We've heard it day-in and day-out: it's Web 2.0; the age of AJAX and the mobile desktop.  We're moving into the future; plain 'ole hypertext is a think of the past.  But with all the things moving into the future, why the heck are we still logging into websites like we were since the dawn of the web?

We went from text-only interfaces to full multimedia content; to flash applications and Java applets... you'd think we could have progressed in the realm of authentication technology.

I can't even begin to tell you how annoying it's become to log into my favorite websites every single time.  Sure, I use cookies just like everyone else does, but on the occasion I'd get logged out, and then it's the game of geez, which password did I use again?

If you're like me, you've got about four levels of passwords: there's that special, short, throwaway password you use for sites you don't care about that make you register (I most certainly will be touching on that concept in a future post); there's the bit-more-secure password you use for most of the sites you visit, forums, and the like; there's the password you use for your e-mail account, which is significantly more secure; finally there's the password for your bank account(s), PayPal, etc.  Obviously, for forums I administer, or have more than regular member access on, I use a different password.  My servers all use different (and fairly complex) passwords, too, but in general terms, you can shove my usage into the four categories.  Not only is this method terribly insecure (if someone were to phish my easy password, they could potentially be able to access all of my accounts on that security level), but also extremely inefficient.  Forgotten passwords are the number one more frustrating thing for most users.

Registering for sites is also a pain; it's always the same thing: request username, enter password, enter e-mail; verify e-mail address, activate account, start posting / access content.  Why do I have to keep doing this every single time I want to establish an account on a website?  There has to be a better way.

And thankfully, there is; the only problem is, no one uses it.

Actually, there are several solutions, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.  My favorite, and the one I see as having the most potential, is Microsoft's CardSpace.  CardSpace basically works on the concept of virtual identity cards, much like the cards in your wallet would be used to establish identity.  Microsoft even made a user interface specifically to emulate the look of "cards".  This works psychologically: much like you can recognize your wallet by opening it, you can recognize the CardSpace UI, and the cards in it.  This prevents phishing through familiarity, where anything missing (or anything additional) would alert the user that something is amiss.

There are two kinds of identity cards you can have in CardSpace: self-issued cards, or managed cards.  Self-issued cards are ones you create yourself.  These would take the place of the standard registration template.  Sites would request a card, and you can send them a self-issued card with only the fields you want sent (most self-issued cards can contain information like address, phone number, etc., but you wouldn't want to send that data to most places).  Voila, you're registered!  Future visits to that site would just authenticate using the same card.

Managed cards are a bit more complex.  These cards would be "issued" by an authoritative organization, such as a bank, a government, or a workplace.  These cards would contain additional information (such as employee ID, driver's license number, etc.), and can be used to log into those respective networks.  But these cards also have some other abilities.  Take, for example, a managed card issued by a financial institution, such as American Express.  When you go to purchase something, instead of filling out all that information, like every other time, you can send the site your American Express card.  This card would be signed with a special token, that would then be used to charge your actual card.  It would be a one-time use token, authenticated by you and American Express, so not only does the site you're buying from not get your credit card number (only a one-time use token), they can be absolutely sure that it belongs to the person sending it (unless their computer got compromised; but that's a different topic for another day).

I love this technology.  Best of all, it's available now, and it's available with every version of Windows after XP SP2.  The browser plugin only works in IE, but there's one available for FireFox.  There's even an implementation for Linux that's fully-functional.

So why don't people use this?

I'm guilty of not using it for my sites too.  I think it's because it's confusing for most people.  Most people have never even heard of CardSpace, let alone have used it.  I doubt most people even understand how the technology works.

I think that a major push in this area is required.  Rolling out this technology on sites all over the world will create that familiarity that people need in order to become comfortable with an identity system.  If the big sites start implementing it, the smaller sites will follow.  I have heard rumors that Windows Live is going to be using CardSpace soon, so that will definitely create a precedent for other sites to begin using the technology as well.  CardSpace is an ingenious solution in this world of "Web 2.0", where we need a system of federated identity.  It is absolutely critical that we move away from traditional authentication systems; they're old and fundamentally broken.

Does this story seem far-fetched?  According to Ray Kurzweil, leading inventor and futurist, it isn't.  In his video at the TED conference in 2005, he discusses how technology will transform us in the next couple of decades.  He postulates that by the mid 2020s, we will have mastered how the human brain functions, allowing us to create fully-immersive experiences, such as what I just described above.  While the example I described is clearly an exploration of its entertainment value, the applications of such a technology are well near limitless.  There would be no need to continue commuting to work, for example, when you can just enter a virtual office from home.  The possibilities are so exciting and amazing.

He also goes on to say that by the mid teens (circa 2015), we will have been able to almost perfect artificial intelligence (the date he gives for full turing-complete AI is in the early 2020s), which in and of itself will lead to some fascinating developments in assisting us in our needs.

If he's right in his predictions (he's been right before, which should say something about how accurate he is), I have to say that I will be excited for that day, and I will be lucky to live to see those kinds of developments.

These sort of technologies are not without some concern, however.  A fully-immersive world will no doubt change a lot of the ways we live in our less-than-perfect "real" world.  Large population centers would no longer be necessary, as most people wouldn't have to live near their jobs anymore.  Material things, such as nice clothes, cool gadgets, big houses, fast cars, and that sort of thing would become a thing of the past; you could have all you wanted in this "fake" world.

But is that better?

Escaping reality by drowning onesself in a fake world is not necessarily a solution to the problems one may have, or the problems society may have; however, if one looks at the sole purpose of "living", from a non-religious standpoint (and perhaps with a capitalist spin on it), one's sole purpose is to achieve wealth and live a life of doing whatever one wants.  You could have both of these in this world without any work whatsoever.

Artifical intelligence also brings a whole new aspect into this world, especially if it's turing-complete -- which is to say, a human being cannot tell if it is communicating with a machine or another human.  With a full range of emotions, needs and wants, etc., an AI would in essence "be a human".  This may be disconcerting to some (I think it's pretty darn cool), but it also poses the question of whether or not an AI deserves recognition as a sentient being.  Star Trek and other sci-fi shows explored the concept of recognizing AI rights, but it was largely a postulation of what it might be like.  I believe if Kurzweil is right about what the future holds for us, we'll actually see the beginnings of such a question (though, he predicts that it will only be in the latter part of this century where it actually becomes recognized -- i.e., robots achieve recognition as sentient beings).

What makes Kurzweil far more convincing than other futurists, is his use of scientific data in his calculations.  For example, he notes that his predictions on a paradigm shift in processor models happening in the mid to late teens is because of his analysis of Moore's law. He believes (and so do many others) that Moore's law will only hold up so long, because transistors can only get so small before they become so small you can't make them work anymore.  He believes that the paradigm will shift soon. 

"Moore's Law of Integrated Circuits was not the first, but the fifth paradigm to forecast accelerating price-performance ratios. Computing devices have been consistently multiplying in power (per unit of time) from the mechanical calculating devices used in the 1890 U.S. Census, to [Heath] Robinson" machine that cracked the Nazi code, to the CBS vacuum tube computer that predicted the election of Eisenhower, to the transistor-based machines used in the first space launches, to the integrated-circuit-based personal computer." (Source)

In other words, Kurzweil thinks that something will come to replace the integrated circuit in the next decade or so, based on the mathematical models he's observed.  In his presentation (linked above), he talks about a lot more things, too, but he doesn't make his predictions based on what he'd like them to be; he talks about models he's deduced from data, and all of the models he's analyzed seem to say that technology is exponentially becoming more and more advanced.  He's underlined this point by saying it took over half a century to fully adopt the telephone.  The cell phone was adopted to almost universal use over the course of ten years, and there are now more mobile phones in use worldwide than landlines (2.68bn vs. 1.27bn) (Source).

Whether or not these advances will come to pass, I believe the next thirty years will be very exciting indeed.  We will be exploring and achieving things that we never thought to be possible today, just like in the 50s, when people had no idea we would have what we have today.

Up until recently, I've been a Windows user, solely.  I avoided Linux like the plague (as a workstation operating system), because it still has a long way to go before I consider it anywhere close to acceptable.  My friend and business partner, Jeff Wilson, put himself on a trial -- set up Ubuntu Linux and embark on a 30 day no-Windows journey.  His criteria: get it up and running with all of his hardware (which isn't anything special; he had a standard on-board sound card, WiFi, LAN, and a SATA hard drive).  He also wanted to get WINE up and running so he could play World of Warcraft.

The end result?  Failure.  He ran into several snags, and it took him days to get it even "sort of" set up to the point where he could run World of Warcraft.  And he's not an idiot; he's a computer scientist with extensive experience with Unix operating systems, and a lot of programming experience.

First there were wireless problems, and then sound was a major snag; it just wouldn't start working.  Drivers here and there; this patchy solution and that patchy solution.  Finally he got it to work after a couple of days.

Slowly, WoW came online, and then there were problems with Ventrillo.

Ultimately, he gave up.  It was just too much trouble.  I don't see how Linux can be pushed as a consumer operating system when it doesn't just work.  Some setup, I suppose, is acceptable (though, not even Windows really requires any sort of setup to get working... just install and then run Windows Update), but almost a week of problem after problem?  No way.

Anyway, my bashing of Linux shall be saved for another day.  This article isn't about that.  NB: I respect Linux as a viable server OS, and I use it on some of my servers (though most of my servers run FreeBSD).  I encuraged him to write about his experiences, and he simply said, "It was an epic failure."

Though, he's assured me, he'll put something up.  At that point I'll write about my experiences as well, and why I feel that it's totally not ready for the mainstream.

If you asked me a year ago what my view on Apple and the Macintosh platform was, I would have told you, in no uncertain terms, why they were the epitome of evil.  It was a knee-jerk reaction, naturally, being a Microsoft supporter for the majority of my life, and not really using anything else as a day-to-day operating system.  It was wrong, and I see that now.

About a year ago, I was in need of a laptop.  I searched high and low, and none of them had what I wanted: compact form-factor, good battery life, and no hassle.  All I needed it for was word processing and basic internet usage, and I couldn't find anything that was exactly what I wanted.  So, my friend suggested to me a Mac laptop, and I scoffed at him at first, but he's been chipping away at me over the past year or so, saying how awesome Apple is and stuff like that... so I decided to try one at Fry's, just so I could tell him that I tried one and he'd get off my back.

My try with the laptop was pretty good, so I decided to take it for a test-drive.  I could always return it if I didn't like it.

Needless to say, I still have it.  It's a great product.  Shit just works, and I don't have to mess with this setting, or that setting, etc.  After years of using Windows, I realized why people like Macs.  Obviously, I could never give up my Windows, because while I think that Windows is inferior in many aspects, OS X has its own set of problems.  Not to mention, OS X doesn't support a lot of the games I like to play; additionally, it doesn't have Visual Studio, and regardless of how much I like Apple now, I can't give up my .Net platform.

My experience has been mostly positive.  I use my Mac when I'm away, or in class, or doing things which don't require my 17" monster Alienware laptop.  I use my desktop when I'm programming, or playing some Steam game, etc.

Not long afterward, I bought an iPhone, because it's just so cool.  I'm very happy with the phone, though there have been some quirks, like with any first generation product, but overall it's been a great experience.

But underneath all this Apple-love, there's something sinister.  Something with Apple isn't quite right.  They released their SDK for the iPhone (only after lots and lots of protesting from people, by the way), but there are lots of restrictions, causing some to criticize Apple's tactics.

A few issues are major problems in my eyes:

• Apple controls what applications are allowed to be installed via its AppStore, exclusively;
• Apple reserves the right to ban certain applications for being illegal, malicious, unforeseen, privacy concerns, pornography-related, or bandwidth hogs;
• Commercial applications must be sold via the AppStore, and Apple takes a 30% cut;
• Applications are not allowed to implement a plugin architecture;
• Applications may not be allowed to run as a background process;
• Battery-intensive or CPU intensive applications may not be allowed by Apple.

Apple puts themselves as the gatekeepers in what is allowed on the phone.  They reserve the right to say what can and cannot be allowed on the phone.  They automatically insert themselves as the middle-man in transactions.  They restrict background processes, which are sort of important to a lot of people.  I also have a problem figuring out with with what they mean by "unforeseen"...

Apple and Jobs want to "protect" people from bad experiences with software, hence their efforts to curtail what can and cannot be done.  Jobs didn't want to implement Flash for the iPhone because he believes Adobe has allowed Flash to become "too bloated".  Flash is an important aspect of the Internet, and as much as Jobs doesn't like Flash (don't get me wrong, I don't like it either...), he shouldn't be able to tell me what I can and cannot put on my phone.  It's just absolutely ridiculous.

I understand it's their product, but it's my phone.  When I buy a car, I can do whatever I want with it (within applicable laws), and the manufacturer can't do shit.  Why is Apple allowed all this power?  Their elitism is destroying what respect I have for them.

I was discussing this issue with my friend, who works for Apple, and he disagreed with me on any number of terms.  That doesn't surprise me, nor should it anyone else.  Most people who've grown up with Apple and started on Macs, and are big fans of the company, are perfectly fine with being told what's good and bad, and submitting themselves to the "protective shield" of Apple.  Much like a partisan can be blinded by his or her political party, willfully ignoring the weaknesses of his/her own party, or the strengths of the opposing party, Apple fans have allowed themselves to be blinded.

Discovering Apple, and using their products, has allowed me to see the problems I had in my blind love of Microsoft.  I realized that I was wrong in a lot of respects.  But, I'm not blinded by a love of Apple either, which means I am, finally, for the first time in my life, at the very center of the Mac/Windows religious wars.  I am finally afforded a glimpse into the the flaws and superiorities of both Windows and OS X.  I think this has given me a unique perspective on all these things: they all suck.  Okay, maybe that's not a unique perspective, but it's unique to me, because I think it allows me to make better decisions on what I think about things.

A major put-off when it comes to Apple in the eyes of the PC community is the company's elitism, and the snobiness and hypocracy of their followers.  That's a stereotype to be sure, but it's fuled by a lot of Apple users I've encountered over the years.  I admit that I wasn't too cordial to them either, but I can admit that I've made a mistake.  I don't think many of them can.

Their hypocracy stems from the fact that everyone complained, including Apple (both the company and their fans), that Microsoft bundling so much software with its system is anti-competitive: IE, FrontPage Express, Works for Windows, Windows Media Player, etc.  FrontPage Express was removed, and so was Works.  Windows Media Player is no longer available in Europe.  IE can now be uninstalled.  What about Apple, though?  Safari, iWeb, Pages, iTunes... and then of course iDVD, GarageBand, iPhoto and a slew of other applications.  Where's the outcry?  Nowhere.

It's okay if Apple does it, but God help you if you're Microsoft.

Using the excuse of "but Microsoft is bigger, and own more marketshare than Apple" is hypocritical.  I don't care if they do; you said it was wrong for MS to do it, so it's wrong for Apple to do it.  Period.  Not to mention, Apple causes more vendor lock-in than Microsoft does.  But that's okay too, because it's Apple.

I like Apple, and I want them to succeed.  I like Microsoft, and I want them to succeed.  I'm excited for the next generation iPhone, and I'm excited for Windows 7.

I don't like Apple's hypocracy though.  I don't like being told what I should and should not have on hardware I paid for.  I don't want to be "protected" by "Almighty Jobs".  I want my Flash, I want my Java, and I want free reign on a piece of hardware I spent almost $500 on.  This is not a lease; this piece of aluminum and plastic was not licensed to me.  It's not software, either.

I hope that the more users Apple picks up, many of them being PC people that are drawn in by amazing gadgets such as the iPhone, the more Apple will be forced to do the right thing.  There are a lot of Apple fans who think Apple can do-no-evil, but soon there will be a lot more "casual" Apple customers, and then perhaps Jobs' elitism, and his company's elitism, won't be so off-putting.

Otherwise, other companies are going to step up and begin innovating on the mobile platform.  Apple opened the door to other manufacturers finally being able to not be quite so controlled by the networks, and soon we'll see some amazing things out of places like Nokia, Sony, and Motorola.

If Apple doesn't stop soon, they'll lose the customer base they helped build.

Of course, if you talk to any Apple fan, they won't seem to have a problem with that.  "Apple's not about lots of customers.  We're not like PC users," one of them said to me.  "We know what's good, and we'll stick with Apple no matter what.  If you want something less than superior, you can go somewhere else.  Apple doesn't need those people anyway."

This past decade has been an exciting time to live.  I'm speaking strictly about technology, and about the advances we made in the past ten years.  Not everything is worth praising, but most of it is pretty noteworthy.

We saw what was originally a small network developed by ARPA flourish into the immense interconnection of computer systems known as the Internet, and how it has become a staple of the worldwide culture.

We saw the coming of the first of the 3D engines, and the debut of the titles that would define an entire generation of gamers: Half-Life, Quake, Counter-Strike, and Unreal Tournament, just to name a few.  In 1997, we barely had 3D cards, let alone an engine that could harness that sort of power.  Now, it's become second nature.  What do you think people in 1997 would have thought we would see in 2007?  In those days, it was news that Microsoft purchased $150 million in shares from Apple Computer, to save them from bankruptcy, and when the term weblog was coined by Jorn Barger.

We saw the coming of cellular phones, and devices that give us the Internet in the palm of our hand, wherever we may walk.  We saw the dawn of satellite TV, hybrid cars, the popularization of "broadband internet", Skype and other voice-over-IP technologies, high-definition video, proximity authentication technology, MP3s, and USB thumbdrives.  And let's not forget the iPod or the iPhone.

We saw many things, and will see many things.  Automation of every-day things is becoming more and more of an important thing.  We've already seen the beginnings of a complete transition to a cashless society (I use my check card all the time).  We've already seen the dawn of fiber internet in our own homes (a la Verizon FiOS).  We've already seen robots that can balance, and some others that can walk.  How far away are we from artifical intelligence, at least to the extent where robots can learn to do basic tasks, and also learn from their mistakes?  We're working on it.

I was driving away from a Best Buy the other day when I saw some kids walking to their mother's car; under their arm was an X-Box 360.  They couldn't have been older than nine or ten (and one of them was holding a cell phone), but it made me think -- they don't remember what it was like.  I lived through a time when cell phones were bricks, and the fastest computer around was an Apple II.  I remember doing logo-writer on an old Apple in 2nd grade.  I also remember when I got my first computer, and how happy I was -- it was a 486.  I got my first cell phone when I started driving -- sophomore year in high school.  I was 16, and it was 2002.  Now I have an iPhone, and I couldn't live without it.  What did people do before they could call people wherever they were?  I don't remember, for sure.

But those other kids never knew.

I don't envy the next generation's ignorance of what it was like in 1996, just as those who lived through the 1970s when there were barely calculators, let alone iPods, don't envy our ignorance of those days; but I do envy what they will get to see after I'm dead.

Our generation, those born in the 80s, up till the mid 90s, will be ones shepherding in the technology that will skyrocket when we're off watching the sun set over our lives.

What possibilities does the future hold?  3D holographic user interfaces?  Matrix-esque connections to a world-wide Internet?  Or maybe more like the stuff in Neuromancer (electrodes; nothing too invasive)?  Newspapers being sold on flexible sheets of plastic that are animated and searchable?  Buying stuff with a thumbprint read, a prox card, or a retinal scan?  Cars that run on fuel cells, that navigate based on sensors embedded into every inch of the road in large metropolitan areas, completely eliminating not only the need to actually drive, but the whole idea of traffic altogether?

I know I won't live to see a lot, if any, of that.  That's why I envy the next generation.  Those kids with the 360 walking to their car, and their kids, will be the ones who really know.

We're making advances in technology every year, so I hope I get to see some of the stuff that's slated for the future.  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I'll sit on my "old" Pentium D computer, typing away at my blog, with technology that will be obsolete in a few years, trying to keep up with change.  And when I'm old, white-bearded, and wise beyond my years, I can look back at 2007 the way I look back at 1996 now, and smile fondly.  I'll give a knowing wink to my grandchildren, and say with a chuckle, "those were the days".

I was very pleased to read that a few months ago (yeah, I'm a bit behind), the new Montreal division of Eidos will be producing the third installment of the award-winning FPS-RPG, Deus Ex.  If you've never played this exciting title, I highly suggest that you do.  The graphics engine is a bit dated, but I don't think you'll be disappointed... unless you don't like RPG-type games with a storyline.

Remember, though -- Deus Ex isn't an RPG per se; it's an FPS/RPG -- that is, it's a first-person shooter, RPG-style.  Thus, it has FPS gameplay elements, as well as environment interactivity, making it a hybrid. 

It's still one of the best storylines for a computer game that I've ever encountered.  The world has huge lore attached to it, and the developers left a nice big chunks of story in the off-the-wall newspapers, character dialog, and datacubes (what are basically equivalent to sticky-notes in the game) that you encounter throughout the world.

While its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was a bit of a disappointment, it wasn't a title that I wouldn't recommend at least playing once, even if you do you have to use less-than-ethical methods of obtaining it.  I won't link to that kind of stuff here, but you know what I mean.

While neither of the original authors of Deus Ex, Warren Spector and Harvey Smith, are involved, the teaser trailer, that was just recently released, gives an interesting glimpse into the world that will be DX:3.  As of a couple of days ago, the game just passed its proof of concept stage, which means it's now going into active development.  I hope to see something by this time next year.

Here's to another great game in the Deus Ex franchise.  This one, I hope, will be better than #2.  I have confidence, though, because the ambition of the new Eidos Montreal studio is inspiring.

So, I looked for alternatives.  Something good, not web-servicey, or easy-to-hax.  I looked at the old .Net remoting by way of RPC, but I figured that's probably not a good way of doing things.  RPC is pretty old, and has plenty of security issues to boot.  I finally stumbled upon the Windows Communication Foundation and the stuff you can do with it.  Neat!  I thought.  I've always been a fan of the way remoting does things -- calling a function on the client side and having it seamlessly do stuff on the server side -- but I've never been too keen on the way it operates.  WCF saves the day, though, because it has sessions and streams, and callbacks -- three things the traditional remoting model lacked.

But now there was only one problem.

There is no fucking documentation.  Sure, a search for WCF will yield results, but that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about useful pages, that don't just talk about using HTML and SOAP.  If I wanted HTML and SOAP implementations of WCF, I'd use a damned web service.  Okay, I get that they're not the same; my point is I don't want that.  I want a TCP connection; a stream that can be used to pass data back and forth.  Why does no one else want that?

Well finally, finally, I forraged through enough webspace to get a basic idea of using WCF through TCP/IP.  I'm currently writing an article on how to do it, and will post it over to Matt's new site (which I'll write about in length once it officially launches beta).  In the meantime, I'm just working, and it's slowly coming along.  There are some things I want to take a look at, in terms of WCF, like peer-to-peer TCP, that's implemented as well.  I'm afraid, though; it took me this long to find stuff out about regular TCP WCF... I fear what may come if I navigate away to the land of peer-to-peer... though, it is tempting.  It's nothing short of awesome, what's been implemented.

I will be releasing the multi-threaded sockets implementation.  Watch the "Projects" link on the right if you want it.  I have to clean some of the code up, though, because it bears a striking similarity to this fine piece of code:

Jeff always makes fun of me for my underscores.