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When we’re holding a GPS-enabled device, our identity isn’t a question of “who, what, where.” It’s a question of “where, what, who.

On the assumption that strangers may not make it easy for us to escape our pasts, Acquisti is also studying technologies and strategies of “privacy nudges” that might prompt people to think twice before sharing sensitive photos or information in the first place. Gmail, for example, has introduced a feature that forces you to think twice before sending drunken e-mail messages. When you enable the feature, called Mail Goggles, it prompts you to solve simple math problems before sending e-mail messages at times you’re likely to regret. (By default, Mail Goggles is active only late on weekend nights.) Acquisti is investigating similar strategies of “soft paternalism” that might nudge people to hesitate before posting, say, drunken photos from Cancún.

Now, consider this. If I sound like I’m harshing on Apple — I’m not. Apple’s perhaps one of the economy’s most radical companies and one of its most explosive outperformers. Here’s the point: It’s still not good enough — not enough to create jobs, meet the needs of tomorrow’s generations, give back to the natural world, spark higher-order innovation, or fuel a more authentic prosperity. If that’s the best that our economy can do, well, we’ve got to do better.

The English-speaking world tends to worry more about the semantics of the unspeakable place—is it a toilet, a loo, a lavatory, a lav, a bog, a restroom, a bathroom or a WC?—than its aesthetics. But never mind what it’s called, the loo is a hugely important part of a restaurant. It’s central to what marketing-speakers call the “total customer experience”: it tells you what the restaurateur really thinks of you; it’s a proxy for the kitchen (if the loo’s dirty, the kitchen will be too); and it is the acid test for the success of the overall look. If, as you leave the dining room and head off down the corridor, you find the decor regressing from Absolutely Now to Last Refurbished When Reagan Got In, the whole brand will be compromised.

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Smart restaurants are now as fashion-driven in their loos as front of house, maintaining the brand statements and keeping the design magic going all the way to the flush…

The parallels between what happened to cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York in the 20th century and what’s happening on the Internet since the introduction of the App Store are striking. Like the great modern American cities, the Web was founded on equal parts opportunism and idealism. Over the years, nerds, students, creeps, outlaws, rebels, moms, fans, church mice, good-time Charlies, middle managers, senior citizens, starlets, presidents and corporate predators all made their home on the Web. In spite of a growing consensus about the dangers of Web vertigo and the importance of curation, there were surprisingly few “walled gardens” online — like the one Facebook purports to (but does not really) represent.

But a kind of virtual redlining is now under way. The Webtropolis is being stratified. Even if, like most people, you still surf the Web on a desktop or laptop, you will have noticed pay walls, invitation-only clubs, subscription programs, privacy settings and other ways of creating tiers of access. All these things make spaces feel “safe” — not only from viruses, instability, unwanted light and sound, unrequested porn, sponsored links and pop-up ads, but also from crude design, wayward and unregistered commenters and the eccentric voices and images that make the Web constantly surprising, challenging and enlightening.

Interesting to think about the UI which would communicate the policy to travellers > Still, for all of its sophistication, Komanoff’s plan remains imperfect. Komanoff himself admits that an ideal system would track drivers wherever they went, charging by the mile and the minute, with rates determined by location. He calls this “the holy grail of congestion pricing.”

Someday, technology will probably help fulfill this promise. Skymeter, a Toronto-based company, has developed a GPS-based metering system that can track and bill cars in even the densest urban areas. With such a system, Komanoff says, he could adjust congestion prices on a block-by-block basis. Cities could do away with parking meters and simply track how long cars sat at a curb. Insurance premiums could reflect the habits of individual drivers instead of relying on crude proxies like age. Drivers could be rewarded for taking the roads less traveled—not having to pay, and sometimes even getting paid, if they chose to commute on less congested routes on particularly busy days. “It’s going to happen,” Komanoff says. “Cities will charge per mile or per minute according to your exact location and the type of vehicle you’re driving.”