The 3D Web will arrive sooner than I expected!  WebGL is making remarkable advances.  The screenshot below shows you a teapot object embedded in a web page.

State-wide Automated Social Welfare IS (SACWIS)

I have been following various government efforts to organize and improve. Family services prove particularly difficult. The SACWIS effort is one in a long string of failures by the US government, including the Compliance Monitoring System (1971) and the HDS Information Systems Strategy (1979). Jay Silerman lead the SACWIS effort- $2B federal project under HHS to get states up and running. Money was up and out to the field in 1994.  All states expected to be up and running by 1996.  As of 2005, no state was up and running fully on this system.  At best, states were in the opeartional stage.  By 2009, many are now operational.  See status: click here

 I couldn't help catching two major pieces of bad news about Atlanta this week.  I have mentioned in the past that I believe we are entering an age of design.  By that I have implied that in the not-so-distant future, we will have many real options about how to live and we will see them as real paths we can choose.  Education will focus more and more on critical thinking and means of synthetic thought rather than rote learning and interpretation and restatement of existing materials.

 I do not want to pronounce the immanent failure of a site just as it is getting launched, but I am concerned about the prospects for Woofertime (Woofing rather than Tweeting, get it?).  The idea is that you must write 1400 words to post.  Hmm... looks mighty similar to Tweeter...

 This is really amazing.  For the first time, there is an embedded wireless pacemaker in commercial usage in healthcare.  The device allows a doctor to monitor his/her patients and their status, providing better assurance of good care and survival in case difficulties arise.

Why did Google announce Google Wave when they did earlier this summer?  They were trying to scoop Microsoft with their conversations feature in Outlook 2010.  Microsoft Office 2010 is a major upgrade. The issue of usability is huge.  Here is an interview with the project manager.

We see interesting devices from time to time that prompt re-thinking the potential of how we behave and what we are able to do.  I saw an interesting USB key fob today that did just that.  It is a small device that will enable a person to carry files along with an identity and interaction method!  What does this mean?

Recently I have attended a number of symposia hosted by unified communications vendors including Microsoft, Google, and Siemens.  I have been impressed by the level of interest and dedicated effort going toward integrated multi-media solutions.  Presence is getting built in to backbone systems that can deliver/gather presence information from multiple mobile platforms, use geo-location data, translate between text / voice / video, and auto-incorporate organic groups of interest when topics emerge.  These tools will have an extraordinary impact on business in the future.

I have been working on a whole load of materials on social media and virtual communities. I expect to begin going through the materials and posting my thoughts on them.