We all need some way to calculate just how good a person is. No matter what that person is doing for us. This is a basic, intuitive process, for humans.

Today most people seem to judge themselves and others based on intelligence. This illusive concept that means something like powers of the mind. But because we can be so different as individuals we’ve started to divide this concept of intelligence into slimmer and slimmer shards, or different kinds of intelligence. There’s social intelligence, emotional intelligence, mathematical intelligence and so on and so on…

This seems really strange to me. When intelligence becomes categorized by what we’re using it for… isn’t that competence? Sure it is.

So what we really need to be looking at is what kinds of competence a person has. But then, some of you might ask “what about what the individuals really know. Like facts and processes and such”. Well this is a fair and good question. But maybe just a few years old…

With Google and the always online society, why would we ever need to remember individual facts perfectly? We can just collect them when needed. One of my favorite authors calls this extelligence. Facts, information and knowledge stored in other people.

What we really need, in all situations, is not intelligence. It’s the right kind of competence and extelligence.

Från och med den första december 2009 är Sverige en övervakad nation – det är då som FRA får tillgång till en stor del av vår Internet- och mobiltrafik.

Detta kommer att få ett antal konsekvenser. De mest påtagliga är att flera grundläggande rättigheter i praktiken kommer att sättas ur spel. En självklarhet som brevhemligheten kommer efter den första december 2009 inte att existera på Internet. Även andra grundlagsskyddade rättigheter som källskyddet är starkt hotat. Många organisationer har skarpt protesterat mot FRA-lagen, däribland Journalistförbundet och Advokatsamfundet. En majoritet av det svenska folket är emot FRAs avlyssning.

Flera juridiska experter uttrycker dessutom stor tveksamhet till om FRA-lagen är förenlig med Europakonventionen, dvs. den europeiska konventionen angående skydd för de mänskliga rättigheterna. Sverige har förbundit sig att följa den konventionen och rimligtvis bör lagen alltså prövas i Europeiska domstolen för de mänskliga rättigheterna. Telia ansvarar idag för en majoritet av den trafik som FRA kommer att vilja avlyssna. Därför uppmanar vi Telia: ta FRA-lagen till domstol.

What is the next step for web? Where will we be in 3 to 5 years time? What will the new web look like? Let me share a theory with you.

The semantic web is often talked about as the next big shift online. Information marked in smarter ways so things will be infinitely easier to search for. Will the next step for web be the semantic web? Probably not since there is no real technical platform for this. Nothing that has been widely accepted by developers at least. And in web that is really what matters.

No instead we’re already seeing the next step in web but only through the corner of our eye.

The next step in web will be the Aggregated web. Yes, that simple. While we are seeing more and more sites that aggregate feeds about the site or news about the common topic on the site these are really only precursors for the aggregated web. As mobile devices improve and more and more services offer APIs we’ll see a shift from surfing the web to using services and information in real-time in the real world. A huge leap in integration between the real world and the web. In fact, we’re already seeing this trend with the iPhone and stream of Android phones on the market.

Information is simple to find through search today. As more and more services offer open APIs to support different interfaces and devices we’ll see a trend for information to become less tied to design also. Eventually most services and information on the web will be data streams with replaceable layers of interfaces.

So finding information about a topic on your cellphone, tv or laptop will be equally simple and fast. But the visual display of that information will probably differ, both in complexity and according to the users taste.

This will eventually spawn the trend for interesting interfaces aggregating the information you’re looking for, real-time or otherwise, wherever you are. This is why I think the next step for web is the Aggregated web. Services are already popping up in a wide variety of styles and devices, just look at Twitter. When enough interesting services, and enough interesting information, has migrated to this sort of technology the interfaces on the web today will just not matter.

To finish with a situated example; your pen might feed information regarding grammar as you write while your fridge might aggregate special offers from stores near you. Sound like a poor 1950′s vision of the future? Wait, I just got an offer from my local store via Twitter on my iPhone. All these devices really need is upgrade to Android and these examples can be used today.

Welcome to the aggregated web, you heard it here first.

One of the reasons Hollywood is putting up such a fight against piracy is that Bittorrent has become the main delivery of video content in the world (excepting Youtube which Hollywood does not consider a threat, yet.).

But recently things have started happening. iTunes launched it’s video store a couple of years ago and while it is only available in the US so far it is delivering a lot of content. Hulu, Voddler and Netflicks are also showing the market another way to make a profit. The list goes on and on as new companies try to change the way the market works.

While I find this to be a great development I’m a bit sad that companies need to out compete the old system just to deliver content in a way that pirates have been doing for over ten years. But I guess change is, as ever, ver hard for Hollywood.

Until one of these services can offer a large amount of content for sensible amounts of money in Europe however, I think I’ll stick to my newest find HDMT. A great international streaming service for new movies and TV shows, all in HD.

After a short debate with @miakolmodin about the difficulties of building a portfolio when what you do is design interaction we stumbled upon an interesting flaw in the design process.

User Experience has no language. Now this might sound a bit redundant but all development needs language to convey principles and models that are often used. Why, for example, are we still trying to convince people that simplicity in interfaces is a good thing?
We should have a word for this model of design that literally means “grade of simplicity in the interaction, with overtones of how good it is”. Just to speed up the process.

So I figured I’d give it a go shortly. Thanks Mia for a great idea!