Personal clouds
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Because freedom matters
After one of my reluctant visits to Facebook yesterday, I posted this there: If I were actually the person Facebook advertised to, I would be an impotent, elderly, diabetic, hairy (or hairless) philandering cancer patient, heart attack risk, snoring victim, wannabe business person, gambling and cruise boat addict, and possible IBM Cloud customer in need… Continue reading
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Maybe wallets can’t be apps
Danese Cooper (@DivaDanese) asks via tweet, Wallet App (and 1-button pay) as “compelling demo” apparently works equally well 4 BitCoin as 4 PayPal. @dsearls opinion? #BitcoinSummit Sounds cool, but I don’t know which wallet app she’s talking about. There are many. In my opinion, however, they all come up short because they aren’t really wallets.… Continue reading
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We’re all going to need clothes
In the physical world we know what privacy is and how it works. We know because we have worked out privacy technologies and norms over thousands of years. Without them we wouldn’t have civilization. Doors and windows are privacy technologies. So are clothes. So are manners respecting the intentions behind our own and others’ use of those things. Those manners… Continue reading
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The cliff personal clouds need to climb
This speed test was done in London, but it’s typical of everywhere: It shows a Net biased for downstream, and minimized for upstream. If we’re going to do any serious personal work in clouds, we need better upstream than this. I wrote about the problem, and the reason for it, in France, four years ago.… Continue reading
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A New Data Deal, starting today
There was a time when personal computer was an oxymoron: a contradiction in terms. That ended when personal computing got real in the ’80s. There was a time when personal networking, where every person has status, reach and power equal to that of corporations and governments, was unthinkable. That ended when the Internet got real… Continue reading
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Why EULAs suck for the Internet of Things
I’ve been asked how EULAs — End User License Agreements — might affect the Internet of Things, now becoming better known as the IoT. Good question. The topic is hot: Development, however, is another story. There we are headed straight into a log-jam that Phil Windley calls the Compuserve of Things. In the 80’s and early ’90s, Compuserve was… Continue reading
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Cars as crucibles for personal autonomy
From Merriam-Webster: cru·ci·ble noun\ˈkrü-sə-bəl\ : a pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted : a difficult test or challenge : a place or situation that forces people to change or make difficult decisions This is what cars will become. The difficult decision is where to draw… Continue reading
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One more reason we need personal clouds
A couple days ago I went to an Apple store with my iPhone 4, which was running down its battery for no apparent reason. I forget the diagnosis, which didn’t matter as much as the cure: wiping the phone and restoring its apps. I would lose settings, I was told, and whatever data wasn’t stored… Continue reading
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Fred Wilson’s talk at LeWeb
I’m bummed that I missed LeWeb, but I’m glad I got to see and hear Fred Wilson’s talk there, given on Tuesday. I can’t recommend it more highly. Go listen. It might be the most leveraged prophesy you’re ever going to hear. I’m biased in that judgement, because the trends Fred visits are ones I’ve devoted my… Continue reading
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The most important Kickstarter ever
Fuse is more than a device and a smartphone app to go with it. The world is full of those already. Fuse is the first product in the digital age that can blow up every one of the silos built to trap personal data and limit personal independence. Fuse does that by putting you — literally… Continue reading
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The only way publishing can escape the forest of silos
The Forrest of Silos problem I describe in the last post is exactly what Josh Marshall of TPM is dealing with when he says (correctly) “there’s no single digital news publishing model” — and what Dave Winer also correctly talks about here.) Every publisher requiring a login/password, or using ‘social logins’ such as those provided by Facebook and Twitter, is living in an administrative… Continue reading
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Thoughts on privacy
In Here Is New York, E.B. White opens with this sentence: “On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.” Sixty-four years have passed since White wrote that, and it still makes perfect sense to me, hunched behind a desk in a back room… Continue reading
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Let’s help Airbnb rebuild the bridge it just burned
[Trieste, Italy, 12:02am Friday 21 May 2013 — As I say in the comments here, Airbnb has responded to this post, explaining that a bug in the system was involved. While that might patch Airbnb’s relationship with my wife and I, the bridge remains burned with other customers as long as Airbnb’s Verified ID system retains… Continue reading
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What can people do with data that companies alone can’t?
After six years on the VRM case, it seems obvious to me that individuals need to be the points of integration for their own data — and of data about them, held by companies. But it’s not yet obvious to the marketplace, since we still lack suppliers willing either to part with the personal data… Continue reading
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People will do more with Big Data than big companies can
The history of computing over the last 30 years is one of lurches forward every time individuals got the power to do what only big enterprises could do previously — and to do a much better job of it. It happened when computing got personal in the ’80s. It happened when networking got personal in… Continue reading
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Identity systems, failing to communicate
There is a classic scene in Cool Hand Luke where the prison warden (Strother Martin), says to the handcuffed Luke, (Paul Newman), that he doesn’t like it when Luke talks to him as an equal. So, to teach a lesson, the warden smacks Luke hard, sending him rolling down a hill. The warden then says to the… Continue reading