I hope you’ll be commenting on the BBC Trust iPlayer consultation that closes early March.

Maybe there are a couple of other dimensions to view the digital outlook today. Access to information does not always equal empowerment or control; socially excluded groups, the young, the “different” have different approaches to knowledge and interaction – standard measures exclude their capabilities (good example the mathematical skills of street kids in Brazil are exceptional but do not register on standard education tests). Hence if what is provided is ‘canned’ by state or commercial interest it is not aimed not at enabling but including – including often in just the same things they are excluded from by every other element of their life – eg standard, education, employment and culture.

We might measure empowerment not just by access (as you say does access to Sky, mobiles, Wii, xBox etc equal digital access?) or by utility. Devices that allow you to consume pre-canned output does not look like empowerment. Even here the governemnt ignores the fact that the very poor are excluded by the move to digital TV (not everyone has an aerial on their roof and the cash to buy a booster aerial, scart lad and digi-box).

Empowered access may be the access that lets you trade online cutting out the middle man, create your own music site, blog, social space, gain the experience of using the technology that might get you to earn a crust in a call centre, shop, IT installation etc – has utiltity. This means the choice of accessing something like a desktop where you get to the internet, you access your own mail, keep your content, access media, print and publishing services from wherever you call home (not libraries, community centres – home works for me!). That then means the place you may be staying for a couple of months that doesn’t have a landline installed and is frequently robbed of all valuables.

Thats where my personal obsession with thin-clients and open source hosted desktops comes; give people a choice they may use it (and many wont). Transient housing also feeds my annoyance at talk of 100mb to each home and the problems of the geographically remote – the 30% without access are not in Devon they are in Flint, Telford, Liverpool, London and 100 mb will by-pass them.

I am left dreaming of “Poundland” IT – we need to provide solutions that fit the need – unfortunately the government sponsored schemes (eg the free laptops for kids scheme with the framework purchasing agreements with national suppliers for premium products) miss the point – it is the local independent mobile phone shop that fits the need of this group’s telecoms by offering what they need (cheap easy support) for cash no credit agreements, long term contracts etc – national retailers know only how to upsell not downsell, the IT industry does the same.

Investing funds to help the socially excluded support each other with open source flexible solutions that they develop with sponsored technical support. Now that is an innovation fund that would be interesting. Let’s see what that 30% of the population create! Paul Feyerbend (Without Method) is always a good view shaker on scientific development – the random and chance discoveries are key. Cup of tea finished – off the soap box and back on to trying to make a living.

Guy