California State Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), held a follow up hearing to her Aug 18 investigatuon of RFID privacy concerns.

Sen. Bowen again adjourned the hearing without reaching a formal decision on introducing legislation, but this is yet another warning that legislation about RFID privacy concerns is much more "when" than "if" at this point.

Applied Digital Solutions (a technlogy in desperate search of a need for some time now) is trying to bring their digital angel embedded RFID technology back to life as a human embeddable payment token. This shows that having a very bad idea doesn't prevent you from having an even worse one!

These guys had a problem with the mark of the beast crowd with digital angel - which they saw as helping people in medical trouble - so they should know the story by now. But this move makes me wonder if they've ever actually read Rev 13:16-17, to see that it specifically deals with payments and commerce. If not, shame on them. If so, they need new PR people.

The good news is that digital identity has now demonstrated its value in the computer pantheon, and many people are seeing its desired forms much more clearly than even a year ago. So we can hope that this type of thing won't throw too many people too far off track any more...

Sun today announced they plan to buy Waveset Technologies. As this announcement shows, Sun intends to integrate their platform into the Sun ONE Java suite, making serious identity management an integral part of the Sun ONE platform.

It looks like the expected consolidation in the identity industry is beginning in earnest...

IBM announced its WS-* support, and indicated they would support SAML and Kerberos as well as the extended WS-* capabilities they are developing in conjunction with Microsoft.

For an examination of the context within which IBM took this route, read this article about how IBM is making a big bet on Service Oriented Architectures and how this announcement fits in.

It looks like IBM doesn't want a "federated identity standards war" which is in keeping with what they said at the recent Digital ID World conference.

Both IDC and CIO Magazine surveys indicate that the tech slump will be over next year. When you realize that in today's atmosphere, no public company official will report any good news until after it has happened (that can land you in jail,) articles like this mean the slump has been over for a while now.

With the ending of the tech slump and an increase in IT spending, you can expect to see a bigger percentage rise in identity technologies than most other things. Why? Because identity is what will release the biggest productivity and business process improvement gains.

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday released Windows Rights Management Services (RMS), an add-on to Windows Server 2003 that allows organizations to add digital rights protection to information such as documents and e-mail.

Windows RMS is envisioned as a platform for enterprise digital rights management, meaning that any software vendor can create applications to work with the technology. So far, however, the only applications that support Windows RMS are the four main Office 2003 applications. Microsoft is in talks with other software makers for expanded support of Windows RMS.