Consumer Cloud storage misses the point!

There is so much about the Cloud in the computing press at the moment ... it's one of the buzz words of the moment. I still prefer to think of it as distributed networked computing resources, but I admit that 'cloud' is simpler to say!  In the consumer marketplace, we are now seeing offerings of Microsoft's SkyDrive, DropBox, Apple's iCloud and most recently Google Drive.  Google grabbed headlines on the BBC Technology news website by offering free storage and a headline of 16Tb; though reading further you find that free allocations are of course limited to 5Gb, with 16Tb coming in at $800!  But all these offerings bar one emphasise storage even in their name alone (with terms like drive and box).

I don't say that emphasising storage in the cloud is missing the point from my computer scientist purist view that distributed resources should include processing as well as storage.  I say it is missing the point because the race to offer the biggest storage capacity in the cloud is to make the same mistake as choosing a PC by the detailed technology specifications.  Sure Apple's iCloud does offer storage but their strategy for offering the service across device types (computer, iPhone, iPad) is not storage but that old chestnut (discussed in my previous post as well), the user experience.  Consumers need a simple view of how distributed resources on the Internet can just work and make their lives easier.  Providing a secure trusted means for media, documents, online personal information and other data to just be available across all their devices is increasingly useful for people.  If iCloud makes the user experience of Apple's products better, then it will have succeeded.  It's not about selling storage.  Just like the point of my previous post about convergence and compromise, user experience drives the position the Cupertino company takes.

Trust is one thing that people are concerned about in the cloud.  Consumers should be aware of potential differences in the rationale for different providers to offer them "free" cloud resources.   The terms and conditions in the small print may well reveal differences in the motives of different players.  If your main business is search and advertising for example, the chance to store and access consumer data will probably offer different value to you than if your main business is selling consumer electronics or software and services!

IoT: The built environment - a workshop

It was great to attend the KTN workshop on the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Built Environment today in London. A number of interesting issues were raised.

A major outcome in one of the syndicates that I witnessed at the event was the need for incentives for the construction industry to add support for smart sensor infrastructure in new build sites. It seems that characteristics of this particular industry sector mean that there is a lack of enablers for say, implementing Ethernet or similar network points in each room next to 13A mains power sockets in new buildings, whereas in the consumer electronics industry there are few such inhibitors in for example adding a new A/V socket to new devices (such as HDMI).

Since construction companies typically build and then sell the property to another organisation to take forward, maybe it is these customers of construction that can lead the requirements for new innovation rather than trying to regulate. It seems to me that the building industry has quite enough regulation already!

A second important point made in the workshop was the need to encourage opening up data so that others will innovate and offer services that people will want. It is necessary to make it simple and cheap for people to acquire data and add some value to it. As I said in a previous blog post, it is imperative that a marketplace is established that takes away the pain of developing innovative solutions.

In the same way that the iOS App store free's developers from having to do marketing (all apps are brought together in one searchable, place with user reviews and ratings), payment transactions (all the credit card accounts/validation etc is done) and other 'pain' or hassle, an InfoStore marketplace would spur the innovation of applications that could access the data made available from 'things'. Such an InfoStore would provide potential innovators and developers with not only data feeds with defined descriptions, but also scope, terms & conditions, and a price (value) of the data. This would then allow developers to innovate and produce applications and services for more traditional App stores for end customers to realise benefit from and pay for.

Thanks to all those who organised and attended the workshop which was a pleasure to be a part of.

An Internet of Things Future

The premise for the Internet of Things (IoT) community is that the number of addressable devices on the Internet will be over 7 times what it is today by 2020. Already we are seeing a wide range of consumer devices that have internet connectivity. Such devices when also able to tap into sensors around buildings (e.g. movement, temperature, light, sound, etc.) can bring a new dimension of comfort, security, environmental consciousness including energy saving, to the people who use or indeed manage the use of the space. Outside of buildings, but still in the environment, such devices can make a huge impact on such areas as congestion, pollution control, communications, and service provision.

In the home, for the masses, it is the point at which automation and intelligence in technology also makes a difference to the human sense of security, comfort or cost control which is the tipping point for wide adoption of it. Outside in the street, it is the corporate cost of managing the public space that provides a key driver. Many services and facilities then follow from the deployment of such systems, provided that the interfaces are open and a market for using the data is created in an economic way.

Rather than setting the cost of access so high that only a few large corporations can take advantage of it, the market should look to a volume based model which encourages innovation and grows the potential market. A good analogy to this would be how software developers have vastly reduced the price of applications software which is appearing in App Stores now compared to the much higher prices that were previously charged. The profit per sale has decreased but the volume of sales has more than made up for that. The end user feels that the cost of the service is reasonable and so many more people take it up. And the platforms behind the most successful App Stores have taken the pain out of selling, marketing and distributing for sellers as well as simplifying processes for buyers.

Digital Locker or Lightener?

Apple's acquisition of the iCloud domain name suggests that their soon to be revamped MobileMe online services will be re-titled as well as re-purposed. But what purpose will the Cupertino company put its huge data server farms in the 'Cloud' to? Much has been written about the idea of a digital locker to securely store and stream content (such as music libraries) to any devices. But the cost of licences that Apple are paying for to rights holders of the content will have to be clawed back and I don't see them going down the advertisement route. So if the streaming part of iCloud is to cost users, then the value proposition will need to be very clear. I don't think the secure storage (i.e. backup) aspect of the digital locker is enough. Neither do I think that the ability to stream content to various devices will be enough. Users will compare the benefits of iCloud streaming with what they are already able to do. For most people, syncing and carrying the content they own on their devices is not an issue. It's there, it works so why pay more to achieve the same? One additional possible benefit is if the cloud based versions are better quality (e.g. higher bit rate, hence larger files). Well I'm still unconvinced. Most people cannot tell the difference in the quality beyond a point and they won't therefore see much value in paying for higher quality which is hard to perceive. That's not to say that all of these benefits would be rejected or complained about. I just don't think that the general masses will perceive enough value to pay for the service if they don't already!

But there is one thing which would cause a large number of those people who currently don't pay for MobileMe or other content streaming services to do so. If Apple were to launch a lightweight iPhone 'Nano' which has very little flash memory for content at a massively cheaper price, then it would put an iOS device in the hands of many more people, and allow those owners to effectively spread the cost of device ownership via a content subscription service. It would also fit the pattern of Apple later launching a cut-down version of successful high end products, and also be a model which is hard for many competitors to copy, requiring the server farm / data warehousing, licence agreements etc. to work. This would signal a shift, a digital device lightener, shifting content from devices towards the network. For quality to be maintained, better streaming/buffering technology will be needed than is currently used.

But I would be surprised if such a device came as soon as the revamped service ... rather it is likely to follow a while later. The initial marketing impetus for iCloud will be the benefits already mentioned as well as some additional facilities such as iWork.com finally making it out of beta status, and a family/friend location tracking service which people explicitly trust to keep them in control of their privacy, whilst letting their loved ones follow their progress.

The Privacy thing again...

Quite a lot has been happening in the privacy debate recently. There was the froth about Apple iOS and Google Android based mobile phones tracking users' every moves. Well of course the smart device in your pocket knows where you are and stores it internally from time to time. Anyone who has either owned one of the early standalone GPS units (and knows how long it took to get a decent accurate reading) or who understands the idea of 'assisted-GPS' will realise that more information is required than simple GPS from Satellites to instantly show you your location on a map on your smartphone. People also need to understand how much of their movements are tracked in all sorts of ways in the modern age (ATM machines, CCTV, credit card payments, etc.) in addition to their mobile phones.

Of course there is a debate to be had about how this information is stored, where it is used and who can get access to it. But users have to understand that in order to benefit from technology they have to give something up too. And most people won't worry about this; they have nothing to hide and their location information is not leaked to anyone, and certainly not to anyone they would be concerned about. But some US senators seem to be having a good time asking representatives of Google and Apple to explain themselves. I suppose it's an easy way to look as if they are attempting to protect the people who elected them.

Then in the UK recently we have had examples of how privacy afforded by secret court injunctions has been shown as farcical when 70,000 people have twittered online about something which national newspapers have been barred from printing to their readers. It demonstrates nicely how the legal system and current legislation is outdated in all sorts of ways, due to the changes that new technology and the Internet has brought about. This will continue to get worse as more cases of irrelevance happen in law. It's a part of the social change which is happening in society and which is leaving the established old laws of the land behind.

Tech Industry overview 2011

As 2011 revs up into full steam, I'm taking a look at various sections of the tech industry. In January the year began with the once amazing Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas but it took place with barely more than a whimper. Facebook continues to lead the pack in the social networking arena, with Apple having failed to tie it's Ping music network into the social giant at the back end of last year. News Corp more recently has launched The Daily, a news service designed solely for online consumption via mobile devices such as Apple's iPad. It is hoping that people will pay for up to the minute news services which are provided by paid professional journalists - we will know by the end of the year whether its hopes are realised. Meanwhile AOL has bought the Huffington Post, taking the opposite view to Murdoch that free web based news content will prevail.

A day or so after an astonishing internal memo by Nokia's CEO was leaked in which he likened the company to a burning ship and catalogued major corporate in-house failures, the company announces a tie-up with Microsoft and its Windows Phone operating system. This virtually signals the end for the old leader Symbian and perhaps Nokia's latest Meego operating system too, as both companies try to catch up with Apple and Google in the mobile devices space. They have a lot of ground to make up and I am very sceptical that they can make it. HP's buyout of Palm has seen it describe a new push in the same marketplace with the inherited WebOS system but they similarly have a huge challenge ahead.

Google is now leading the pack in terms of Android devices sold but Apple remains the leader in terms of money-making in that market. Being a profit-leader is not just a good business statistic. it also gives them a huge cash reserve which is key to strategic purchasing power of components for the next generation of mobile devices. This in turn means that the highest quality devices can be marketed at lower purchase prices which helps drive sales in the longer term.

And meanwhile, on the streets of Cairo, yet another previously dictator-controlled country is suddenly teetering on the brink of overthrow, as people attempt to claim some form of democracy. It is indicative of the Internet's support of people-power that the first clamp down reaction of the incumbent Egyptian regime was to try and cut off the Internet and prevent the mobile social networking being employed by the people organising the protests. And Egypt will not be the last. Gradually over decades, we will see many other dictatorships around the world fall, as technology not only enables people to act on mass with a global voice, but also shows many of them for the first time the freedoms that those in other countries enjoy, and which they then aspire to for themselves.

The rest of 2011 will see some more players in the tech industry merge or otherwise disappear as the strengths of the leading players' platforms increase. Google will continue to suffer the challenge of a continually fragmenting Android system across so many device manufacturers as each of them attempts to differentiate their products. Apple will announce and ship updates to its iPad and iPhone, probably introducing a 'nano' version of the latter to compete at the lower end of the smartphone market. Their high end mobile device replacements will incorporate near field technology to facilitate payments as they take on the banks in the next phase of the iTunes account based eco-system. I see parallels from how the network operators in the mobile phone business have seen their power and value-add services diminish since the original iPhone arrived, appearing in the banking sector as they become bit shifters in the same way as the network providers.

Apple will also want to eventually condense the separate recently launched CDMA iPhone (and later iPad) for Verizon in the USA and other CDMA operators globally into a single worldwide phone which just works anywhere on anyone's network. I think the company is well aware that the international data roaming charges cartel between operators is the single biggest obstacle for users getting the great iOS device experience when travelling overseas. A new open-SIM approach which the operators are already fighting will also be on the Cupertino company's agenda.

The success of iPad shipments in its first full year was absolutely astounding for a new class of product, surpassing the statistics of the previous launches of DVD players, VCRs and other consumer devices, and I think surprising even Apple. The take-up of the iPad in major corporates with hardly any encouragement has also surprised many. This has the potential to really ignite the consumerisation of IT in organisations longer term.

And in the Summer of this year we are promised the next major revision of Apple's computer operating system, OSX (Lion), in which they will begin the transition of many old style computing ideas to the iOS-like mobile computing approaches. I believe the iPad is an embryonic symbol of how computer hardware will almost disappear in the decades to come, as people just get on and do stuff, working with information and media in far more natural ways than the stepping stone technology of the mouse gave us. As mobile networking speeds increase and devices are increasingly sharing information and media between each other, it is likely that Apple will considerably enhance their cloud-based services using infrastructure which is already built.

I doubt very much that 2011 will be boring technological year!

Email security lagging behind

With as much as 80% spam and junk email being conveyed over the net, it surprises me that more hasn't been offered to consumers by way of email security by the major email providers. Making it simple and free (or almost free, bundled benefit etc) to create verified digital certificates so that people can at least sign their emails properly would be a differentiator and a step in the right direction. The standard internet email protocols have had this facility embedded for ages, but it is really only security experts, some specific organisations, and hobbyist users that have implemented it. Apple already issues certificates for securing their mobileMe members' iChat video calls, but have not yet made it trivially easy to use with their mail client.

In the future, people will look back and wonder why the world didn't embrace helpful technology earlier.

[sorry to regular readers for the lack of articles recently .. summer months mean breaks!]

Future transport - 1936 style innovation

After a quiet early summer period here on my blog when I have been busy with other things, I couldn't resist a posting on the subject of transport futures, having spotted this Pink Tentacle article; and so it heralds a period of more regular blogging from me again.

I'm sure James Dyson would feel vindicated about the most recent ball innovation he has brought to his range of vacuum cleaners should he see the Pink Tentacle article which highlights spherical wheels for future transportation. [Although I have to say, as good as Dyson cleaners are, it seems a little strange to see the trademark symbol ™ against a plastic ball!] If Dyson were to combine their excellent vacuum technology with some robotics, I would be sorely tempted to upgrade to another Dyson that does the cleaning itself, as is the case with some other brands.

Getting back to transport though, it is interesting how the Pink Tentacle article content from 1936 concentrates on different wheels as defining the future. The reasons given for the spherical wheel innovation (smoother ride & cushioning in an accident) are also different to Dyson's reasoning of better manoeuvrability! A majority of current forecasts for future cars focus not on different wheels but different engine technology and navigation systems. It demonstrates how innovation needs to address the issues of the moment. The problem in 1936 with cars wasn't the number of internal combustion engines polluting the planet but the discomfort of the ride, quality of road surfaces and poor suspension.

It was the same with the innovation of the original iPod. The issues of the moment then were not that playing music couldn't be done on the move (as it was when Sony brought us the original cassette Walkman). Some commentators at the time saw iPod as just the next form of portable media after CD players. Actually the issues of the moment were more about being able to not only take any amount of music with you, but to select any track from thousands simply and easily as well as embracing the moment of broadband internet facilitating the download of music.

And this idea of addressing the right issues of the moment holds true for successful innovation, whatever the product or service. To think about future transport requires though about about what the future issues of the moment might be!

Privacy - Facebook shows future

The recent furore in some camps over privacy issues on Facebook is unsurprising in some ways, but indicative of the future trend and key new ways that people will need to adapt in how they behave with new technology, how they select providers of services, and how they take responsibility for sharing information online. The future world will be alive with information-passing mechanisms, be they sensors, online servers, databases, or other devices. It isn't a case of trying to ban things, nor to over-regulate so that the benefits are restricted and innovation inhibited, but rather that people learn how to act and make sensible choices, just as humans have historically done in other technology areas.

Firstly, in the same way that most people have learnt what is acceptable in terms of using their mobile phone in a meeting for example, they will learn how to behave with devices that are either giving out information about them or managing information sharing on their behalf. Secondly, in the same way that many people choose suppliers of services based on reputation and sound ethical principles etc, they will learn to choose online providers with similar criteria, possibly with the help of light regulation which makes sure relevant criteria is available. Thirdly, in the same way that people are learning how to take responsibility for monitoring their offspring's use of the Internet, they will learn how to take responsibility for what information they choose to make available about themselves and to whom. They already do this in other areas (most people are pretty clear about who they would give their private bank details to and who they wouldn't) and will learn to do this more generally.

The mechanisms will be in place in the future to allow people to control the inevitable increase in information gathering, sharing and socialising. It will just take time for people to learn that they should (and how to) use them. Facebook's recent issues have simply demonstrated a very small, early step in this education process.

Future power in your hands

Computing technology is changing. New tablets such as Apple's iPad are making it possible for the computer to take a simpler form while allowing you to hold the Internet in your hands. The iPod changed the music industry but was simply a music player. The iPhone changed the mobile phone industry but was simply a better way to provide communications (cellular & internet) on a phone in your pocket. The iPad brings a change to the way that we think of a computer. No longer need it be a machine that you have to sit in front of at a desk or a power-hungry, over-provisioned, notebook which either requires a table like the desktop or needs to be balanced on a lap. Portable computers until now have either been shrunken versions of the desktop with all the complexity that entails (an artificial mouse or trackpad pointing device, a hierarchical file system, maintenance of applications and upgrades, etc), or underpowered netbooks (with all the same complexity).

Now there is a new form of computer, which puts power directly and immersively into the users' hands. It abstracts away many of the artificial metaphors that were devised for personal computers. It puts the content that users are really interested in (webpages, email, photos, video, music etc.) centre-stage, and lets the computer seemingly disappear.

In the future, the computer will disappear further ... it will become pervasive and integrated amongst us. The human-machine interfaces we use will become more natural and immersive. Some will be integrated with the human being. Until then, lets welcome the chance to take the power of the Internet into our hands and off the desktop.

Delaying the inevitable...

Oh dear! Here's another example of how the BBC are being held back so that the Internet revolution doesn't kill off lower quality information providers quite as quickly. But it will eventually and the public will have simply been denied a quality offering unnecessarily. The BBC should be allowed to provide whatever Apps they want for iPhone or any other significant platform so that users can decide what to use to access the information. It will be a shame if people are denied the opportunity to follow content from the World Cup soccer tournament in June from the BBC on their phones, while Sky and others who are part of the old guard newspaper/publishing industry face no such restrictions.

And apps are important, because they make the experience simple. And that is important. iPhone owners check the weather using the Weather widget on their phones, rather than going to the BBC site on the web using Safari on the iPhone - hence they get the Yahoo weather view rather than the provider who has a public information role in the UK. The apps that the BBC were planning to launch were simply making their existing content (news, weather, sport) available via the most successful smartphone platform, not straying into new areas of content.

Organisations would do better to work out how to innovate and be the best in the new media world, instead of trying dirty tactics to unfairly regulate and campaign against those who have already embraced the technology, and therefore skewing the market. They will fail, albeit slightly later than they might have done! It's almost as futile as the world's remaining dictatorships who still think that they can survive in an open, free and Internet connected world. They may take longer to die by holding out, but die they will.

Danger in the Cloud?

There is a fair amount of debate amongst computer folk about Cloud Computing. This is where data and increasingly applications run on servers in the Internet 'cloud' rather than the device of the user. The approach is championed by players such as Google and Amazon etc. But other more traditional players are also not to be left out. Both Apple and Microsoft have flirted with the cloud approach too. Apple have their MobileMe offering which even has an icon of a white cloud on a blue background! This provides a store in the cloud for users' data which can be synced between devices as well as other features. In early 2008, Microsoft bought an innovative company called Danger who ran a product called Sidekick. Sidekick stores its users' data in the cloud. On the 2nd October, SideKick users on T-Mobile's network could not access their online services nor their data. Even after service was restored four days later, they still had not access to their data and were later told by Microsoft/Danger that the data had been lost. This is the real danger for cloud-based systems.

There are degrees of cloud computing ... it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation ... particularly in the case of mobile devices, which generally need charging or other basic processes from time to time. Some less than full cloud computing approaches don't remove all of the users' control of their data but simply automate the use of the cloud as a resource. Apple's approach for example is that all data on an iPhone or iPod is backed up on the user's local PC when it is charged and synced to that device, even though the active use of the device transfers the data to their MobileMe cloud. In this way, if the Microsoft's Danger/Sidekick problem happened at MobileMe, users would at least be able to restore data from their most recent local backup. Microsoft also have a cloud based service called MyPhone for Windows Mobile users. This also only backs up data to the cloud and not a local device.

So users have to be wary of vendors who place all of their data and its backups in the all powerful cloud which of course also offers many benefits for sharing and accessibility from anywhere etc. And users would also do well to understand that not all Cloud services are the same in respect of how much control they are left with for their own data.

Media rubbish?

In all sorts of contexts, there is high end and low end, expensive and cheap, and high quality and poor. Some laggards of the Internet often just say things like "well it's all rubbish on there isn't it" and similar. I realise that I am preaching the wrong audience here in that since you are reading a blog, you are probably more pro-Internet than not. But I think it's up to all of us to tell it like it is to the doubters we meet.

Sure there is a lot of rubbish on the web. And what is and what isn't is very subjective. But if you look at TV for very long, you find it's much the same there too. Some of the programmes and many of the adverts are just awful. They do nothing to innovate nor advance the media industry they are part of. They are just used as low quality cheap-to-make schedule fillers for 24 hour TV. But most people see through it to the good stuff on TV and don't generalise or denigrate it to such an extent. After all it has been around a lot longer than the Net. It's another example of social changes instilled by technology. It's another example of the relative immaturity of the Net as a media channel. So next time you hear someone say that they don't use the Net because it's all rubbish ... just tell them how it works for you!

Google's wave of innovation continues...

Google's latest service offering aims to bring together the concepts of Instant Messaging (IM), email, media sharing, search and twitter-like interactions in what it calls Google Wave. The interface looks complex but actually those who have used it say that it is very simple to navigate and indeed it is extremely configurable. Still an early beta, it has a long way to develop into a full application, but again it demonstrates the innovation and attempts of the organisation to bundle its successful search capabilities with information and communication facilities into one application.

Certainly in the future, people will need applications and services which bring together and simplify their online world. Bringing virtual world and real world together will require abstractions and simplifications that allow individuals to manage and get the maximum benefit from new technologies. This is an early attempt to bring some of the existing online concepts together. We will see if it becomes a tidal wave that sweeps away other established services. One thing is for sure, interventions in the marketplace like this will spur innovation and that can only be a good thing.

Reducing the size of the world...

As this blog has now clocked up visitors from 50 countries around the globe I would like to give my thanks for all those who read it, especially those far from the shores where I am normally resident. I have seen so much technology innovation when in places like Japan and MIT in the USA, and look forward to visits to the emerging China and India when the time comes.

The Internet has enabled the globe to seem local. It will continue to do this and provide the backbone of a system that enables distributed democracy and global economic access to the smallest and remotest retailer. The net is enabling young people to build social networks from an early age, becoming a part of that global but seemingly local community. Organisations are beginning to wake up to the new ways that their young customers want to do business with them. And individuals are becoming empowered by the devices they carry around which keep them connected almost all of the time.

Information is being accessed and acted upon faster and in bigger quantities than ever before, effectively decision making in place of laissez-faire. What people didn't know they didn't worry about nor did they care. In the future the amount of information and the decision making processes that come with it will be totally dynamic. And then machines will be making more of the decisions before the human users have to worry about it! Now that will be fun... will people continue to complain of information overload when machines relieve them of the problem?

Up in the clouds ?

There is a lot of talk about cloud computing at the moment.  This is where storage and processing is located remotely in the network and communication channels are so fast that devices and their users can store stuff in the cloud and use processing capability in the cloud which does not need to be available locally.  Google are great exponents of this; in fact the Blogger system I am using here is to some extent an example of the cloud.  Almost all players are beginning to offer these cloud services, especially in a business context, where the idea of outsourcing and cost reduction are second nature.  Apple for example is flirting with the cloud idea with MobileMe and the recently announced iWork.com initiative.   

But is there something inherent for consumer, non business individuals, ordinary people about the idea of regarding ownership and safety with local physical location?  I'm thinking of how some people prefer to keep their money in a box under the bed rather than in a bank.  Would my parents feel safer having their personal keepsake photographs on a computer they can look at anytime rather than on an internet connected site/server/disk?   Probably.  Are we still in an age where largely it is large businesses that can afford the fast pipes that give thin client performance to the cloud a reasonable experience.  Possibly.  Is the cloud going to be more important for everyone in the next decade and beyond?   Definitely!  

Freedom & Privacy...

Today's news has thrown up two stories that I want to use to illustrate the duality of the Internet for freedom and privacy.   On the one hand there was the story about how the blogosphere and similar Internet tools are giving some people a voice when previously they were suppressed (in this case about Egyptian women having freedoms otherwise denied to them in the real world).  This type of story crops up more and more and will continue to do so in the future. 

The second story was the one about complaints to Google about the privacy invasions a few people have felt in the UK now that street level photographs have been enabled for this country.  The same story did of course come up before when Google switched on street level photography for other countries.  

People simply haven't got used to the trade-offs associated with Internet technology yet. It will take time.  The benefits will outweigh what is given up but it will be a while before many people realise.  The world has been revolutionised by the Net; some people simply haven't caught up with it yet!  People are generally happier with evolution!

Internet power rebound?

One of the biggest adopters and innovators on the Internet has been the BBC.  I am a great fan of their website and was pleased to be a part of their 10th anniversary news website celebrations in 2007.  Today, a debate is raging about the BBC's decision to not to screen an appeal for the people of Gaza on the grounds of preserving impartiality, instead preferring to give the charity even greater publicity by featuring its decision in its news broadcasts.  One observer, the ex-broadcaster and politician Martin Bell suggested it was now worried about being blamed for things and demonstrated against even before doing something, partially because the power of the Internet now allows such opinion to gather momentum and publicly focus criticism very fast and very widely.  It seems slightly ironic that such a great innovator of the net is itself being buffeted by it.  We are seeing more and more organised campaigns which exploit the Internet ... this will only increase in future.  Organisations and Governments are very well aware how powerful this new Internet democracy is ... this BBC episode is just one more example!

Family gatherings at Christmas

Traditionally families come together at Christmas time.  Increasingly some families are dispersed over large distances and travel a long way to come back together to celebrate the festive season.  As I am typing this, my Mother-in-law who has travelled 800 miles from Poland to join my wife and I for Christmas and New Year is joining the rest of the family back home by video chat over the internet.  They have finished their main Christmas meal 24 hours before, it being the tradition to have that and the opening of presents on Christmas eve there.  We have completed our festive meal today but the whole family can see and hear each other using the net.  

In the future, there will be an even more natural integration possible online.  Haptics and the whole integration of the virtual and real worlds will negate the need for many people to travel to feel that they are with the family.  The video chat will not be a time-bounded novelty event but rather an integrated part of life which all parties are used to, and use naturally as if they are physically and geographically co-located.   Display technology will mean that the walls of the rooms that people are in can display the remote end video rather than people having to position themselves around a particular device or screen in one particular room.  

Whoever you are with this Christmas I wish you a happy time and hopefully you will continue to follow this blog in 2009.  

Future democracy - networked?

The Internet can be seen to have already made the world smaller in a number of ways.  It also can be said to have improved democracy and there are many examples of coalitions of communities separated by geography but united by a cause across the net who have come together to deliver a message or lobby their point of view.  Indeed in some less open countries, the ability to bring local what is global has caused some Governments some trouble with their misguided attempts to prevent information reaching their citizens.  I noted today that China has again limited the ability of its people to view certain content from the BBC for example, a practice which was suspended to some extent during the period of them hosting the Olympic Games.  Similarly there was an interesting radio programme I heard while in the car the other morning about the way the net has allowed people to express themselves in ways that the public culture would simply not allow in some middle-eastern countries for example.  Even closer to home in the UK, the Government now accepts official e-petitions via its website.  

The net is also often criticised for creating a divide between those who have access and use it and those who do not or choose not to.  The effect of being offline will continue to be more marked in future.  So what will the balance be between the democracy supported and the exclusion that results?   Not being able to participate due to not being online rather runs contrary to the democratic ideals it can provide.