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Ubiquitous Computing
Updated 14 Sept., 2003 Steven Johnson details this phenomenon in this article from Discover. As phenomena like "geo-caching" (GPS-based scavenger hunts) show, every point in physical space has a numerical address, just like a URL on the web. The particular technology used does not matter; it is a genuinely new way of seeing or experiencing a place. It may currently require new technological "ways of seeing" the data overlaid, but the very concept of space as a place to store information changes our view of reality. There are many variations on this theme. NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where I studied, teaches what it calls physical computing -- using electronics to link computers to the real world. Other researchers are using small handheld computers as windows to larger data spaces. "As we move away from desktop puters, we see interfaces becoming both smallerer and bigger," says Robert Jacobs of Tufts, "Smaller for portability and personal use, bigger for larger display surfaces and information spaces." Ka-Ping Lee of U.C. Berkeley adds, "What I'm envisioning is a personal information space, where information like your address book and your calendar are associated with the space around you." (see this article.) Always-astute Howard Rheingold envisions smart mobs -- groups of people linked by wireless technology, exchanging data and using communications technology to hook up, literally or figuratively. This is a more social variation on the theme, but no less a paradigm shift -- the application of the network concept to real, social space. Not only might we begin to view space and objects as containers of information, but people too as data-filled network nodes. The late father of the ubiquitous computing movement was Mark Weiser, and you can read his seminal 1991 article on the subject here. It is still fresh today. He said is that so-called "multimedia computers" are anything but, forcing us to sit in front of a screen and interact with the computer on its terms. "Virtual reality," he says, "is only a map, not a territory.... Virtual reality focuses an enormous apparatus on simulating the world rather than invisibly enhancing the world that already exists." Indeed, it could be argued that sitting in a small cubicle, with computer screen in place of a window, already constitutes virtual reality. The goal of ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing is to bring computers into the human world. "Machines that fit the human environment instead of forcing humans to enter theirs will make using a computer as refreshing as a walk in the woods." An excellent analogue, cited by Weiser and others, is the vanishing of electric motors. There are many motors just in one automobile, controlling door locks and so on, and we don't notice or think about them. "Cheap, small, efficient electric motors made it possible first to give each tool its own source of motive force, then to put many motors into a single machine," he says. A similar case can be made for electricity itself -- we have become accustomed to the hundreds of volts coursing through our walls at home, always ready to provide power. Such will be the case with computers, and the future is catching up to us. We are already used to having always-on access to a world of information on the web, and it has decreased our dependence on a single computing device, as we are able to access the same data from any machine, anywhere. Even as I write these words, it strikes me what an amazing accomplishment this is, and how much it has changed everything, in the space of 10 years or so. Links: Communications of the ACM special issue on ubiquitous computing, Dec. 2002 Fraunhofer IPSI Ambiente Microsoft SPOT |