Is the age of ubiquitous computing is upon us? We may not be living yet in William Gibson's plugged-in future, but there's no doubt that we're absolutely dependent on the digital realm. From tablets to smart phones to laptops to car navigation systems, we always seem to be connected. The digital life is everywhere we go, and software is our intermediary between physical reality and the bits and bytes. Over the past two years, the massive rise in popularity of mobile devices has changed the frequency, duration, and level of engagement of our digital existence. No longer is digital interaction reserved for those specific times when we huddle around the glow of desktop monitors. Mobile has made software integral to and embedded within people's lives, but the convenience and pervasiveness of mobile computing is only part of the story.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

SOPA: Anatomy of a Public Uprising
As most of us of are aware, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill in the US House of Representatives, while purported to protect content providers, in fact hides within its depths the chilling ability to freeze online businesses and tech innovation through a set of draconian provisions, that would, for instance, force search engines to filter their search results.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

If You Make Sure You're Kinected, the Xbox is on the Wall
Last week, Microsoft's Kinect turned one year old, and the Redmond giant celebrated the "Kinect Effect" with a video highlighting future applications of the technology from healthcare to music to education.

I'm a big Boston sports nut. And, as cliched as the sports metaphor may be for discussions on teamwork, there are lessons to be learned from the collapse of the Red Sox, which was the worst in baseball history and has ongoing and transformative consequences for the organization. There were, of course, many reasons for the losing streak that took the Red Sox from a healthy lead of nine games in the AL wild card race to the low point of their 2011 season, where they dropped out of playoff contention entirely.

As countless, near-identical Steve Jobs obituaries spew out of the blogosphere/Twitterverse today, let's honour his contribution by doing what he did best: anticipating at what will be next...

Last month Marc Andreessen published a significant essay in the Wall Street Journal, outlining the many ways in which software has become not just important to our world, but the critical guts and infrastructure of it. Andreessen is, of course, pointing out a trend that has been building for some time, which has culminated in a sea change in the world of business that is only beginning to be understood. The perfect example of this change is the news that the iconic HP has chosen to abandon the PC market for software, seeing the former as commoditized and the latter as the future.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Visualizing Irene
For those of us on the Eastern seaboard of the United States, last week was quite a ride, starting with Hurricane Irene wrecking havoc all the way from North Carolina to Massachusetts, and continuing with an arduous clean up effort to remove the debris, start repairing the damage, and get back our lives into some sense of normalcy.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Health Tech: Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve (or Maybe Your Arm)
It won't be long before the walk-in medical clinic gives way to the walking medical clinic. Wearable medical technology that can monitor heart rate, blood glucose levels, and brain activity, and even administer treatments is on its way. The Economist has a great feature on smart contact lenses that can diagnose and monitor diseases, like glaucoma and diabetes; deliver drugs; and even potentially display information to the patient. An LA Times article highlights electronic patches that can be adhered to skin like a temporary tattoo and monitor your heart.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Better off TED?
Richard Saul Wurman is re-inventing the conference format for the 21st century with his follow up to the wildly popular TED conferences. The new venture, WWW.WWW, is billed as "Intellectual Jazz" and will have no presentations, schedules, or tickets. Instead, two high-level thinkers from related fields will discuss a topic presented to them at the time of the conference. The conversations will be streamed live, and also available via a cross-platform tablet application. Through this new endeavor, Wurman hopes we will find "an energetic exploration of the lost art of conversing". Whether this new format will light up the imaginations of the business elite, and catch on as readily as TED did, only time will tell. But Wurman is, no doubt, changing the rules of the conference game yet again. Fast Company's Co.Design blog features a piece on the WWW.WWW conference, which will debut in 2012.

Ever since the U.S. started on its long road to recovery from the Great Recession and tech companies began expanding the ranks of their employees again, there's been a dearth of talent to choose from, especially those most important senior level team members in engineering and user experience. This lack of readily available personnel has driven not only an increase in salaries, signing bonuses, and perks, but also a variety of unorthodox recruitment strategies, not the least of which is acquiring small companies for their talent, not necessarily their technology. Facebook, for example, has executed some high profile acquisitions to bring top notch designers into the fold, buying both software design shop Sofa and product firm Push Pop Press.