Mozilla Aurora: The Browser for the Next Web?

What will the Web look like in ten years? Will we still be using something similar to current web browsers or will there be a radically new interface for the web? And will we even be using something like a PC or will all access be through mobile devices and dedicated appliances?

These and other questions are what Mozilla Labs is hoping to answer with their Concept Series, which is dedicated towards discussing and preparing for the future web. And one of the first and most interesting projects from the Concept Series is Aurora, a fully thought out idea of a browser in 2018.

Aurora is the brainchild of Adaptive Path, a design and consulting firm. Aurora doesn't exist as a real application, it is simply a set of ideas and graphical mockups. But it does point to a possible new direction for web browsers.

This Week In Emerging Technology - July 30th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of July 28th.

Lasers get in the Groove - Researchers at Harvard and Hamamatsu Photonics are working on a new technique to focus lasers using etched grooves rather than large and bulky lenses. If it works it could revolutionize the use of lasers in a whole host of fields.

A $10 Laptop from India - An institue in India says that they are working on a education laptop that they hope to be able to provide for $10. Not sure how that will be possible for anything but a toy but we'll see.

What will be our next display options? - Nice little roundup of Boston area companies working on next generation displays, everything from e-paper to display glasses.

Driving with Clippy - Microsoft is announcing a new focus on providing computing resources for automobiles. Intriguing possibilities though jokes about Blue Screens of Death on the highway are inevitable.

This Week In Emerging Technology - July 24th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of July 21st.

Put the CPU in the Fridge - An interesting project at Purdue University where researchers are working on a terchnique to use micro components to refrigerate PC processors.

Highly Predictive Security - The folks over at SANS and SRI will be presenting a service that uses detailed analysis methodologies and DShield to improve network blacklisting techniques.

Your Next Gadget CPU - Intel is talking about their next line of system on a chip processors which are destined for the next generation of gadgets.

The Future Rosie the Robot - A French company is offering a humanoid robot at a comparatively low price. Though still very high for essentially a toy.

Video: Discussing the Challenges of the Internet

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At the Berkman@10 conference at Harvard, I had a chance to speak to some of the many attendees and speakers at the conference about the challenges facing the internet today and in the near future.

Phillip Hallam-Baker, author of the dotCrime Manifesto, says stability is the missing ingredient in the Internet in the fight against Internet crime; Kathy Higgins, Educational Technologies, Dept. of Education, N.H., sees a shift to more use of social networking and community voices gaining traction; and Dr. Jim Morris if Carnegie Mellon University comments on the battlegrounds forming for the soul of the Internet.

Click here to see the video of these interviews at Berman@10 about the fate of the Internet.

Video: The Future of the Berkman Center and the Internet

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At last week's Berkman@10 conference I had the chance to sit down with John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

In this interview we spoke about the conference itself, some of the changes happening now at the Berkman Center, and about the future of the Center and the Internet.

Click here to watch my video interview with John Palfrey.

And while I had the chance to do some interviews at the Berkman@10 event, I also had the tables (or camera) turned on me and was the subject (along with many other attendees) of a video interview.

Click here to see my response to the question, what is the future of the Internet?

Live from Berkman@10: Politics, Innovation and the Internet

Just starting to wrap up day one here at the Berkman@10 Conference. The second session of the day was hosted by center Executive Director John Palfrey and focused on politics and the Internet.

John brought in lots of the distinguished members of the audience to talk about the effect of the blogosphere on politics and elections and the efforts to censor the Internet in many parts of the world. One interesting site mentioned was opennet.net, which tracks censorship of the Internet around the world.

This was followed by a session that included Berkman professor Yochai Benkler and Jimmy Wales, of Wikipedia and Wikia.

The focus of this session was cooperation, specifically focused on issues such as crowdsourcing and community-built resources, with Wikipedia being the prime example.

Live from Berkman@10: The Future of the Internet

Here I am live at the Berkman@10 conference at Harvard, an event that celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and also is looking at some of the key issues facing the Internet today.

Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Center, just finished a talk on the future of the Internet. Not surprisingly, the talk was based mainly on his book, titled (surprise, surprise) "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It."

The main arguments that he is making is that demands for security and reliability on the Internet will lead to a lockdown of systems and Internet access that will result in an Internet very different from the one we have now, one lacking the freedom and transparency of today's Internet and also one that would be much less of an engine for innovation (especially for individuals).

Berkman Center for Internet & Society Turns 10

The Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary. What, you don't know about the Berkman Center?

Well, if you don't know about the Berkman Center itself you almost certainly know about some of the major technology initiatives that have sprung from the center, such as Creative Commons and Chilling Effects. And there's also a good chance that you know of some of their noted alumni and current staff, including Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain.

I recently had a chance to speak with John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center, law professor at the Harvard Law School and himself a noted cyber law expert (Palfrey is currently finishing up a book on digital natives or what is also called the millennial generation).

We had a chance to speak about some of the past accomplishments of the Center and also look forward to what they think the key issues of the Internet will be in the next ten years.

Emerging Technologies Bring Promise and Danger

Click to see the slide show

When you cover and analyze emerging technologies, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement and the promise of these new technologies. And it's even easier to look at these technologies only from a positive angle.

And what's not to like? After all, most emerging technologies were designed from the ground up to bring about positive ends. Their creators want to improve people's lives, boost productivity, cure disease, provide security and bring about new waves of technology where anything is possible.

But almost any new technology that has a positive side also has a negative and more dangerous side. Technologies that can cure disease can also cause disease. Products that provide convenience imperil safety and privacy. Tools that ensure security also help secure criminals from law enforcement.

Such is the nature of innovation. But some new technologies are more dangerous than others. With that in mind, here is my list of the 10 most dangerous new technologies either available today or being worked on for the near future. Please comment below and let me know what technologies would make your list.

And, oh yeah, I decided to limit this list specifically to computing technologies, so that's why there aren't any biotech or genetics entries.

This Week In Emerging Technology - February 13th

Here are the emerging technologies stories for the week of February 11th.

More Android Sightings - At the World Mobile Congress in one of my favorite cities, Barcelona, there have been several interesting demos of the Google-based Android mobile operating system.

Speeding up Secure Connections - Interesting white paper on research into improving the performance of SSH and SCP connections.

Integrating Identity Management - Expect to see more integration between products in the Identity Access Management market.

The Holy Grail of Nanotech - Researchers at the Brookhaven National Lab have created a three dimensional nanoparticle, a key step in the advancement of nanotechnologies.

More Terabytes Please - IBM is announcing plans to deliver terabyte drives for their data center systems.

Canon Keeps an Eye on Watermarking - Canon has filed for a patent on a technology that takes an image of the photographers retina when taking a picture and then using this image as an embedded watermark to help protect photograph copyrights.