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

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Depends what we end up considering real after the Massage.
Only last night one of those younger "out of touch"'s asked me and the ancients what we thought was the biggest leap in technology. McLuhanesque ramble followed about extensions of the nervous system through transportation and medias into almost full exteriorisation of the self. Out of the body.
Then it detourned completely into the " where did microtechnology come from? Roswell?"
I don't think he'll be asking us again. No, Sir.

[bopscotch.livejournal.com]

What I meant by "out-of-touch" is that I'll mention something that I feel is fairly common on the Internet, or even in my local library, and they'd all look at me like I'm speaking in tongues. The kids around here are mostly selfish and nihilistic without a care that there's so much to know about what's outside of MySpace. Their lack of depth and real knowledge is almost frightening.

I feel incredibly old most of the time even though I'm just a slight amount of years older than them.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

You'll soon discover that 98% of the populace are utterly vacuous. Seek out quality where you can and where quality isn't available, settle for "nice". Nice is nice enough most of the time.

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

I'm just a slight amount of years older than them.

Considering the nature of how the internet has and will continue to alter society, a mere few years means a lot these days.

People five years older than me were raised largely pre personal computing, those who messed with computers messed with mainframes and punchcards or maybe bludgeoning their computers into working with some linux thing they got off of usenet if they were savvy. People of about my age grew up with the notion of a home computer being a common one (even if they lacked one themselves) they're natural and intuitive and we're often intrigued by the internet and how computers have changed even within our lifetimes. People five years younger than me grew up in a world where everyone has a cell phone (and countless other gadgets like ipods) and computers are almost meaningless, the internet — while an integral part of life — is seen as largely banal: it's always been there, it'll always be there, they'll never think about it more than they think about pre-cell days.

All three of these are radically different worlds with radically different stances towards computers (fascinating new toys/tools, an everyday utility, an everpresent distraction), let alone their views on the rest of the world. While far too large of a topic to tackle in a comment, the way computers have changed is radically altering how societies are structured much as industrialization and agriculturization did; changes which are still underway and only recently beginning to painfully and swiftly shift, destroying entire industries and with them entire ways of life. Naturally, people in such a changing world with have different focuses (or lacks thereof) depending on where in the shift they align themselves.

butterflyrobert may have the right of it. I've certainly noticed that even among my age peers the proportion who seek out knowledge and wisdom is painfully small. Understanding and growth are tiring and I think in any era, regardless of the technology and distractions about, the majority find it easier to tune out than to willingly endure those trials the world doesn't require.