I watched the launch presentation of the new Windows Vista yesterday. Mostly I was bored by what they had to offer, but one thing stood out.

Parental controls.

To many parents this seems like a great idea (a reason to buy) but I’m a little concerned.

When the Internet was first starting to become popular, I was in my mid-teens. Just the kind of period where the lure of pornography is rather strong. I didn’t have a computer in my bedroom, so that provided its own controls. If I wanted to look at pornography I had to go on late at night when everyone else was in bed, or wait until I had the house to myself. Then I’d make sure there was time to delete my Internet history and temporary files. I was careful, not because I wasn’t allowed to look at this stuff, but because I would have been embarrassed if my parents found out.

Of course, I’m pretty sure they knew. But they respected my privacy, and I don’t think they minded that I looked at a few dirty pictures.

I know of other parents who searched their kid’s rooms, read their diaries and looked through their bags. No trust, whatsoever. And the kids felt it and responded by being less trustworthy.

I never smoked, took drugs or committed any petty crimes. I honoured the trust I had too much. Guess which kids had drug problems.

Now Windows Vista allows you to spy on your kids with greater ease. It can restrict the time they can use the computer, it can restrict the software they can open, but most worryingly it can log the sites that the kids access so that parents can see exactly what they’ve been looking at.

It’s become far too easy to not trust your kids. It’s too easy to turn a microchip into the parent. Welcome to the world of 1984 : Home Edition.

This is one of those technologies that makes life easier short-term, but creates weakness over time. It hinders, for example, the ability to develop qualities such as self-discipline and respect for authority.

There are crazy restrictions in the workplace too. That mentality of let’s not trust our employees to send personal emails or check out entertaining websites, because it could stop them doing their work. Suddenly, they can’t look at a website or catch up on their personal email, during a lunch break. And yet, they always got the work done before.

I was listening to a radio broadcast a few weeks ago. A listener phoned in and they began talking about his band. The presenter wanted to check out their MySpace page to see what the music was like and possibly play a little on air. Unfortunately that site was restricted by the stations IT department.

When I was at university (I was about 19), my friend and I were walking towards the entrance of the local Toys “R” Us store. The security guard stopped us at the door and told us we had to drop off our bags at the enquiry desk if we wanted to look around. We did as asked, but I felt really bad about it. I was surprised to find myself completely mistrusting the store, and was annoyed that I’d done as I was told and left my bag with a stranger. I decided never to go in that store again.

Of course, there was the possibility that I was a shoplifter. But we cannot look at everyone as a potential criminal. I deserved to be trusted until I broke that trust. At which time the law would (or should) take over.

I’m not saying Vista should not have parental controls, but it needs to be made clear that this is a punishment for breaching a parent’s trust. It needs to be made clear that this will have negative consequences if kids can’t earn that trust back.

Management based applications need to take such trust issues into account. If technology is going to be part of our people management strategy, it has to take that role much more seriously.

I have a keen interest in autism. Partly because I connect with it on a very personal level, but also because it is a communication issue.

Today, I came across an example of two communication technologies being used extremely effectively. A combination of a YouTube video and a blog. It’s not an unusual combination, but the juxtaposition of the two in this scenario is particularly noteworthy:

There’s a myth that you can tell a lot about an autistic person by looking at them. I’ve been trying to break down that myth by juxtaposing my appearance with my writing.

It is a provocative combination. The beauty of writing in this case is that it can be totally divided from appearance. It’s a direct look into a mind and even if you have already seen the video, it’s still easy enough to separate the two in your mind; but not so much that you would miss the message.

This is the kind of thing you can say:

That would be ten years of doing incomprehensible things, for reasons I could not understand, with a vague fear that something awful would happen if I stopped, and being continually bombarded with more information than I could understand or handle. This is not to say there were not good things going on in this time period, but outside of specific incidents, I mostly remember a blur of shapes and sounds and words and pain. (Severe physical pain, which went untreated for more like 20 years.)

And through video:

Her blog is here.

Seth Godin has written an excellent piece on what he calls web4. It’s particularly excellent because it describes exactly the kind of thing I’m starting work on now. This is the best part:

LinkedIn tends to make networks that are sprawling and weak. Web4 is about smaller, far more intense connections with trusted colleagues and their activities. It’s a tribe.

Exactly. Digg is next to useless for my use, because it is too big and full of people I don’t trust. It’s not that they are necessarily untrustworthy, I just don’t trust that they know what to recommend to me.

If Seth Godin says he has read a great new book on marketing, I’d be sure to take notice. If he recommends a good book on painting, I’d probably ignore him.

My article on ‘Socialising the eBooks‘ gives an example of how this could work for one example.

Seth’s article is here

I’m a big fan of Apple Inc.

Which is perhaps a strange thing to say when you consider I don’t own or currently use any Apple products! In fact, only yesterday, I removed iTunes from my computer.

You see, for me, Apple products don’t quite cut it. They are very showy and exciting, and generally nicely designed, but they don’t always get the details right.

But they are a revolutionary company. Guy Kawasaki would say they are curve jumpers.

And Steve Jobs — CEO of Apple Inc. — says in this year’s keynote speech from Macworld…

Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything [...] In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple; it changed the whole computer industry. In 2001, we introduced the first iPod and it didn’t just change the way we all listen to music; it changed the entire music industry.

(26:30)

It’s a bold statement; but it’s also kinda true. Only kinda, because these things were happening anyway. Apple just speeded things up a bit.

What Apple does well, is creating a product good enough that people want to buy it, and want to use it. They make products user-friendly for more people, they cover it in good and sexy design, and they do great PR. Their products are often not the best when it comes to functionality, but they do make those leaps. Oh, and they are big enough to partner with large and powerful companies like Disney and now Cingular; that really helps.

Whether you like to use the product or not, you’ve got to love Apple for injecting the consumer technology industry with a strong dose of innovation. They drive industries forward. They wake industries up.

I personally don’t like the copy protection in iTunes, but I love that iTunes exists and has made downloadable music mainstream and is leading the way for TV on demand. It’s turning a dream into reality. And although I don’t like the DRM protection, I understand its importance in getting media companies on board. It’s not perfect, but it’s heading a long way in the right direction.

So, in this 2007 Macworld keynote speech, Steve Jobs proclaimed that they are going to do it again:

Today, we’re introducing 3 revolutionary products of this [Macintosh and iTunes] class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary new mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device.

(27:38)

Actually it was a bit of a white lie when he said 3 revolutionary products, since he was announcing just the one. The iPhone. One product containing a phone, an iPod and the ability to use the Internet.

I won’t go into the specific details. I don’t know enough about technology to comment on the features or anything. Is this really their best iPod? Is it really a revolutionary phone? Does it really do the Internet better than any other mobile device? I don’t really know. I guess it probably does. It looks like it does, but Steve Jobs is very good at giving a presentation so I’ll save judgement for now.

But the real exciting thing is that this is a device that combines the most commercially successful music player with a good phone and the ability to use the Internet. One device. That’s important. It means people are much more likely to carry all of them around with them — all of the time.

I think this may be the pocket computer coming of age.

It is certainly a step closer.

The thing is, a portable device like this is never going to take over the computer. It’s much more difficult to type on a little device than it is to type on a full-size keyboard. And who wants to squint at a tiny screen all day?

But what if you could plug a computer monitor and keyboard easily into the iPhone? What if you could easily dock it?

• You dock it in your home.
• You dock into your High Definition television
• You dock it at your office
• You dock it to the screen in the plane
• To the hotel room screen
• To the screen at college.
• You dock it at Starbucks
• In the library.
• On the train
• In your car
• To your Sony Reader
• To your projector

It means you won’t have to worry about carrying a laptop around with you everywhere, because all these places will provide a screen and keyboard for you.

But vitally, if you can’t find anything to dock it into, you can still use it fully.

I’m not sure just how functional this will be. It certainly hasn’t got the specs of a desktop or laptop PC. But it’s not ‘too shabby’ either. It’s certainly powerful enough to do your basic word processing or read your RSS feeds on. I’m not sure if these things are supported, but there is no reason for them not to be. It obviously isn’t powerful enough yet to be your main PC, but we are getting there and if it syncs well it will be incredibly useful.

I know for sure that I will be annoyed by the limitations of this device. I basically want a full and powerful computer I can put in my pocket. I want a system that automatically works slightly differently depending on if it is docked or not. I want software companies to be able to easily plug in support for use on a portable device like this, but keep it as just one install. Just how much will the iPhone be able to do? There are so many questions, but since Mike Cane is busy asking them already I’ll just make one more point…

Even if it doesn’t do all I want it to do, I’m pretty darn sure this will be good enough to be a truly useful tool. It will truly be a great communication device. But most of all, it will show consumers and the industry that small computers with tiny screens and keypads can work really, really well.

It’s Apple’s wake-up call.

Although we are increasingly living in a visual age, the majority of our visual expertise is stuck in the realms of entertainment and marketing. There are signs that this is changing, however. The example below, shows a good use of photography to answer a question…

…what does 200 calories look like?

It’s a little unfortunate that one reaches a dead-end once they’ve seen the pictures. Maybe a link to this nutritional data on peanut butter would have been a nice addition.

But, still, it’s a wonderful way of answering the question in a clear and memorable manner.

Take a look at the full answer here.