22 trust and lack thereof

having reading this incredible excerpt, my first thoughts are of trust. there is always somebody in charge and however we manage to pull off this technological wizardry, there will be people hacking, spamming and all the rest of it. who polices them? who polices the police? and who polices the police of the police… etc etc…

secondly, how will we ensure there are enough chioces. people who don’t trust Microsoft passionately evangelise Linux. if, in a technology of the future, there comes to be a monopoly, would people have this freedom? would you be able to ‘downsize’ to freeware? or would it all be exclusively available on only one system?

i am probably missing huge chunks of what this could be all about, but i am very interested to know more and am hottly awaiting my crisp freshly wrapped copy of the book.

posted at 09:34 pm on April 6, 2006 by Ian Burrett

23 What about the alternative?

While I know that everyware is undoubtedly going to pervade (invade) most of civilized society sooner or later, I for one would rather live without any technology at all than with technology surrounding me at all times and steering my course of existence.

I’m a currently freelance web developer by trade; I do this because I’m good at it, because I get paid well for it, and because I need to build up some finances. I don’t do it because I gain any enjoyment or satisfaction from doing so. In fact, I utterly detest the way that technology has become necessary rather than complimentary to human life.

I intend to move far, far away from all technology-driven civilization and actually live a life which will satisfy me physically, philosophically and spiritually – far more than a lifetime of technological mollycoddling, as portrayed in this article, ever could!

posted at 01:36 pm on April 7, 2006 by Tom Allen

25 Where will we find the alternative?

Tom Allen:
While I don’t quite share your level of contempt for our ever-increasingly “technology-driven civilization,” I do see the problem with becoming enveloped by the technology to the loss of our ability to live without it (see Woody Allen’s oddly applicable and startlingly prescient “Sleeper”).
I totally agree, however, with the run-to-the-hills, commune with nature attitude. I work in computers and web design, but I dream of the low-tech life, or at least the ability to step out of the digital realm for a nice sit. But will future (or current) generations even be able to sit on the porch with a drink without having (at a minimum) a cell phone on their person? That’s exactly why I got rid of mine – owning one meant people expected me to be connected 24/7. It’s not quite the same as my fridge e-mailing me that the mustard is nearly empty and the milk is spoiling, but it’s an early point along the same line.
I wonder if in the future we will be able to access the non-digital realm without first plugging ourselves in?

posted at 06:14 pm on April 7, 2006 by Matt Fitzgerald

26 What about the side effects ?

What about the growing amount of garbage that is created by the multiplication of microships (by replacing computers or mobiles, adding ships everywhere)? What about the multiplication of low frequencies, not yet be proven as dangerous, but that scientist ignore the long term effects?

I don’t see ubiquitous computing as becoming something else than the amplified reflect of our current society: rich people living in their bubble, completly cut from the reality (the sad one). Are we just working to make this bubble sweeter ?

posted at 05:48 pm on April 9, 2006 by Remy Bertot

27 For further reading...

Remy, John Thackara’s In the Bubble" talks quite a lot about the socio-economic and ecological implications of these technologies. (Ironically, his use of the term “in the bubble” isn’t the same as the way you use it.) It’s actually a pretty sobering read, but given Adam’s focus on design ethics, it’s very relevant to “Everyware.”

posted at 03:36 pm on April 10, 2006 by Andrew Otwell

28 For further reading... (2)

..and though I’ll bet Adam wouldn’t suggest it on his own, Mau’s Massive Change tries to make designers aware of the many impacts that new design and manufacturing processes have.

posted at 05:24 pm on April 10, 2006 by Andrew Otwell

29 huh?

I didn’t like this article much. I kept wondering when the author was going to start speaking english. Then I got a good laugh as he acted like a pretentious brat in the comments here. He hasn’t done much else here either.

I’m a big fan of ALA and have been for a long time. But this is just silly.

posted at 10:07 pm on April 10, 2006 by bill heartwell

30 Missed point...

Mr. Greenfield;

Perhaps I have missed the point of your book, and maybe the point of your article. Though, in retrospect I think my thoughts were probably as tangental as your article — meaning, that I haven’t read your book and cannot understand all of your assumptions as you probably don’t understand mine.

However, I don’t think your point is moot… I think this is indeed an important conversation.

My only criticism, if it can be called that, is that I’m not entirely sure that “everyware” is an applicable term if we consider the implied entymology. The software and systems which you mention are not “everywhere” by a long shot yet and I doubt they will become invasive and all-encompassing in the long-term.

Perhaps they will for those of us in the upper-strata of the economy, but until the percentage of persons who own a sophisticated electronic device can get above a critical-mass; it’s in my opinion that a lot of this conversation is purely theoretical.

(Which of course doesn’t invalidate the argument, but I do think that there might be a more suitable word than ‘everyware.’ Catchy-ness is useful for marketing, but we cannot allow market-speak to delude our language).

posted at 07:57 pm on April 11, 2006 by James King