I want to get excited for IE8. Really, I do.

But now that I’m on a Mac, it’s of no use to me. But of course, we need to familiarize ourselves with it completely, because it will eventually be the browser with the largest market share because it’s Microsoft.

I just think that if the launch of the Internet Explorer 8 Beta were such a big deal for Microsoft, they’d notice the big, glaring typo on their website for it.

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MIT’s Technology Review just published it’s list of 10 Emerging Technologies for 2008. The one piece that resonated with me is Sandy Pentland’s exploration into Reality Mining especially in relation to social networking, new media and interactive.

Reality mining “is all about paying attention to patterns in life and using that information to help [with] things like setting privacy patterns, sharing things with people, notifying people–basically, to help you live your life.”

This becomes a hot topic for a few reasons. First and foremost is, once again, privacy issues. Data capture is part of our daily lives – credit card usage, cookies on sites, social network profiles, company swipe cards – and as technology continues to slowly infiltrate more of our lives, we become more tolerant and accepting of what information is divulged and distributed. Everyone has see the movies with the FBI trying to trace the criminals phone call with the criminal hanging up just before being caught. However, most people don’t think about that even with mobile phones being on all the time A simple Google search on his/her name would surprise a lot of people.

Reality Mining has been a reality for years. And as mobile phones become more prevalent with WI-FI, Bluetooth and GPS-type systems (ala iPhone,) in addition to the laptops we carry around and use, the continual social network is our daily life. And as mobile technology advances, our blip on the grid becomes more prominent. The Human Cyborg ideal continues to press forward. Professor Kevin Warwick first started research into this in 1998 by planting microchips in his arm for recognition of systems in his lab.

The major benefit of Reality Mining is from an anthropological standpoint. How people interact, where they are and when they are. Tying this information into disease outbreaks, advertising models (when a person sees an ad, what do they do right afterwards?) and general healthcare and “human maintenance.” Smartex in Italy is working on clothing that does just that.

It’s a bit of the God factor (being omnipotent and omniscient) that is also fascinating. Knowing where your friends are at any time, knowing what they’re doing, where to get the food your phone knows your craving. It’s bringing the idea of Facebook, Google Maps, Dodgeball and other sites into the physical space. The ultimate social network. Maybe even a step closer to SkyNet.

Real-time in real-time. Very meta.

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Anyone else having a similar experience when they visit AdFreak using Firefox 2.0.0.4?

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Problem solved with this nifty plugin. By Microsoft of all people.

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Big news today. According to their official blog (via TechCrunch), Mozilla will be integrating social networking functionality (called “The Coop”) into an upcoming version of Firefox.

In a nutshell, Firefox users will be able to share content on the pages that they are browsing with others in their network. They will also have access to content that those in their network opt to be made available.

I’ve often talked about the need for content to be made portable. This will put the power of portable, shareable content into the hands of about 15% of all people browsing the interwebs.

Note the example site is YTMND.com. I’ve seen lots of time-wasters from them lately. Familiarize yourself with them, as well.

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