DISQUS

His definition of the cloud differed slightly from what is generally understood as the cloud

"we can do computing out indeed internet, we can do it in the data centre in a corporation, we can do it on a PC, we can do it on a phone. And we need to have the software that lets people blend those things seamlessly"

The cloud is the internet it's not a software solution for syncing all your devices.

"I’ve said this in the past, but I will repeat myself, so bare with me. "

Just because you're repeating yourself doesn't mean I'm going to get naked with you!

It is really weird that no one is talking about this. This exchange rate drop has really affected a lot of businesses. Australians looking to close deals in US dollars have basically seen the asking price jump by over 30%.

As well as the commodities issues I suspect that there are some real worries about the Australian housing market. This whole crisis began with inflated housing prices in the US. Property in Australia is very expensive. Very glad I don't have a mortgage right now.

Duncan

I have files on Omnidrive and until quite recently I've been able to access them. This is the first time I've never been able to access them at all. Kim's called it right in my opinion.

It's unforgivable that they haven't contacted the users. It's a simple common courtesy. It only takes a minute to pen an email and let people know what's going on.

I sort of read it differently. I thought his point was that there is no substitute for first hand reporting whether by bloggers or journalists. First hand reporting is expensive and time consuming. It involves travelling to meet people and see things and being available at any time of the day to do so.

A lot of blogging (and journalism for that matter) is just the recycling of secondhand news.

There's no substitute for original research and to do that you need time and money.

It just amazes me that microsoft, sony, google, nokia et alia have let Apple get away with this massive coup. They must have all seen the iphone coming a mile away and yet all these years later none of them has yet managed to launch a decent competitor. How hard is it just to copy?

I have exactly the same problem. The "Go" button just won't react. I suspect they'll fix this fairly quickly though.

It just shows how important email addresses have become. They're the new fingerprints. The expectation is that they'll never change.

Any organisation storing sensitive information on a wiki is going to be nervous about using a free hosted service regardless of what assurances it is given. Also most large organisations (which make up a lot of Confluence's users) wouldn't blink at spending the comparatively little money it costs to set up a Confluence wiki on their own servers. Considering the long term impact that it will have on their organisation it's possibly the cheapest implementation that they will ever undertake.

You don't really mention the cost of producing these web technologies. I'm not really an expert but it seems to me that these costs must be coming down. This of course has been offset by people demanding more complexity. The cost however of providing old web 1.0 technologies like email and web sites seems to be fast approaching zero. I can't imagine that I'd ever have to pay for an email account again. The technology's invented. All Gmail is providing me is server space and a bit of ongoing R&D.; It's hard to charge people a fee for something which is costing you very little at that particular time but which cost you a lot 5 years ago.

The main site is down but you can still login at https://web6.omnidrive.com/web2/login.htm
When I get a chance I'll be taking the backwards step of downloading all my stuff onto an external hard drive until my faith returns

My hotmail contact list was my most complete social network but I gave it up for Gmail a few months ago and now it's out of date. Gmail automatically adds any addressee to contacts when you send them an email so my Gmail contacts list is full of random people. Google seem to be trying to get round this by using Chat contacts which require an extra step of authentication.

The key I think lies with standards and interoperability. Phone's are completely interoperable. I can phone anyone regardless of what phone company or phone they use. Email is completely interoperable and standards based. I can email anyone regardless of what email client they use. IM is slowly (very slowly) going the same way. Unfortunately standards and inoperability dissipate value for large walled gardens like facebook and Skype. It's the way it has to go though.

I think it will actually complement Wikipedia. Finding high quality, peer-reviewed articles on the web to support Wikipedia articles is currently really hard. If they become a success, knols could become an invaluable reference for Wikipedia articles.

I think it might have some business applications. Here's my (slightly contrived) situation http://www.bookbook.com.au/wordpress/?p=97

He's not censoring his comments. Pretty brave or maybe he just doesn't care!

It seems like Facebook are letting more and more information sneak out everyday. I suspect they see the long term limitations of the lock-in model.

Hopefully wider acceptance of OpenId will speed up the whole move towards data portability.

Unlike music there is a huge body of literature which is out of copyright. You could read forever and never infringe a copyright. You don't really need BitTorrent either; War and Peace is only 3MB.

What does he do all day?

Is this picture actually genuine? I hope not.

There is actually not much difference between facebook messages and email. To say that kids don't use email is not strictly true in this sense. The main advantage of messages within a social network is that there is no spam. I'd love to see this built into next generation of email; the total elimination of all unsolicited communication. Anyone who wanted to contact me by email would have to 'introduce' themselves first just like you do in a social network. This would also provide a simple way for us to exchange profile information.

The key here will be epaper technology. Good quality, low cost eBook readers could deliver the death blow to print media.

Facebook is a big flash in the pan in my opinion. I haven't quite worked out what will replace it yet but something will for sure. All those apps are so annoying. I haven't found one yet which is actually useful.

Up until very recently my Dad would print out funny emails and post them to me. Then he'd email me to see if I'd received them!