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