The Life Media Dashboard: Is It Here Yet?

There is a really interesting meme going on at the moment and it’s captured in Michael Arrington’s blog post heading: Friendfeed, The Centralized Me, and Data Portability. It relates to the tug we all have for some order to the chaotic mix of services we flit between as we try to keep up with what is happening around us. Loic Le Meur sums this up well.

I envy the ordered world of someone who only checks their email once or twice a day and reads the newspaper over a cup of coffee -  but I also totally could not do that — I need my fix of news to be coming in from disparate sources hours and sometimes days before it hits the press, I need to know what my key influencers, colleagues and friends are doing as they do it.

What I don’t need is to have to log into a whole heap of sites in order to get this constant fix.

One day I’ll have One Life Media Dashboard for my web interactions.

The question at present is whether I put all my trust into a site like FriendFeed to provide me with that dashboard. From what I know is coming downtrack I’d say that FriendFeed is headed the right way, but there are other sites that do a far better job of bringing all my feeds (used in the broadest sense possible) together. More on that once I can release info

Will Data Portability become redundant as a result of these sites popping up?

I doubt it. They are removing a problem (aggregating my feeds) and DP will serve to make this a more seamless proposition for the aggregators. DP will also remove the big leap of faith and trust we currently need to “put all our eggs in the one basket” with a FriendFeed type service as our single Life Media Dashboard.

[Mindmap courtesy of Brian Solis]

Bored: Customize Your Keys

Introducing the customizable keyboard from Ergodex.

Is it just another cool gadget or the ultimate resolution to the repetitive strain injuries that plague programmers, gamers, writers and other keyboard tappers?

It works with any program and has 25 buttons that stick to the Tray in any configuration. Label buttons, slide in artwork or customize a key on the fly in-game.

[via Gagdgettastic]

Mobile GPS as standard – privacy versus safety

Your choice – lose your loved one or your privacy.

South Korea is looking into equipping new mobile phones with a chip that will allow users to be located via satellite-based positioning technology.

The argument being put forward in a bill before their National Assembly is that this move will assist in reducing kidnapping and other increasingly violent crimes against women and children.

I know there is the slippery slope argument of benevolent versus big brother government and in no other region of the world is this better illustrated – South Korea doing this versus North Korea ….shudder.

However, where we have the technology to eradicate location-based crimes this, to me, far outweighs privacy issues.

DNA tracking would be optimal – this is not that far off.

[via China View]

Robots: Life-Size versus Life-Like

I  showed my 10 & 11 year old sons the Today show clip of Ross Dawson stroking his Pleo and thought this is my answer to their continuous requests for a pet. They were both instantly besotted with this ultra cute, life-like baby dinosaur. Compared to the plastic coldness of the Sony Aibo, the Pleo exudes cuddliness. Out of the box, its big blue eyes form an emotional tie in a nanosecond.

But what I hadn’t factored in was my 10 year old’s deep connection with anything and everything Star Wars-related. He took one look at the life-size reproduction of C-3PO and was instantly torn: life-size versus life-like.

The human connection will win out in the end. A cold-hearted fibreglass replica is neat, but it has no chance against a cute pet… that doesn’t need toilet training.

MySpace Developer Kickoff in Sydney

[Disc: I'm advising MySpace's parent company, Fox Interactive Media]

I’m really excited to let Metarand readers know about the MySpace Developer Platform Kickoff event that I’m hosting on the 9th April in Sydney.

I’ll be sending out a bunch of invites over the next day or two, so if you’d like to come along and you haven’t heard from me by cob Friday please send me an email – metarand at gmail dot com.

Expect a fun evening at a great venue in Surry Hills and an opportunity to hear more from and meet members of the MySpace dev team, together with good victuals, music and wifi (laptops encouraged). I also see this as an excellent opportunity to catalyse the Australian social media community and foster a new era in collaboration and innovation.

Let’s put Australia on the social media map in a BIG way!!!

You can find out more about this and other events MySpace will be running in Australia and in New Zealand here. If you are not able to make it along, you’ll be able to hook into a live feed – check out the Aussie Developers Profile page on MySpace for more details closer to the event.

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Computerworld