Looks like I was right about those cell phone companies.

This story from Reuters covers cell phone conglomorate opposition to the FCC's proposal to auction off frequencies for free wireless internet.

Here's my original story.

T-mobile is claiming the free broadband internet would cause "radio interference." That excuse sounds pretty weak to me; I'm thinking "profit interference" would be more accurate.

-Robot Crusoe

Spore

My life is over.

Free the geeks! Or moving the web out of our homes and into the world.

Imagine a World Wide Web that you access everywhere, all the time, without ever sitting behind a computer.   

I think that's the future, but in order for it to happen, we need a new paradigm regarding the Internet.

Excepting a few, limited mobile Internet technologies, the web is still something we primarily access from our homes and offices, sitting in front of computer screens. 

The future, as I imagine it, would be a person walking down the street, accessing information about everything around them, without looking at a screen or typing into a keyboard.

Here's how I think we can achieve that with technologies that exist or are emerging today:

1. Centralized computing or cloud computing.  

The device offering connectivity would not need massive processing power or storage space; it would simply be a means of accessing on-line storage and processors.  

2. A head's up display that integrates information into the world around the user.  And if you think glasses are dorky, perhaps you'd prefer the contacts version.

3. Hands-free computing.  There are a number of solutions currently available.  Voice recognition seems like an obvious choice, but would be inconvenient in public or noisy environments.  I anticipate direct brain control over our electronic devices, and probably sooner than we think.  UC Irvine scientists are currently working to develop a noninvasive brain to brain communications system.  Carnegie-Mellon scientists can distinguish the thought pattern for a hammer from the thought pattern for pliers.

The idea that computers sit on a desk in a study will seem as ridiculous as the early computers that took up several rooms in a building.  We just need to start thinking outside the office to get there.

One day the phrase "web-surfing" will only be used to describe people who are literally surfing and accessing the Internet at the same time.

-Robot Crusoe

The Future of this Blog

This blog was initially conceived as an assignment for one of my graduate classes.  This class is now over and I think I will continue to post here, though I may change the format and topic slightly.  

I hope to focus more on my original ideas concerning the future of networking and communication, and I will attempt to link information that supports my theories.  

I appreciate everyone who reads this blog, and if there's anything you want to bring to my attention or any of my ideas you'd like to debate, don't hesitate to comment.  

Thanks.

-Robot Crusoe

A network of things

KEVIN KELLY ON THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

I think this talk is significant for everyone but there are a few concepts I'd like to address specifically in terms of "the media." For the purposes of this post I am going to specifically address newspapers.

Newspapers have been slow to adapt to the Internet. One inherent problem is profitability. The Internet provides information at no charge; Newspapers profit by selling information. Old business models will not work in this environment.

There were a few attempts to continue a subscription based service online, most notably by the New York Times, but they didn't last long.

Local and national publications are creating more sophisticated websites and looking for profit from advertising, but they are organisms in an environment hostile to their physiology.

In the past, local papers reported national and international news by themselves subscribing to the AP wire. A story that broke elsewhere went on the wire and became the shared property of all participating newspapers, each repackaging the information and selling it to specific markets.

I submit that what was once the function of the AP service, is now the function of any Internet search engine. I no longer read a local reproduction of a story on the AP wire, I merely go to the original story which can easily be located on the Internet.

Knowing what to look for is certainly a service I appreciate; but I don't need a local reporter to trouble him or herself with re-writing what is already written.

I think this is where the concept of linking data with data to which Mr. Kelly refers comes into play. Newspapers are trying to profit by enticing people to view their "pages" but the network of pages is already an old paradigm. I have no need to visit your page to get data when the data itself is available to the network.

How will Newspapers sell me this data in the future?

There is certainly a need for local reporting and news; otherwise there would be no original data on the Internet to search; but the re-selling of data is going to be a thing of the past.

If the network of things truly becomes a reality, then I wonder what form reporting will take. Imagine that an airliner, when crashing, essentially reported the story itself to the network it was a part of. All of the newsworthy information would be immediately online; who, what, when, where and potentially why.

It may be that this last question will be the sole realm of the journalist: a data detective in a future where most information is freely available. His or her purpose: to find missing pieces of data and add them to the network.

But who employs such a person? A free market economy suggests the answer is simply: the people who want the data. But it might not be the realm of a specific person to add all missing data; instead it would fall on those concerned with specific data. In the case of the airliner, a company engineer who wants to prevent further catastrophe.

I don't know the answer to all of these questions but I will say this about newspapers:

They will innovate or they will die; but people will always need the news.

-Robot Crusoe

EDIT: The embeded video would not play so I have replaced it with a link.

Digital Ethnography

I stumbled upon this excellent talk by KSU professor Michael Wesch.



Wesch is doing some excellent work in the field of Internet anthropology. When I think of the problems traditional media are having adapting to the Internet, I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with their paradigm.

Instead of trying to invent "new media" perhaps they should be developing "new mediums."

-Robot Crusoe

P.S. Here's a link to the the website Wesch and his students use as the platform for their research.

How accurately do we represent ourselves online?

Social networking is not just a way to keep in touch with people you already know; it's a way to get to know new people. Sometimes this meeting is entirely electronic and sometimes it might mean looking someone up on Facebook who you recently met in real life.

This has consequences as employers and educators look at Internet profiles to learn more about potential employees and students.

Many might argue that their Facebook profile does not accurately represent them and shouldn't be used by a potential employer to judge character or personality.

So how well do these profiles express who we are?

That's the question the research project called "You just get me" asks.

It is a social networking experiment that assesses how similar or different our opinions of our personalities are from strangers viewing a self-generated profile on the Internet.

This is an interesting question. In Crossing Boundaries: Identity Management and Student/Faculty Relationships on the Facebook Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Hewitt and Forte found many students didn't think professors should be on Facebook:

One student noted that the Facebook “can unfairly skew a
professor's perception of a student in a student environment,”
which indicates that she perceives the Facebook as a place that is “owned” by students as a group.

Offhand, I might agree with her. The majority of photos of me on the website were posted by my peers; photos which are usually unflattering and demonstrate a far higher amount of inebriation than is representative of my time in college.

Youjustgetme.com doesn't test for the influence of a community photo album, but it does demonstrate that for the most part, our Internet profiles pretty accurately describe the way we view ourselves.

You must create a profile to view the results or you can view a summary in Joe McCarthy's blog, Gumption.

I may be misrepresenting myself or possess an inaccurate view of my personality, because my profile is receiving evaluations with consistently low accuracy. It would seem people think I am far more organized and conservative than I believe myself to be.

According to the study, it might be because I'm a guy. Women consistently scored higher both in ability to evaluate others' profiles accurately and creating profiles that are evaluated accurately.

Or maybe I just don't want to admit I'm a dirty hippie.

-Robot Crusoe

Wall E non-sequitor

I went to see Wall E with my girlfriend yesterday, and I couldn't help but think that someone at Pixar has been playing Portal; a game included in Valve's Orange Box.

The companion feature, Presto!, revolves around a set of magician's hats that mimic the function of Portal's proprietary "portal gun." Anyone who spent a lot of time playing the game (read: me) probably discovered half of the gags used in the film: throwing an object through a portal to have it hit you when gravity sends it back, using a portal to "catch" a falling player, etc.

I think Portal is one of the most innovative games I've played in a long time and it pleases me to know someone at Pixar probably thinks so too.

-Robot Crusoe

Data Portability

Previously, I discussed the next step in social networking; portable network identities that travel the web. This kind of networking depends on "data portability" and an infrastructure that allows it.

OpenID addresses the problems inherent in current social networking trends online and providing a foundation for data portability.

This video talks about data portability and developing technologies.

The accompanying article addresses hurdles to data portability, namely social sites like Facebook that claim ownership of all information that appears on their websites.

Data portability is the first step in establishing universal network identities. For example, if I logged into Open Social as Robot Crusoe; any website that I interacted with and anyone I interacted with on those websites would know me as Robot Crusoe and all the associated information I provided about myself. My on-line experience would be streamlined and I could take advantage of any networks without the need to create a new identity.

A side-effect of this experience is a degree of social accountability; which I discussed a few posts ago. If I rip someone off as Robot Crusoe on EBay then it would not only negatively impact my reputation there, but potentially other sites where someone might be interested in that information. Griefing someone in one on-line game could mean players in another might ostracise me. I would also be subject to social pressures; with a universal Internet identity comes a reputation that I may attempt to control by censoring the content that I share.

This will undoubtedly raise privacy concerns; Internet users are used to anonymity and may not take to greater social accountability.

I believe it will take an initiative as large as Google's Open Social to break the consolidated social networking paradigm. Whether Facebook will adapt and survive the transition remains to be seen.

-Robot Crusoe

Footprints in Cyberspace

All eyes are on Google as a court order to hand over personal information on its users has many concerned about privacy infringement.

Viacom claims that the data is necessary to the 1 billion dollar copyright infringement case against Youtube (a company owned by Google.)

This begs the question as to why Google was holding on to the data in the first place; which couldn't be compromised via court order if it wasn't stored.

Orin Huirvitz discusses and criticizes Google's privacy policy here.

As we streamline media use and integrate it with social networking; we leave a larger and more precise footprint in cyberspace.

One of the inherent advantages of the Internet; being able to track and quantify everything; becomes an issue of privacy.

Everything we look at and even how long we look at it can be tracked to the second. A company called Tacoda even tracks where your mouse goes on a given website. (If you want to opt-out of their data collection you can choose to do so here.)

User privacy is a big deal; I remember when AOL made user data available to the public...for no reason.

As legislators, judges, and lawyers sort through everything, it is probably worth your time to carefully read the statement of user privacy the next time you sign up for anything online.

-Robot Crusoe

The expanding metaverse: wild west of the future

One thing many utopiac visions of a technological singularity fail to consider are the mitigating social, ethical, cultural, and economic factors that influence the development of technology.

This article by Jamais Casco illustrates my point. I'm sure that two decades ago futurists pontificating about the glorious democratization of information on the Internet didn't anticipate spam e-mail. This is not to say the benefits of the Internet are nullified by spam, but it demonstrates the practical and unexpected ramifications of new technology.

Currently, there is very little accountability on the Internet. Almost every action I take is anonymous and largely unfiltered. There are measures in place to prevent cybercrime, but it goes largely unreported and unchecked.

It is interesting to consider social behavior on the Internet within the context of anonymity and the moral vacuum it can create. I am reminded of Plato's Republic where Glaucon proposes a character, Gyges, who becomes corrupt when he discovers a ring that makes him invisible. Plato spends a good deal of his work proving that an unjust man is unhappy even if there is no social pressure for him to be unhappy with his injustice (and the inverse.)

The Internet truly provides an opportunity to be anonymous and invisible, and without social and legal pressures to suppress "amoral" tendencies. The result is very nearly the Gyges hyptohesis incarnate.

One only has to look at the anonymous comments on a political blog to see that people are far less concerned with decorum or even harassment via the anonymous medium of the Internet. I should note that I am considering Internet "handles" to be anonymous identities as there is virtually no verification process for any self-reported information.

As the Internet begins to merge with the physical world, the so-called "metaverse," I believe greater accountability will be necessary and inevitable.

Actions on the Internet already have real world ramifications, but they aren't usually directly physical. As soon as people can be physically affected by actions on the Internet; your car windshield being hacked to display ads for example, accountability will follow Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Even as people become more immersed in digital networks and social contracts develop to promote trust in those networks; the information superhighway is still a little more Mad Max than Family Vacation.

Oh, and if you don't believe that hacking your windshield is possible; check out this humorous article about advertising in the future.

-Robot Crusoe

Redefining social Internet networks

Facebook and Myspace might be growing at an incredible rate, but I believe they represent a very early manifestation of the future for on-line social networking.

One limitation of most social networks, like Facebook, is that they only exist on Facebook. That is to say, if I want to do any social networking, I have to leave whatever website I'm currently viewing, and log into the Facebook server, or at least open a new tab or browser window.

This is counter-intuitive to the natural social experience where we interact while engaging in other behavior, be it work or entertainment.

Google is already addressing this aspect of social networking with OpenSocial. By integrating social networking into regular navigation, people can connect and share information via common interests and "web proximity", just like people might meet and socialize in real life when engaging in common-interest activity.

I think the next step is to integrate web navigation and networking with physical proximity. Imagine portable Google-type maps that know where you are, tell you how to get where you want, what you can buy or do there, and if any of your friends or people you might want to meet are there too. Much of this already exists for products like the Iphone, but it isn't fully integrated into a single easy to use navigation function.

I'm imagining navigating Internet "geography" concurrently with physical geography. My wireless device accesses and presents information regarding things around my physical location; menus, traffic reports, breaking news, retail, friends, etc.

Some incipient "proxemic" and mobile networking technology:

"Bluedating" services like Serendipity.
Nintendo DS wifi gaming.
The iPhone 3G's maps with GPS.
Twitter

-Robot Crusoe

Note: I admit I'm still playing catch-up with some of this technology; now that I'm keeping this blog, I try to stay abreast of the latest and greatest things going on in mass communication; but there's always stuff I don't know. Don't hesitate to call attention to anything that you think is relevant.

Free Broadband internet

Reuters reports that the FCC wants to auction a section of wireless airwaves for a buyer to provided free wireless broadband to Americans. Conditions would include coverage for at least half of the U.S. in four years and a filter to prevent access to pornographic content.

If successful, free wireless broadband would have far reaching social implications. Not only would a greater degree of the population have access to the Internet, but access anywhere.

This consistent wireless coverage would provide an infrastructure for all sorts of network devices, not the least of which would be portable wifi phones. If reliable, consumers could forgo expensive cell service and access the Internet and telephone service anywhere for free.

I can imagine phone companies won't just roll over and take it, as they certainly haven't taken domestic VoiP services competition lying down. One hopes that network neutrality will prevail and consumers will have access to the best and cheapest service.

Universal wireless Internet connectivity is the future of the Internet's evolution and a necessary step towards a truly hyper-connected society. As barriers to information access come down, more and more people will turn to the Internet as a resource for information sharing.

Not only does this lead to further democratization of information, but a reliance on the technology for more and more intra and interpersonal activities.

If we cannot fathom living without our Internet and cell phones, does that already make us transhuman?

-Robot Crusoe

FOOTNOTE: Here's the FCC's proposal

Social Networks for Science

My new favorite time waster isn't such a waste of time:

Fold it! is a flash puzzle game from the University of Washington's schools of computer science & engineering and biochemistry.



Players manipulate protein chains with a 3D interface. The goal: the highest score by folding the most compact and efficient chain.

The results of the competition turn up predictive protein configurations that could help scientists understand how proteins play a role in causing or curing disease.

Computers have been doing this for a while, but it is time consuming and expensive. This relatively simple game attempts to capitalize on human problem solving skills en masse.

If a thousand human minds concurrently try to solve a given puzzle while connected in real time, could the resulting network be described as a "hive mind" or super-brain?

I think the individual minds could be described as nodes in a larger intelligence, each interpreting and generating information that is compiled and prioritized by the network.

What do you think?

-Robot Crusoe

Internet on your mind

This will be a short post to introduce a topic I want to address in more depth when I have more time.

I read this article several months ago and I've been mulling over something that appears near the end.

The subject of the article concerns a Zogby poll about the role of the Internet in people's lives. One thing in particular stuck out:

Only 11 percent of respondents said they would be willing to safely implant a
device that let them use their mind to access the Internet although one in five
would insert a chip into a child 13 years old or younger to help track them.

Not only are one out of 10 people in the sample open to the idea of a cerebral cyber-surfing, but Zogby thought it was a question worth asking.

What sort of ramifications would wireless brain Internet have for humanity? Knowledge would take on a wholly different aspect. What difference is there between looking up a piece of information in your own database (memory) or on the Internet if it can be done almost instantly and without physical effort?

I'm sure the technology for this sort of interface is a ways off, but if Zogby is polling about it; then it's on someone's mind.

-Robot Crusoe

Cellular Sigularity

This article about hyper-connectivity, found on Reuters.com last month, didn't give me much pause. It shows that more North Americans would choose their cell phone over their wallet if they had to leave their home for 24 hours with only one item.

Wouldn't you take your cell phone? I feel any situation requiring a 24 hour evacuation of my home is probably an emergency, and as such, I want to be in touch with my family, friends, and emergency services. All things that are apparently more important to me than the driver's license, college ID, Kroger card, and 27 cents in my wallet.

But what if you had to choose between your phone or your clothes?

In the States we might choose pants over hyper-connected public nudity, but citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo would disagree.

The Washington Post ran this article in 2006 about cell phone use in the war-torn African nation.

In the article, Gilbert Nkuli of Vodacom Congo, says ""People would rather be without a shirt and trousers and they'd rather go for days without food, instead of not having a phone."

You really should read the whole article for a glimpse at how cell phones are changing the developing world; and how the developing world is changing cell phones.

Pre-paid cell phone minutes can be transferred from one phone to another, giving rise to a new barter system.

This economy is subject to virtually no regulation, doesn't require customer proximity to make a transaction and enables people in dangerous places to store their money safely... in their cell phone.

Will first world nations be outstripped by the emerging wireless markets in developing countries as they adapt more quickly and creatively to the potential of hyper-connected economy?

We might believe we started the cell phone revolution, but Americans are not using cell phones like the rest of the world, and especially Africa. According to Eprom, people in third world nations represent the majority of cell phone subscribers. Africa leads the world with an annual 65% ride in mobile phone use.

Pre-paid phone minutes may never become the leading global currency, but it isn't hard to imagine a truly global network giving rise to an economy that operates without the backing of a government.

Especially when all those cell phones in Africa start connecting to the Internet at high speeds. That Washington Post article is two years old. If and when African cell phone users start connecting, they will represent the lion's share of Internet users as well.

It may be that the cell phone will be the device that begins to close the huge economic and educational disparity between the peoples of the industrialized and developing worlds.

-Robot Crusoe


More blogs and articles to check out about cell phone use in developing countries:
Cell phones may help "save" Africa
Motorola Introduces Dirt-Cheap Cell Phone For Developing Countries
Video: Future of health care in developing nations tied to cell phones

Social Singularity

Much has been said about the so called "technological singularity."

The term, coined by mathematician and science fiction author Vernor Vinge, refers to a proposed point in the future when intelligent machines will be able to make themselves more intelligent; setting off a cycle of recursive augmentation resulting in intelligences beyond human comprehension.

While there is healthy debate about the validity of this theory, I think there is something to be said for the obvious and accelerating changes in our day to day lives; especially on the social level.

For instance, I find my frequent personal interaction to be less and less defined by proxemics.

This was painfully obvious to me recently when my neighbors upstairs threw a rowdy rendez-vous. I won't go into too many details, but I did end up chasing a nascent fraternity slob out of the building when he urinated on my door. I ran upstairs to demand satisfaction from my neighbors, and confronted with a hedonistic mob, could not identify who actually lived in the apartment and who had just dropped in for debauchery.

I regularly correspond with friends half a world away and I had never spoken with the people living on the other side of my ceiling.

I must not be the only person to observe this phenomena; now there's a website for people who want to meet their neighbors on-line instead of meeting them in real life.

Meettheneighbors.org provides a free homepage for neighbors to communicate, organize, and (hopefully) avoid unfortunate urination.

This blog will address the more human aspect of accelerating returns, specifically in terms of social networking and how it is changing and will change human interaction through the next century.

I am interested not only in websites that categorize themselves as "social networks," Facebook , Myspace and the like; but any aspect of electronic communication that is changing or could change the way we interact with each other.

Before I regularly used a text messaging service on my cell phone, I was appalled to see people one-thumbing as they barrelled down the highway.

Now I admit I've occasionally squeezed off a, "Be there in two minutes!" while merging. (My obstinate refusal to use text message abbreviations probably makes this even more dangerous.)

Wherever all of this technology is leading us, we're heading there quickly and getting faster.

Many of my posts will come from personal observation and I in no way intend to represent myself as an expert on anything; I am merely an observer embedded in this rapidly unfolding and increasingly complex social fabric.

When possible I will link to reputable research and scientific inquiry; unless cited or linked, I'm pulling it all out of my blog.

-Robot Crusoe