Ubicomp, everyware, spimes and clipes

[imomus]

Journalism 2.0! It's more interactive, more participatory, more collectivist! Gone are the days when a solitary hack in a trench-coat pursued a story with perhaps just one treacherous deep-throated insider feeding him leads. Today's journalist is closer to "death of the author" theory than death threats! He's probably out there right now, Mr Journalist 2.0, brainstorming his next Wired column with a bunch of cronies on his blog! Hey, a powerful global conversation has begun!

Okay, so I want to write a column about stuff around this techno-dweeby buzz known as everyware, ubicomp or the "internet of things". Basically, it's what Bruce Sterling is talking about here and Adam Greenfield speculated about here.

We all know what a computer is. It's the object sitting in front of you, with a keyboard, a screen, a mouse, a trackpad, whatever. But we're going to be living soon in a different sort of world, a world where computers have been smashed to smithereens and scattered all around us. Computers are about to fade into -- well, everywhere, actually. Those smithereens, at least initially, will take the form of RFID chips. They're intelligent barcodes, little radio stations, radio frequency ID tags transmitting information about location, temperature, price, quantity, status, identity, you name it. As they get more intelligent and verbose, these little clipes -- these spimes -- will create an "internet of things". In other words, the real world of objects will come to resemble the internet world we know now. It will be searchable, able to be quizzed, surfed, interrogated. The privacy issues are terrifying, the military uses staggering, the artistic possibilities astounding. Ubiquitous computing will be -- already is -- a way of enhancing our senses and tying into other people's superior knowledge of any given terrain. As Greenfield puts it, "some of the most interesting ideas current in interaction design are being worked out at the scale of the city".

Ubicomp-everyware is already in operation. Walmart demands chips on all deliveries from its top suppliers. In Japan, IC chips are embedded in escalator hand rails to tell you more about products you're interested in (just swipe the little pattern), or tag the whereabouts of schoolkids. When I first came to Berlin, one place I showed everyone was the Automaten Bar in Mitte, which tracked who was there at any given point by uploading to the internet information about who had swooshed the door open with their membership card. "Hey, Jim's at Automaten (and Joe isn't), I think I'll drop by there myself!" Well, the Automaten Bar is now gone, replaced by a clothes shop. But maybe replacing a computer-laden cyber-bar full of clunky big vending machines with a clothes store is quite appropriate, really. Clothes may well be where computers are headed.

Right now a pilot project is going on in Ginza, the Tokyo Ubiquitous Technology Project, which will see little transmitters planted around key streets, sending local information which can be picked up by normal cell phones. Presumably later on we'll all have wearable computers sewn into our clothes, heads-up displays superimposing RFID information on what we see with our eyes, or brain implants. We'll be able to pass through any environment as we currently pass through the internet, gathering incredibly precise information, leaving a paperless papertrail behind us.

Later today I'm interviewing a Japanese curator who's written and made shows about the artistic uses of ubicomp. But right now I want to interview you. What do you think of this stuff, this soon-come scattering of the computer into billions of tiny radio stations, each one telling you stuff about a specific object -- your pet, your child, the toilet, a sniper, the wheelchair access ramp? Do you welcome "the internet of things"? Do you want to be able to google the world?

There really is no going back. It's already too late to stop this. It all started with language, I guess. We named things, and by naming things we labeled them. Now we're giving the labels electronic voices in the form of tiny transmitters. Is it good, is it bad? Are you happy, are you sad? What will this world be like? No more "computers", just ubiquitous internet-like information, total recall scattered everywhere. Who will hack the system, how will we make art for it? Above all, how will we write Journalism 2.0 articles about it? Your comments please, ubi-journalists!

Comments

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

Most art that utilizes or criticizes ubiquitous computing is pretty dull. You know, attach locative devices to strangers and you can create an image of the city! Wow, people walk around cities. Yawn.

The world will not become better or worse, but maybe I'm feeling more optimistic. Information is difficult to ignore right now, so people are a little overwhelmed. When information is truly, truly everywhere, it will become obvious, and invisible.

Music will be really fun, if it can break away from ironic, cynical "mash-up" culture. I'm fearing some performer creating an orchestra of advertising chips that hawk a product at his demand. Like, synchronized "hey Mike, by a car!" Or, a short film about a comical white man who is embarassed when the advertising chips all think he's into weird sex products.

Drone music or mantras will likely be common, and that's something I look forward to. The pitches and timbres could be calculated from the endless flow of information, and then controlled by the performer.

[(Anonymous)]

Most art that utilizes or criticizes ubiquitous computing is pretty dull.

Most art that uses the Internet is dull, period. The Internet has been excellent for disseminating (certain types of) art and information about art, but I think it's interesting that so far its technological possibilities have yet to be used structurally within art in a satisfying manner. Compare it for example to moving image technology at the start of last century, which quickly gave birth to a whole new artistic medium, cinema, structurally distinct from theatre, literature, photography etc. The Internet has yet to do anything like this. There have been attempts to use it to develop new forms (interactive novels using hot links etc.) but they've failed to take flight. YouTube? Again, fantastic for disseminating short films, but has it given birth to any new forms or genres? My suspicion is that the Internet probably will give birth to new art forms, but not for a long while, not for another 15 years or so. Still it's interesting that it hasn't yet done so.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

(http://www.amazon.com/Rainbows-End-Novel-Foot-Future/dp/0312856849/sr=1-1/qid=1169549617/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-3499959-6365229?ie=UTF8&s=books)

Sterling is saying now he doesn't expect it to really come about for another thirty years. I don't know.

There are profound insurance implications for this technology.

[(Anonymous)]

The other strong ubiquitous force – xenophobia, won't let any of this happen yet. Driven by what is superficially a fear of spam (and genuinely driven by a fear of the other), the world of computing is undergoing a significant change. Huge social networks will spring up and decide who gets to have an opinion and who gets to play the game.

What all these whitelists, blacklists and systems of quantified social capital will do is to allow a small elite (you will be one of them) to become informational superstars, affecting the world around them wherever they go in thousands of interesting ways.

Us anonymi will be stuck in a read-only world and ultimately forced to create a world of our own. The two worlds, the "genuine" world ruled by the social networks and the imitation created by those with no names will drift even further apart as ubicomp disconnects us from what we used to call the real world. Perception will finally be all there is and the promises of postmodernity will be deilvered upon. As the rift between the two worlds widens, they will cease to acknowledge each other. The bubbles won't touch.
Until they do..

There will be a great war.

We will win.

[(Anonymous)]

(We will win because we don't proofread anything and leave run-on sentences and syntactically awkward crap everywhere :D)

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

i see this as related to the tyranny of choices issue... cheapness of manufacturing will soon make it cheap enough to allow every object to perform the functions of a high-powered computer, including internet hookup and sensory input, if not full blown cognitive awareness (shut up coffee mug)... but what if we don't want eyes in our tampons? ultimately if avoiding surveillance means avoiding consumption, it's possible the market will stabilize things and prevent a full-blown surveillance culture. however, if we all accept that this culture is inevitable (which I think a movie like Borat has indirectly made its project) then the only thing we can do is smile for the cameras and flash a few snaps of our own.
the question: is there something stifling about having to behave as if you're being watched at all times? shouldn't we get used to that feeling if we're ever to take part in an emergent hiveminded consensus? i believe our ultimate purpose is to become a dancing ball of light.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

p.s. what does it mean if these always-on, always-searchable devices diminish our ability to find things on our own? i try not to indulge this train of thought too much because i'm mostly convinced computing makes us smarter, not dumber...

[(Anonymous)]

"As one could easily foresee in theory, practical experience of the unbridled accomplishment of commodity rationality has quickly and without exception shown that the becoming-world of falsification was also the falsification of the world."

Guy Debord.

[(Anonymous)]

It's the year 1807 and someone is telling me that eventually we'll be able to listen to musical "recordings" any time we want, travel across the world in a day, pay for electrical toys with "computerized" currency.. and I'm thinking this all sounds great. How much better our lives will be!!

Fast foward to 2007 and I'm pissed off at how long the check-out girl is taking. I drive home and the traffic lights are poorly timed. I can't get any cellphone service in this one area. I sit on my sofa and watch 5 hours of TV and then goto bed. Yea, my life sucks but when these new technologies come around in a few years, how much better our lives are gonna be!

[(Anonymous)]

my life is great. i think you're doing it wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Journalism 2.0 = a bunch of unpaid web consultants while Momus pockets his fee, hmmm.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hey, there's an article in that!

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

I dislike the idea. I want to find real things out for myself, not through media.

And people are basically conservative, so I think that if it does happen it will only be for a little while before people revert to more old-fashioned concepts.

[electricwitch.livejournal.com]

Also, if information is ubiquitous it will just lead people to ignore it. (see recent, sudden whining about overexposure to traffic signs).

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Did you just use the word "clipe" as in the telltale?
My mother used to use that word.
Its like the polite form of "grass" as in to inform on someone/thing

Mmmm atomised chips telling tales.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the internet is like two neighbours gossiping over a garden fence
Have you heard of the lampposts/streetlighting which will absorb solar radiation and give localised broadband connections among "other things" Project was piloted in Dundee I think a year or two back.
Seen as a boon to the more isolated and rural aspects of the digital world.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

A summary of most of the posts in this thread:

My perception of the internet was formed in late 2002 and hasn't changed since then but I'm going to post anonymously and make "predictions" that have either already succeeded, or, more likely, have already failed. Put me in your next wired column!

[(Anonymous)]

Please elaborate, sir!

A Trip To Selfridges. January 2007.

[(Anonymous)]

"Is it good, is it bad? "

The moment I leave my flat I'm filmed by CCTV cameras. I wander around the corner to wait for a 55 bus, where I'm filmed by a CCTV camera. The bus takes ages to come as always. I get on the bus and swipe my Oyster card. Digital information about my me and my journey is collected and goes to an enormous database that the Metropolitan Police have free access to. I go upstairs to the top deck of the bus and take a seat. Throughout the course of my journey I'm filmed by a CCTV camera. I get off the bus at Oxford Street, where I'm filmed by CCTV cameras. I go into Selfridges, where I'm filmed by CCTV cameras.

You know where you can stick your opposable thumb, Momus.

[bopscotch.livejournal.com]

1s and 0s can never truly represent anything because when it goes from "analog" to "digital," there's always some of the "real thing" lost. Also, once something is everywhere, everyone tends to ignore it. This I feel explains why people younger than me strike me as pretty out-of-touch even though they have more access to information than I ever did in my formative years.

[(Anonymous)]

A representation does not have to be an exact copy.

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Personally? The prospect terrifies me. I don't even like telling my loved ones where I am at all times of the day, I'd really hate the idea of the government knowing. It's true, I don't really have anything to hide, but I still don't like it.

That said, if it does happen all the way like that in my lifetime, I'd seriously want to create a realtime whuffie-based favor exchange network, like the one in the stor Maneki Neko (sp?).

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

If Momus thinks the world is too noisy now, wait until this technology becomes ubiquitous. He'll become a country mouse in a hurry - the constant noise will be quite unbearable.

I don't want that much noise, that much inane baby logic dominating dailiy life or any connection to the vast populous outside of friendly personal cooperation.

I fear that most creative and/or intelligent people will commit mass suicide if life were to become so noisily invasive. I certainly would, if I couldn't escape it. Then again, this is strictly a "first world" technology, so one could simply amass a little wealth, learn a new language and move to a developing country.

[(Anonymous)]

this technology will be great for thieving magpies on fishing expeditions

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

There will always be ways to foil (http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.php) them.

[(Anonymous)]

ubicomp is soooo last season. I proclaimed its death like 3 years ago.

der.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Proclaiming the death of ubicomp is so three years ago, der.

na

[natehitchcock.livejournal.com]

i made up a word to help me think about what might happen in this new type of world of interactions. i dont know if it will help you at all.
the word is "ubiquitonomus", like auto ubiquitous law. im not sure if it is structurally sound but it kindof reminds me of a rhyme but for linguistics.
hope it helps.
best, nate.

Techno!

[(Anonymous)]

This is related, yeah, on wemakemoneynotart, do you know it?
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009281.php

So, in some ways I welcome tagging everything. I hate remembering where things are. It's a load of boring work. And I think in the future we will all have offical personal ID numbers (I mean, we do already really) and the government will always know what we are up to. But I also think there will be a lot more direct democracy because of net 2.0 type government. Thing is, I think that people avoid talking about fear of technology because they don't want to appear conservative or wimpy. But I think we should all have a healthy dose of fear - after all, if one looks at history, gov'ts do have a habit of sometimes getting very nasty, and technology often enables this. We'd look real dumb if the machines took over and then we went back and watched "matrix" and "terminator" and were like, oh, but we "knew" really... I mean, I assume we'll still be able to watch movies after the robot revolution. Sometimes pop culture is smarter than "smart" culture - this blog is a mash of that, yeah? But at the same time I think we should be allowed to spout utopian visons and publicly imagine how we can use technology for good. I feel like there is so much social pressure for moderation in these things, and that's quite boring actually, and kind of limits the scope of the game.

So in that optimystic state, I wonder if you might know of this book and website, which is a liberal americanesque global-thinking thing, so you might autohate it, but there is a lot of info about net 2.0 technology, using social networks as a political or governmental tool, copyleft, open-source textbooks, cheap gadgets that save lives, etc. It's all pretty serious and seriously wide-eyed, but it fits in the whole momus thing - into normal-people, art, design, and fashion as cool tools. I'm not even sure how I feel about this, but I would like to hear how you all, creative hip internationalists or whatever, feel about new school net liberals or whatev.

http://www.worldchanging.com/

Re: Techno!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I was just looking at some other articles on that wemakemoneynotart site, but the link you give is very useful, thanks!

The interview I did today with the curator turned out very cautious and skeptical on the privacy and tracking issues of RFID, which is good to have covered. I won't really know until I write it whether the article will mostly have a positive or negative tone. When things are still just envisioned I tend to root for them. It's only when they're established that I point out flaws. But if Sterling is right, we have 30 years to debate this emerging internet of things.

Words from the Wise and Honourable CerealKiller.

[xishimarux.livejournal.com]

"FYI man, alright. You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and your name goes through like 17 computers a day. 1984? Yeah right, man. That's a typo. Orwell is here now. He's livin' large. We have no names, man. No names. We are nameless!"

[raspberry-lemon.livejournal.com]

GRAND CENTRAL HACK THE PLANET

prosthetic...

[sunrisepreacher.livejournal.com]

"With every tool [man] is perfecting his own organs, whether motor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. Motor power places gigantic forces at his disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction; thanks to ship and aircraft neither water nor air can hinder his movements; by means of spectacles he corrects defects in the lens of his own eyes; by means of the telescope he sees into the far distance; by means of the microscope he overcomes the limits of visibility set by the structure of his retina. In the photographic camera he has created an instrument which retains the fleeting visual impressions, just as the gramophone retains the equally fleeting auditory ones; both are at bottom materializations of the power he possesses of recollection, his memory. With the help of the telephone he can hear at distances which would be respected as unattainable even in a fairy tale. Writing was in its origin the voice of an absent person; and the dwelling-house was a substitute for the mother's womb, the first lodging, for which in all likelihood man still longs, and in which he was safe and felt at ease. … Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent, but these organs have not grown onto him and they still give him much trouble at times. Nevertheless, he is entitled to console himself with the thought that...Future ages will bring with them new and probably unimaginably great advances in this field of civilization.”

-Sigmund Freud Civilization and its Discontents

[alvaroceb.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's possible to go on like this indefinitely. We have already an energy-deficit. Somewhere in the future is the crisis of fosile fuel, too, and no fuel means no rockets, and no rockets means no satellites, and no satellites means that your clothes won't know where you are.

[(Anonymous)]

And still the rest of the world lives on less than $2 a day. Horray!

[cardindex.livejournal.com]

would it be a tad gauche of me to say...I just made a short film based on a concept somewhat similar to this - a (fictional) technology where mobile phone users can digitally "tag" buildings with "sound footprints" (voice, music, ambient sound). These footprints can then be accessed or replied to by other digital flaneurs using the same technology. It's an attempt to treat the city as an interface and a repository for user-created content.

Anyway, it's a flawed but half-decent little film. You should see it! Somebody should!

Noogie calls Greenfield a windbag.

[original-noogie.livejournal.com]

Greenfield is a windbag.

Gong

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, have you ever won an award? If so, for what, and how did it make you feel?

Freya

[(Anonymous)]

"There really is no going back."
Said the swerving drunk from the wrong side of the road.
"It's already too late to stop this."
He said, gunning the engine and swerving all the more.
Maybe it's not linear? How inevitably the road makes one place seem to come before the next and on.
Maybe the inevitability's a function of an inability to get out of the metaphor? Off the highway, out of the car, into the fields and woods?
Maybe the sense of inevitability's built into the perceptive system, not the system that's being perceived?
We're here, we were there, therefore it was inevitable for it to have gone this way, otherwise we wouldn't exist, because we're of this place exclusively.
Wendell Berry had a cogent point a while back that was buried in the howls and jeers his neo-Luddite stance called forth from the rabid techno-essentialists.
That horse-drawn farm equipment, and by extension all sustainable technologies, could have, would have, evolved at astonishing rates, at rates equal to the progress we saw - if they hadn't been jettisoned and sabotaged by the lovely petro-combusting inevitables.
All this atomization means the benign products get judged on their merits in isolation, disconnected - like medicine's all about healing and never mind those screaming little monkeys in the back room.
It isn't linear. It isn't this way or no way, this way or the cave.
There were untold myriads of paths branching from every moment of the timeline between here and anywhere "back there".
Some of those alternate ways would obviously have been better.
Maybe the task is to do something more than passively observe the exponentiating. Maybe we're sposed to be directing it, finding the alternate ways still before us.