use mind to move the cursor
Hook up robot arm that moves with cursor movements.
WHY????
The defense reason that F22 is difficult to control with joyce stick. If you could control with mind <-> machine connenction. Feeding information into skull real time…blur line between made and born. That is the official reason we are doing this. The real reason is the guy who heads the lab has a daughter with ceribal palsy who can’t walk on her own and what if she could control machines with her thoughts that moved he legs? This is a dramatic change in what it means to be human.
The Berry Bonds – steroid controversy – is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what does it mean to be enhanced? – what are the social implications? Should he have an asterix next to his name because he is not the same type of human being as those who’s records he broke?
There will be people who are delighted to adopt these advances.
There will be NATURALS who are like todays vegetarians
The REST – for reasons of geography or economics are not enhanced and will envy and despise those who are. THIS HAS POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES.
What is driving this is GRIN – Genetics, Robotics, Information and Nanotechnology.
To be continued…

Next gen phone aps – interesting future identity use.

Kaliya Young · July 11, 2005 · Leave a Comment

Found in this article about next generation phone apps with interesting identity applications.

Curious about the people around you? Pantopic takes the openness, and, well, ‘browseability’ of an online community into the real world. Once you install pantopic, your phone becomes like a webpage that only people in your immediate area can read.
The fun part comes when you link up with pantopic groups in your area. Once you do, you’ll be able to get information about who your friends are hanging out with, and where. It’s going to be a few years before a lot of people have this technology. Pantopic tries to solve the saturation problem by focusing on seeing activity in your groups.

Neighbor node

Implanted RFID club entrance/human debit card

Kaliya Young · July 11, 2005 · Leave a Comment

A while back there was the DIY RFID that I blogged about. Today there is this story in the Financial Times about exclusive clubs offering their most prestigious patrons embedded chips the size of a rice grain to give them privileged access to their clubs. It has a whole history of this technology.

One night in Barcelona last year, a young Dutchman named Antoine Hazelaar received a strange proposition from the owner of a local nightspot, the Baja Beach Club. The club had just started a new programme called VipChip, he was told, and for E125, a qualified nurse could inject a device the size of a grain of rice, a VeriChip, into his upper arm. Once implanted, it would transmit an ID number to a scanner that would recognise Hazelaar as a special customer, so he wouldn’t have to wait in line and would get access to a private lounge. Since he would be one of the first people to be injected, the nightclub’s management would waive the initiation fee.
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Hazelaar agreed. At about 8pm one spring evening, in front of a throng of journalists, he sat down on a sofa in the cavernous Baja with another Dutch expat and a Spanish woman, ready to be injected. Bandages, needles and syringes were ceremoniously laid out on a cocktail table. Thanks to a local anaesthetic, Hazelaar didn’t feel the long shaft, about the size of a large sewing needle, as it entered his flesh. He didn’t feel the chip either, and a year later, he still doesn’t. “I forgot that I had it until you called,” he said.
Now, every time Hazelaar visits the Baja, he strides past the queue outside and goes straight to the doorman, who scans his arm until his name and photograph pop up on a computer screen. When he goes through another checkpoint at the special VipChip lounge, the number under his flesh becomes a payment instrument, like a loyalty card at Starbucks.
A waitress runs a scanner over his right bicep and the cost of a drink is deducted from his account.
As it turns out, Hazelaar became one of the world’s first human debit cards. But he wasn’t the last. The Baja now has 90 implanted VIPs; there are 70 at its sister club in Rotterdam, which opened last November. Even though the injection now costs E1,500 per person – including a E500 drinks credit – both establishments have waiting lists. Club co-owner Conrad Chase, a former star of the Spanish version of Big Brother, says his group might expand to Valencia and Hamburg, where they will also offer VipChip membership.
Some might say that this technology was inevitable, but how has this slightly creepy device become even remotely popular? And will it one day become part of everyday life?
…..
Ultimately, the choice is fear versus fear. What makes people feel most vulnerable? A hacker running up to them with a scanner, or news stories of rampant ID theft, infant abductions, botched surgeries, convicts on the run and terrorists among us? The VeriChip may be an extreme solution for extreme times, but the days when it could be dismissed as futuristic fancy are clearly long past.

How simple does it need to be?

Kaliya Young · July 4, 2005 · Leave a Comment

FAQ’s about LID from Johannes Ernst’s Blog – I think they apply to the work happening around XRI/XDI and Identity Commons stuff. I am going to do my part by working on doing some essays with lots of simple diagrams to explain the ecology of organizations and roles. Hopefully we can also do a short video about it too.

What’s your measure of how complex a single-sign-on technology can be so it can be adopted broadly?
A weekend of implementation effort, maximum. Here’s why: SSO only makes sense if basically everybody can implement it. That includes a lot of players, from your 401k plan (who could probably afford a lot more than that) down to the message board of the parent-teacher assocation that’s run by Joey’s dad on his home Linux server. Joey’s dad is not going to spend more than a weekend of his time to make it work. He’s also not going to go out and buy expensive software. He might download some Perl, but that’s about it. Ergo: one weekend, no more.

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