Daily Archives

15 March 2011

1 point to YouTube commenter

Architecture, Cars, Food/Drink, Internet, Technology by
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In this product showcase from Corning – that io9 has dubbed “creepy” – we are presented with a world that benefits largely from the ubiquitous integration of touch-enable data displays integrated into every day glass surfaces. It’s beautiful and I want to live in this version of the future, but I think the first YouTube commenter summed up a nagging feeling in the back of my mind best:

BUY STOCK IN WINDEX NOW!!!

Aside from the impossibly clean houses, cars and public spaces that Corning seems to envision, I am also curious about how we are powering more and more screens at bigger and bigger sizes.  How are we producing all of this glass and where?  And who has access to the technology aside from the conspicuously diverse group of under 40s actors who portrayed “the near future”.

They may always end up as fodder for Paleofuture, but these videos sure do encapsulate the nearly Utopian dreams of our modern society, don’t they?

Evolution of Social AI

General Entertainment, Work by
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io9 asks the question “What can science fiction tell us about the future of social media?” by first defining social media as any communication that can be easily repurposed and shared without being tethered or hindered by a static form.  In that way, the entirety of our online content is social.  This realization serves to underline just how dramatically vast the body of this mostly un-studied cultural force really is.

As part of a panel at SXSW, futurists, bloggers and authors from the world of Science Fiction were brought together to discuss what lessons our stories of the coming years can teach us.  A common thread throughout the conversation was the unintended establishment of a permanently stored record of an increasingly blurred set of identities for each individual.  By contributing to a collective dialogue through reposting, commenting, sharing, etc we are each always leaving a record of ourselves in an internet overmind – no matter what facet of ourselves is operating at that time of the day.  Where do we go when the lines between personal and professional, work and family, home and afield, student and teacher blur to indistinction?  And how do we reconcile the statements made on and off the clock when they all aggregate in a single feed?

[…] citizens of this society […] have taken back user control by inventing new internal organs which are constantly negotiating privacy settings in every social situation.

– article author, Annalee Newitz discusses The Quantum Thief

The quote above sounds far-fetched but you could switch “organ” out for “context-aware mobile device” and arrive at our current point in time.  Will we develop even more ways of dealing with the need to continually censor and compartmentalize as more and more of our lives is permanently stored and readily accessible?   Will it matter to the next generation?  Already, I care very little about what others know of me and share to the point of consternating my significant other on a regular basis.  Will this be the new normal for society when the newly minted adults that are currently high school and college students take the reigns of a world that has always been social?