Lots of people talk about the OpenID Web site login solution under development by the OpenID Foundation, but not everyone understands it. A handy new Web site aptly named Open ID Explained launched recently that aims to separate fact from fiction and educate the masses about what this project means in the larger picture of Web site user authentication.

"In the past, Free Software Magazine’s readers and the FSDaily community have needed to create accounts and login in order to post comments, post to forums forums, vote on stories and polls, and generally get involved in the community of the sites. Thanks to OpenID, this has now changed: we have now enabled and tested OpenID on the server, and we can proudly say that it works fantastically well..."

In one of the most significant moves yet in the growing push toward service interoperability on the Web, tech giant Yahoo announced Thursday that it is supporting the OpenID 2.0 standard for a universal Internet log-in.

"...A new post from Alavilli Praveen on the dev.aol.com site mentions the ongoing and recent upgrades to the AOL account management tools. They have integrated OpenID and have put the functional pieces in place for other AOL products and services to add OpenID via OpenAuth..."