Emerging Technologies

I consider myself somewhat of a geek (ok - quite a geek), but I found myself unfamiliar with many of the "10 emerging technologies" listed by MIT's Technology Review magazine. The one with the most direct applicability to our industry is universal authentication, systems that allow users to "hop securely from one site to another after signing on just once." Many attempts have been made, including Microsoft's Passport service, but none have caught on. It is interesting to see that there are new efforts, such as Shibboleth, which may one day help us avoid having to remember so many usernames and passwords to multiple sites.