Aspherical Boundaries

Like most Internet users, I am plagued by the Multiple Sign On problem. I’ve got a username/password pair for GMail, Facebook, eBay, PayPal, my blog, my Coppermine gallery etc, etc. Trying to manage all these is always a bit of a handful, especially for those I don’t use often. Most sites makes it a bit easier nowadays by using an email address as your user name, but it is still a bit of a pain in the ass.

Most of the big names on the Internet has been trying to unify the logins for their services for the past while, as long as you stick to one brand, it works. For example, a Google Account covers you for GMail, Google Docs, Picasa, Blogger, Youtube and many others. Similarly, your Microsoft Live account covers you for MSDN, SkyDrive, XBox Live! etc. etc.

Howevery, you are still tied to one company for each login.

It was a pleasant surprise when I came upon Stackoverflow a while back. It is a batch of new websites using the OpenID system for logging in.

OpenID has been around for a while now. It is, unsurprisingly, an open standard for various sites to supply your login information, and thus online identity to each other, done with your consent of course. This means that once you are logged into site A, instead of logging into sites B, C and D, you can simply ask them to check with site A with regards to your identity. This is definately a move in the right direction toward the Single Sign On.

A side effect of more wide spread Single Sign On would be that it discourages internet anononimity. If people are using the same identity on multiple sites, they are more invested in that identity. This may be a good thing or a bad thing. However, I do think this will close the gap between acceptable behaviour in real life and online. That means less trolling and better YouTube comments! (Ok, I can dream).

In fact, a surprising number of sites already offer OpenID, including AOL, Microsoft, MySpace, Yahoo and most recently, Google. Chances are, you already have one OpenID… or five. In fact, this poses a problem as most of the big names are happy to supply you with an OpenID, but does not want to accept it, or be the “Relying party” as the lingo goes. This means you are still sitting with a handful (instead of a bucketful) of accounts. Furthermore, the fact that you already have so many OpenIDs is itself a problem, as there is no way to merge two IDs.

Google and Facebook have also introduced their own take on the Single Sign On problem. Google Friend Connet and Facebook Connect are services offered by two of internet’s biggest brands to users to use their logins all over the internet. In one sense, this means that Google and Facebook want to become the identity brokers for the internet.

This is one area when you don’t really want too many choices. The network effect is very real here. What we want is a handful of logins that potentially covers everything. (Note that I say potentially because you should still have the option of having unconnected accounts for privacy reasons). The situation will only get better when the big names start accepting each other’s logins. We want to arrive at a situation where your Google login is your Yahoo login.

The current state of affairs means that it’s a lot easier to post on werid forums you come acros without having to register a new account, but you still need a few “Big” accounts.

Update:

I just sorted out OpenID for Aspherical Boundaries… Looks like I was really late to the party :P.

While trawling the tubes this morning, I came across this DPReview Discussion.

For those who don’t really want to read it, it discusses an unannounced new Nikkor, the AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5 - 5.6 IF-ED (I think that will be the official name). From what I can see, this does appear to be a real lens that will probably get announced before PMA near the end of Jan 2008. It will replace the 18-70mm f/3.5 - 4.5 as “the kit lens that’s not built like ass”. Its role in the F mount stable will be similar to what the Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4 - 5.6 USM IS does for the EOS system and the Carl Zeiss Sony DT 16-80mm f/3.5 - 4.5 does for the Alpha.

All of this is not particularly interesting. There will always be well designed mid range zooms because that’s what people are most used to. This one adds VR and a 24mm equivalent wide end to the last model at the expense of 2/3 stops of light at the long end.

What is interesting/annoying is how unrealistic people’s expectations are. The forums are rife with people being disappointed that this is not a full frame lens. For comparaison, till 3 month ago, the widest full frame Nikon zoom lens was the 17-35mm, a 2.1x zoom that weight a kilogram, took 77mm filters and costed a whole lot. Now, people are honestly expecting a 5.1x zoom to start wider , weigh half as much, cost less than a third and have a smaller filter size than the old champion. I think some people are still waiting for that AF-S VR Zoom-UV-Micro-Nikkor 10-1000mm f/1.0 IF-ED.

Technological progress moves fast, but not that fast. Really now.

On the other hand, there’s a few lenses that could be useful and are feasible… but I’ll resist joining the bunch of wish-list-makers on the web.