Actually Emerging

Leonard asked if there is any emerging technology at ETech.

Mike Chambers Apollo talk was surprisingly compelling. He said all the right things about HTML/Ajax as part of the core stack with access to native API, collaboration with the community, openness, development methodology (fired up Text Wrangler, and whipped up an example using the free command line compiler).

Given my total failure to get excited and effective with XUL, this is intriguing me. And it’s emerging. (though the keynote on Apollo was significantly less compelling, companies send your geeks to talk! and cut it out with the lame “women as non-technie” examples)

Marc and Brad’s talk on “Super Ninja Privacy Techniques” was on one-way hashes which is ancient (in computer terms), but the privacy wall techniques they’re both implementing and educating around are beautifully simple, and pressingly important as we move more of our lives into not only online tools, but social tools, niche tools, a plurality of tools. (and frankly tools built by our friends to manage our most private data)

Matt Webb makes you yearn for a better future to emerge. Don’t miss his talks if you have a chance, ever. Hilights: lost luggage charms, aggregators for your decisions – (RSSi), cameras as widget platform.

And in the halls both Tony’s and Matt’s new apps are not emerging tech per se, but comforting testaments that perhaps we, as a community, are finally starting to get good at building social software, and that the future for those small, social, niche, plurality of tools b