Neologics

[Richard Franks]

On 3/7/07, Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org> wrote:
> This is interesting to see the larger ambitions of the project. It might
> also help to expand upon what types of devices could be constructed with
> this logic, in addition to neo1973. I'm thinking remotes, media players,
> watches, etc...

What if you mated Elite with Yahoo Pipes - instead of RSS feeds, you
have extensible data streams.. and instead of planets you have
conceptual nodes. Instead of trade routes, by clicking on a node you
can see and edit which data streams it imports and exports, and can be
anything from a simple wrapper to the GPS device, to a user, an
application or represent a physical device such as your desktop or
Neo.

Here's an early demo picture, although the lack of structure makes it
look rather too complex at the moment:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30698941@N00/413592619/

Instead of adding a security layer later, each node could have its own
private/public key combo from birth, and would (by default) be
authenticated by the node representing the physical device layer. The
user node may use a third-party to authenticate themselves, which
would allow them to travel between devices, or may choose to operate
in a reduced security domain which allows local authentication -
simply drag a new node from your 'parent' user-node, un-check the
security domains you don't want it to access, and allow password
authentication for that 'child' node.

To set up communication between nodes, the device authentication layer
would handle the swapping of public keys - transparently if requested
between multiple physical devices, but the utility arises from this
ability to dynamically create overlapping security domains (e.g. my
work, friends, family, spouse, etc).

I think I've failed in the description somewhat, as I'm still in the
early-prototype stages - but I think it could provide access to
conceptual and physical resources as simple building blocks, which is
fundamental for emergence to flourish.

Richard