Digital Wave with Dan Damon

Podcast Conversion

I don't think I'm breaking a confidence when I say that we on World Update have been told to wait before podcasting.

The BBC is carrying out pilot studies in what kinds of programmes in which form should be turned into podcasts.

I'm still pushing: World Update is aimed in part specifically at the US audience - who have the best access in the world to broadband Internet, which makes podcasting work efficiently.

I was given extra drive by a conversation I had with a teenage friend over the weekend.

He listens to a lot of radio, he told me. But he hardly ever uses a radio to do it.

He's signed up to several podcast from his favourite radio stations. And his favourite radio stations are doing 'best of' podcasts.

He's not  listening to music. He's listening to news and talk shows.

On podcasts, he tells me, he gets much better value for the time he spends listening.

As the technology gets more sophisticated and helps him make even better selections, I'd guess he's not going to be a radio listener in the traditional sense.

Radio on demand is his vision of the future.

Schedulers beware.

Pocket TV

How much power do you want in your pocket?

We spoke on the programme to Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm Inc, the company that can claim to have made pocket computing into a user friendly experience with its early Palm Pilot.

Their latest big project is the Treo, a phone that can play music and surf the web and keep your diary. And a lot of other things, depending on what you download to it.

The Treo has been around a while, but Palm are putting more effort into it. They think it can be huge. But tiny, if you catch my drift.

Ed's vision, he said, is a device that can provide TV, radio, music, plus take video and still pictures as well as handle the usual PIM (personal information manager) functions like diary, contact list and tasks.

I'm sure he'll get there. Palm has just done deals with Microsoft and RIm, the makers of the Blackberry, so that Palm devices will be compatible with those from the other companies.

That could grow the market for every company involved in mobile computing.

The next generation of these devices will have wifi connections too.

I guess, if you have the right subscriptions, every time you walk past a wifi hotspot you'll get an update on the content you request.

One possibility: you won't need a radio to listen to radio, you'll get live or 'as live' version of the programmes you like to listen to on your smartphone.

In time, the same thing could happen to TV and movies.

And if you don't want to watch or listen on a hand sized machine, you'll just get home, pop the phone in a cradle that links into your home entertainment system, and all the stuff you've chosen during the day will be available.

Life on demand.

But what horror if you lose it!

Everything you know, like, have recorded and checked on the Internet could be gone, for someone to hack into, or just sell in the pub.

They're going to have to develop a function that enables the phone to ring you and tell you where it is.

Bluetoothless

Now you know I LOVE those shiny boxes and tiny gadgets with blinking lights.

But sometimes it's obvious that inventors of new technologies are far ahead of the rest of us.

Even Thomas Edison had his failures - heard of his cement piano? That really was one of his ideas, but needless to say it didn't take off. Maybe no one could lift the lid.

It feels to me that Bluetooth might be that kind of technology. It's not new and it can do a lot of things.

But people don't really seem to need those things yet.

Even a man who makes Bluetooth enabled sunglasses linked to his mobile phone admits he gets stopped at airports because security guards think he looks 'plain weird'.

And those who buy and use those little earpieces that mean they can talk into mobiles without holding them admit they are often in social difficulties.

Maybe one day the tiny size and universality of Bluetooth will mean it is so integrated with our lives that we won't even know it's there.

But for now, it still feels like a technology looking for a home.

There are billboard adverts in London using Bluetooth to send video clips from new TV programmes to mobile phones. We'll have to wait for research to tell us how much take up there is.

But that strengthens the point, I think.

"What can we do with it?" is not a great start for a development project, however pretty it is.

PrivateWire

Like a sea tide, visions of the relationship between humans and computers come and go.

Will we all be tied together in one vast, chaotic web?

Or will we choose our network, as we choose our phone service provider?

News from Australia this week that their equivalent of National Geographic has seen enormous benefits from developing its own network linking its shop branches with offices and warehouses adds support to the latter view - the mess and risks on the global Internet will limit its development.

Of course there are many advantages in having access to the world. But perhaps people will be willing live without that universal access in return for greater efficiency and safety.

And there will be software that constantly monitors the open web to bring in relevant information anyway.

To create a richer, faster network that links computers, TV, music machines and mobile phones, we might buy into closed networks.

That's the principle behind the iPod - special content for a special machine.

Dave Winer, the inventor behind RSS feeds, thinks the iPod boom has a limited life span.

But he also says that to get music downloading developed, the closed system is necessary for a time.

That may be a model for the whole digital networking phenomenon too.

Technological Disaster

The first rescues from the rubble of the earthquake disaster zone in Kashmir, Pakistan and India have come, as they always do, by people pulling away slabs and dust with their bare hands.

But after that, in a world of rapid communications, things should be improved by new technologies.

Global positioning systems (GPS) enable rescue teams to locate points of greatest need and deploy supplies in the most efficient manner.

Instantly constructed local wifi broadband networks can link the different charities and relief agencies so that they are not duplicating their efforts.

These networks can be tied via satellite into the Internet, enabling still greater efficiency and faster political decisions so that supplies are not left waiting in customs or sent to the wrong place.

Robots and detection equipment can analyse rubble for signs of life.

Even the latest so-called 'intermediate development technology', low emission renewable energy systems can help.

Photovoltaic cells and wind turbines can provide power far from power lines. Insulation developed in research projects in the developing world can preserve heat in colder, poorer places.

Looking ahead, some earth scientists are confident they will have earthquake detection equipment and models capable of giving some warning of impending shocks within fifteen years.

All of this and more is possible. We'll see if the will is there to turn this technology of the rich to the benefit of the poor.

We'll puruse this theme over the coming days. If you have worked on such technologies, please send us your links and information.

Learning Grid

Welcome to the parallel world of the World Update tech blog.

There are so many new ideas each day using digital technology to link our lives together I wanted to create a place to share our reactions.

Today, I want to mention something I learned this week at my seven-year-old twins' school.

At the governors' meeting (you have to play your part, you know) I learned about the stunning things they are learning to do with ICT - so much more than playing maths games on computers.

This is an inner city taxpayer funded elementary school. It is not receiving support from a computer multinational nor a billionaire's foundation charity.

Yet, in year 3 - in other words at the ages of 7 and 8 - they have learned to shoot and edit video. I know that because I've seen them doing it.

They find their way easily round complex drop down menus. They move the mouse like studio professionals.

I once purchased a video editing system that wasn't quite as clever. It cost $50,000. These children are working on standard school computers and getting better results.

So what will they do when they grow up? I'm looking forward to finding out what the world is like when everyone can edit and send their thoughts in moving pictures.

The worrying cloud on the bright horizon, for a parent anyway, is the prospect that at an early age they are already open to the dangerous side of the digital world. They are clever enough to find their way onto the Internet without me knowing.

The school's answer is to link up with other London schools in the London Grid for Learning. This is a fully filtered and firewalled network for schools, accessible by parents and children at home.

It seems to me that the Grid is big enough to give them most of what they could want, for fun and learning.

Parents could set their computers to go only to the London Grid for Learning and still not be denying their children the chance to take advantage of the digital age.

And that could be the way the Internet will go, perhaps fracturing into 'grids'.

Cleverly designed, closed networks might be big enough and exciting enough to attract enough visitors to make them even commercially viable. Page ads will rise in price on grids that link users of a certain type. Advertisers want not just cost-per-thousand but genuinely relevant links.

The world wide web will remain open and edgy, of course.

But over time, we could also find the full web being visited by fewer people

And transforming into a carrier system instead, for phone calls, video and audio entertainment, and specialised grids owned by commercial companies, governments and non-profit organisations, like education providers.