We are proud to present our first - prototype! - episode of The Digital Life: adventures in design and technology.

I'm perplexed how common inhumane customer service is among large companies. While I'm raising the issue to generally encourage people to design their systems and policies to be human-friendly there are two specific contexts that compelled me to write this today.

The widely-circulated story today that Google fired an employee for reviewing the "private" files and information of users, and even harassed a user based on their "private" information might seem shocking, but it's really only illustrating something that those of us in the industry have known for years: anything we say, type or otherwise create that goes thru a pipe or a satellite or an antenna is fully accessible by every touchpoint in the process. It is kind of like being spied on by someone looking thru a peephole: we think it is private and "ours" but in reality we are buck naked for any prying eye to see.

Remember Classmates.com? Arguably the first-ever social networking website it "connected" each of us to the people we went to school with over the years. Plagued by clumsy and poorly executed "Web 1.0" thinking, and an absolutely atrocious pay-to-play business model, Classmates.com could have been Facebook. Instead, it unintentionally ushered in many thousands of social networking start-ups that, as the market shook out, have become "Facebook and everyone-else-who-doesn't-matter-much-anymore." Still, there were plenty of steps between here and there.

I don't use the moniker "IT" very often, typically only to talk about the internal stuff at my company that has to do with computing technology in the vaguest way. Under "IT" falls our hardware and software that runs the gamut of business technology: computers, phones, Internet connection, printers, other peripherals...everything. However, with the recent wave of unexpected and in many cases surprising mergers, it appears we may start talking more about giant "IT" conglomerates that seem to be in any and every technology related to computing and communication.

The press is reporting today on a patent filed in January by Apple for what amounts to a "convertible" iMac - Apple's line of large screen all-in-one desktop computers - that also functions as a giant desktop iPad. This sort of device is certainly inevitable, in one form or another. The evolution introduced to everyday computing by the iPhone and now being accelerated by Android devices, the iPad, and other tablet solutions would certainly evolve into our desktop computing experiences. It was simply a question of when - and how. With this patent application we're seeing one potential approach to implementing these next-generation solutions.

I've been slowly backing away from the field of "user experience" for some years now. More and more, I'm beginning to think it is time that I turn my slow retreat into a full-fledged race to the hills. This evening Juhan pointed me to a terrifying article by renowned user experience thought leader Whitney Hess. Please do read the article, then c'mon back.

Leave it to Apple to turn speculation of the future obsolescence of the mouse as a computing input device into present reality. Today Apple launched the Magic Trackpad, a mouse replacement that accomplishes all of the input interactions of the mouse as well as all of the input interactions of portable computing devices such as the iPad and iPhone.

Raptr, an online gaming service that Involution helped conceptualize, design and develop in 2007 and 2008, formally removed its Beta tag this week. The brainchild of gaming superstar Dennis Fong, Raptr is an aspirant "Facebook for gamers". With over 1 million users despite being a relatively early-stage start-up the company is off to an exceptional start.

There are a lot of interesting things happening around crowdsourcing, many of which intuitively seem really good. Companies like Jovoto and Genius Rocket are serving as global connectors of people who want work done with people who are willing to do it. The benefits, according to Genius Rocket, include "Providing...hundreds of custom solutions, from thousands of creative professionals." and "Delivering agency level creative without the agency overhead." Jovoto's stated objectives reflect more altruism, focusing on "...the act of creation is free, collaborative and, above all, fair." Both companies appear to have reasonable objectives: Genius Rocket is trying to maximize impact while minimizing price, while Jovoto appears based around social consciousness and the professional training of students and young practitioners for design as a profession.