“TRON came true,” says one of my geek friends, referencing the early 1980s film about a gamer played by Jeff Bridges who gets zapped into a digital universe inside the memory of a computer network. What my friend means is that today, entire populations are getting zapped into that digital universe. Avatars, auctions, blogs, social networks, and databases storing information about everything from bank accounts to medical records comprise primitive alter-egos that project our personalities and do our bidding — and if we command them to, they’ll do it while we’re walking the dog or drinking a Schlitz at the corner bar. (more…)