Ubicomp/Everyware

“I’ve seen a great deal of techno-optimism and even -utopianism around ubicomp, including a fair amount from people who should know better. But despite a deep folk understanding of some of the risks involved - Philip K. Dick was writing stories featuring recalcitrant doors and dilatory automated taxis in the late 1950s, and we’ve all heard of HAL9000 - there hasn’t really been much in the way of people pushing back against the idea of ubicomp, in a measured and knowledgeable way. And so I’ve started to make some noise about what I see coming down the road, describing the reality I see lurking behind the marketing hype that’s already beginning to build about the ostensible “conveniences” that await us.”-Adam Greenfield interview on Studies and Observations.

Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing by Adam Greenfield:

From the RFID tags now embedded in everything from soda cans to the family pet, to smart buildings that subtly adapt to the changing flow of visitors, to gestural interfaces like the ones seen in Minority Report, computing no longer looks much like it used to. Increasingly invisible but present everywhere in our lives, it has moved off the desktop and out into everyday life–affecting almost every one of us, whether we’re entirely aware of it or not.

Author Adam Greenfield calls this ubiquitous computing “everyware.” In a uniquely engaging approach to this complex topic, Greenfield explains how such “information processing dissolving in behavior” is reshaping our lives; brief, aphoristic chapters explore the technologies, practices, and innovations that make everyware so powerful and seem so inevitable.

If you’ve ever sensed both the promise of the next computing, and the challenges it represents for all of us, this is the book for you. “Everyware” aims to gives its reader the tools to understand the next computing, and make the kind of wise decisions that will shape its emergence in ways that support the best that is in us.

Adam Greenfield is principal of the New York City-based design consultancy Studies and Observations. He was previously lead information architect for the Tokyo office of Razorfish. His personal Web site, v-2.org, was nominated for a Chrysler Design Award in 2000.

[via Interactive Architecture dot org]