First, as to blogging. Alan references my recent Are We Blogging Each Other to Death? posting and says that he detects in it an undertone of, as he puts it, "What's it all about? This whole blogging nonsense?" Well I have a startling revelation for Alan: this is called critical thought. Blame one of the finest educational systems on earth if you like, but I am proud to say that it's the "undertone" of everything I have done, written, or published for the past 25 years: "What's it all about? This whole BlackBerry nonsense?" — "What's it all about? This whole 'social software' nonsense?" — "What's it all about? This whole 'ambient findability' nonsense?" Yes, yes, yes. Until proven otherwise, all emperors are naked.

"Ambient findability is the future," Wodtke insists. "Do you recall before the internet, when you'd be at a party and you'd be arguing if Winona Ryder was in Alien, or if there was any difference between a pachyderm and an elephant? It doesn't happen any more - with the net almost all questions can be answered. The next day you get online and then you e-mail your friend to say that you were right, Winona was in Alien: Resurrection, and they owe you five bucks. Next you're going to want that knowledge at the party, and with web-enabled phones, there is no reason why you shouldn't have it.

Having achieved this network nirvana, the question is inevitable: what's next? For an information architect with library roots, the answer is obvious: ambient findability.

I want to be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime.

What's surprising is how close we are to making this impossibly strange dream a reality. Ambient interfaces, sensors and small tech are about to intertwingle the physical and virtual worlds in shocking ways that will make history of the Diamond Age.