We wouldn't have Google, if we did not have the internet, and we could not have Faxes before we had telephones. Just as we could not have Blockchains before the Internet. Technology just as most things in life are just part of a greater evolution.
I believe everybody in the world knows who Microsoft is and what they do. Being in the IT industry since 1995, I have seen many great companies come and go, but Microsoft has always been around and I believe they will still be around for quite some time.
There are techies in the world that absolutely loves Microsoft, and there are those who do not like Microsoft at all. I personally have a lot of respect for Microsoft in what they've accomplished over the past few decades. I do not really have a preference of operating systems, as I believe that the core operating system is just a means to an end.
What did Microsoft do right?
Well, in short, they had a vision of getting a computer into everybody's house and office, and they managed to do it. They had a few major breakthroughs in their early days, when they created one of the first major operating systems which turned into the Windows most of us use today on some or other computer. I believe the second major breakthrough was their Office Suite of products, like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. The third major breakthrough in my opinion is Microsoft SharePoint which are now used by most companies in the world, for their Intranet, Document and Records Management systems.
The bottom line is that Microsoft entrenched themselves in most of our lives and can be seen as a trustworthy partner in the computer industry
The internet changed all our lives
Not many people are in the position to visualize a world without the internet. Google became a household name and I don't believe there are many people in the world who believes that Facebook can be taken out from a library.
Technological advances are moving at the fastest pace in the history of mankind. That is now if there weren't another civilization before us, that were more advanced than we are now. I am not a specialist on the subject of civilizations and there might have been, I do not know. What I can tell you is that every generation has something that were invented or discovered during their lifetimes.
Similar questions are always asked, but just about different things:
- How did we world work without the radio ?
- How did we world work before telephones?
- What as the world like before television?
- What was the world like before Faxes?
- What was the world like before Cellular phones?
- What was the world like before the internet?
- Was Google not there when you were younger? That is just not possible.
What is interesting though is that we will always need something to happen before the next thing can be implemented.
I can promise you if the human race and our planet is still around in a few hundred years, every generation will have new questions about what the world was like before whatever is going to be discovered or invented.
The future of the internet
Another thing that will change in my opinion is the internet, especially the underlying technology. Blockchain will play a massive part in the underlying technologies, especially now that the technology is going through a development cycle, where it is becoming faster and easier to develop. If we look at Blockchains like Graphene, Steem, Bitshares and soon to be EOS, they are far superior than everything out there.
Crypto Currencies, might soon become a form of payment that will be accepted by a widespread audience, as it is inevitable that the masses will adopt this as a standard, but that also depends if some or other government or large organisation does not find a way to stop this ever-growing snowball before it hits home.
There are a lot of speculation of what will and what can happen, but only the future will tell. For me the next step of the evolution, should be some sort of digital identity or logon credential that is globally accepted. We should not need to have a Facebook account, and a Google Account and a Steemit Account and a logon at the office and a Logon for your Bank and and and… to be honest, why do we even need a cellular phone number. As long as you are logged into your device with your digital identity I should be able to contact you on the device when it is showing your Green Presence indicator.
The digital identity of the future.
I have written various posts about Digital Identities in the past, and in my opinion one of the next steps for our technology evolution should be a Digital Identity standard accepted by everybody everywhere. The technology already exists, but the problem will be who will win the fight to dominate the space of digital identities.
It might be one of the larger companies, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft or it might even be a company like CIVIC initiated by well- known serial entrepreneur, Vinny Lingham, who is building a decentralized identity on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain. Only time will tell.
Vinny, should you ever read this, please move your blog to Steemit :) I always read your blog posts, and you can earn some Steem at the same time, with which you could buy Bitcoin of course :)
I do like the possible future approach from Microsoft, which they highlight in a recent article. Their approach should be to not only have a digital identity, which allows you access to their eco-system, but to the wider internet. If you look at Facebook and Google, they allow you to use your Facebook credentials to log into most sites in any case, but again, that is for other reasons, and not necessarily to help the world. They just want more data for your dossier as explained in this post.
Please provide your opinions on having a single digital identity in the comment section.
Happy Steeming!
As long as they're impossible to be accessed and hacked by everybody else except me, single digital identities are okay for me :) I speculate that the winner in this race will be coming from the blockchain industry 'cos the others have this temptation to use all information we have as they do today and they have the reputation of doing so.
I've been learning about EOS recently and I think they're planning to do what Windows did before - deliver computing systems to the masses. But in this case, it's the blockchain. As Dan said, people using EOS apps will not learn that they're using the EOS.
Thanks for yet another great comment... Followed you.
I think the winner of the race will indeed be somebody from the Blockchain as a result for the characteristics of the Blockchain being immutable and trust less. Sure there are many things that need to be addressed but we are surely not far from there. I am also on EOS and love the concept as a whole.
Thanks too for your well-made post jacor. It's also informative.
I so much agree with you on the characteristics of blockchain. Blockchain is definitely the right approach to digital identities.
<3 to EOS. I check my email everyday for its updates. I would like to have the whitepaper soon. Dan said it's already being reviewed so I'm so excited. :)
I'm also following you now :)
👍🏻
Well written @jacor
Vision to reach their set target. 🌍
Thank you very much @bhavnapatel68
I think one digital identiy based on the blockchain, that is safe and cant be hacked would make life so much easier. All the information about an identity should still be anonym so not everybody has the access to see all of the information.
Great content. I was thinking about an digital identity too and this post shares many of my points of view.
Hi @alexway, apologies, I just saw your comment. At the end of the day, we should be in control of what information we want to share, so totally agree. It should be anonymous, until you choose to share specific information. I actually just want one identity as it will be easier to work with, rather than the hundreds of logins and password we have to manage
interesting concept isnt it?
Very interesting indeed :)
This was interesting to read. Blockchain will play a major role in the online world of the future.
Never heard of EOS before until I joined Steemit a week ago. I'll try and find out more about it.
Great article jacor. Followed!
Thank you very much @zhenyasden. Steemit is by far the most interesting social media platform by far. Welcome to Steemit :)
Thank you for the welcome!! :)
It is a great pleasure :)
Will cryptocurrencies surpass/replace real currency, e.g. USD dollars?
IMHO I believe their will be a transformation where there will be a hybrid of Crypto / Fiat currencies when adopted by the masses. Then the next logical step will be for the various FIAT currencies to adopt Blockchain technology as the underpinning tech to drive FIAT currency generation which will be pegged to the existing FIAT currencies. The interesting fact will be to see if the value of the FIAT's can be sustained. I do not believe it will be possible due to the fact that Blokchains are transparent, immutable and trust-less. There won't be much room for corruption and other things.
The outcome in my opinion will be that Crypto's will and should surpass the FIAT currencies.
So far the Chinese government has implemented Ant shares an ecurrency. Putin and Russia has announce their intentions to follow,suit. I keep reading about Fedcoin coming from the Federal Reserve. This happening very fast...
Their are also various countries in Western Africa, which have already started a Blockchain underpinning their pegged FIAT currency in a digital format.
Great informative story. Upvoted and resteemed :)
Have a ncie day and remember... GoCoconuts ;)
Thanks a lot for the comment @gococonuts
Your welcome :) Your post deserved it!
For most of us our ID is our email address, but email is an old and insecure protocol. It can be encrypted, but few people do that. Encryption keys are more secure and can use signatures to verify them. Services like Keybase make them easier to use.
Thank you for your comment @steevc :) I will look at Keybase, but I am refereing to things like CIVIC which assist with secure online identity verification
I'd not heard of CIVIC. I still see companies verifying identity with paper documents that can easily be manufactured. Cryptographic identity is much harder to fake.
I agree that digitID's will be the next step, but;
Thanks for the post!
Thanks for a great comment @krabgat . On your second point - Just think of all the questions that will be asked on the day we are all standing in the queue to be chipped :)
Have you seen the movie "Ghost in a shell"? This is the ultimate - the integration of technology and biology to harvest the advantage of both, but in my opinion, it is not going to work over the long run.
I have not watched the movie yet, but will put it on my list to watch :)
YES. DO NOT TAKE A MICROCHIP OR YOU ARE SLAVE. There are 2 competing ID systems, one is designed to enslave you, one is not. Don't be a naive fool and buy the microchip lie.
mmmm...food for thought. I don't know if I want one login to all my accounts and devices. I suppose that is just another technological development we might have to adapt to one day.
Indeed food for thought. As long as our identities are not controlled by a central agency, but rather a decentralized group, it might work. Decentralised Identity Foundation was announced at Consensus 2017. Microsoft is also involved in this so it might be something to follow :)
As long as they don't trace us every second it's ok I guess.
It will definitely provide the opportunity for Big Brother to track us :)
The internet in deed have changed our lives, and will keep growing faster every time, with the arrived "internet of things" all of us will be deeply in to it, more and more every time, nice post!
Thanks a lot for the comment and we will most definitely be pulled in deeper with the arrival of IOT. Hence more reason for a Digital identity :)
Yes, youre totally right!
It's already being done. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/estonia-wants-to-give-us-all-digital-id-cards-make-us-e-residents/
I wonder if crypto currency will one day replace individual country currencies, there will be no need for it if we go totally crypto!!
Colour me grey on Identity but I don't believe people have fully understood why technocratic solutions will never succeed. In few words, people will let you have some biometrics or numbers, but they won't put their actual real living identity, their personality, into your product until you've elevated to a sufficiently high level of trust that you won't ever ever EVER abuse that trust.
Which pretty much wipes the floor with any standard product and standard corporation. Blockchain might appear to say something special, but actually it does things like remove the need for trust, not increase the trust to levels where you actually feel confident in telling it your life's secret. Nice spirit, but wrong direction.
That all said, I've written down lots on this topic On Identity elsewhere so I'll stop polluting your post with the naysaying of this poor Identity :-)