Review: “Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing” by Adam Greenfield

First of all, I have to confess that it took me six weeks to get through this one. Significant, that, given that the subject matter is right up my digital alley.

“Everyware”, as described by the author, is literally the seeding of the world we live in with computers that are, well, everywhere—built into the devices we use daily, from our coffee cups to our refrigerators to our pets. Appliances, we are told, will communicate with one another, billing will be automatic, our needs will be fulfilled and even anticipated by an intelligent organized web of 1’s and 0’s.

Yes, this is one of those books which informs us that soon, like it or not, our very clothing will be monitoring us, and maybe communicating personal facts to the world at large.

Good thing I’m a naturist.

If some of this seems familiar, it may be because we’ve already started down the path. Consider the act, commonplace already, of using a cell phone to snap a shot of a real estate sign. within moments, if the sign contains an appropriate bar code, you can be taking a virtual tour of the property in question. A mere five years ago, this might have sounded more like something out of “Star Trek”.

And that is the whole point of the book: that the traditional concept of computer as PC is fast coming to an end, following its ancestors (the mainframe and the mini-computer) into relative obsolescence. Next up: tablets, readers, and ingrained processors.

    Greenfield makes no claim that all of this will happen tomorrow. Indeed, many of his book’s theses (instead of chapters) outline some of what prevents it: “The necessary network infrastructure does not exist’’; “Appropriate design documents and conventions do not yet exist”; etc. Perhaps most important of all: “As yet, everywhere offers the user no compelling and clearly stated value proposition”.

There are cautions here as well, some dealing with the continued erosion of privacy which everywhere might aggravate: “What if every fact about which we generally try to dissemble, in our crafting of a mask to show the world, was instead made readily and transparently available? ... who you’ve chosen to befriend in your life, say, or what kinds of intimacy you choose to share with them, but not others.” Clearly, everyware is about more than a countertop that displays traffic reports. “It brings along with it the certainty that if a fact once enters the grid—any fact, of any sort, from your Aunt Helga’s blood pressure at noon last Sunday to the way you currently feel about your most recent ex-boyfriend—it will acquire a strange kind of immortality.”

There are observations of how some countries—like Japan—are less likely to embrace the Internet than they are the mobile web. One wonders, then, if the near future in North America will look a bit like the orient today. (I can remember wondering the same thing back in 1999 in Hong Kong, where I first saw widespread sales of flat screen TVs.)

If the book has one major shortcoming—for this reader, anyways—it’s the overwrought use of the English language. Occasionally, it’s almost Victorian: “The discourse of seamlessness effaces or elides meaningful distinctions between systems.” Um, sure... of course it does. The pink ones, especially. I mean, I do realize that I’m not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but sheesh...

All in all, however, not a bad collection of essays for the reader searching for hints of the possible future.

All I Want for Christmas

This blog entry was hand-written on a touchscreen, 10-year-old Personal Data Assistant (remember PDAs?). My Casio BE-300 "Cassiopeia"--I actually own two of them--has handwriting recognition, plays movies and MP3s, and can view and/or edit office files, photos, etc. I purchased it originally so I could write wherever I was, and also so I could read ebooks.

Flash forward seven years, and PDAs are yesterday's tech. Netbooks--suddenly I needed one of those. So I got one, a Dell with a solid state drive so I wouldn't have to worry about vibrations killing the drive. (Heat and a design flaw did that after four months, causing my first and only drive failure in over two decades of computing.) I got my netbook cheap, since all of a sudden...

...tablets exploded onto the scene. And having spent my tech cash over the years on five desktops, one netbook, two PDAs, and more upgrades than I care to admit to, all I could do was run to the end of my fiscal chain and bark.

I felt I NEEDED an iPad, dammit. Whoops, make that an iPad 2. And an iPhone 3, er, 4...4s. No, wait, isn't 5 on the way?

Good god. What exactly is it I'm looking for? What slice of happiness and satisfaction is missing from my life that I imagine can be filled from electronic, external sources? When I really examine the issue, I have to admit that I'm deluding myself.

I've lots of company, though. Especially in December.

I turned on the 'net a few days ago to learn that, down in the States, some shopper went berserk and sprayed her peers with pepper spray--all in order to be first at a pallet of discounted e-goods. What kind of a person does this?

It's times like this when I remember my stint of working in retail. I did this for a decade one year, the time served stretched tenfold by the neuroses of the public. I was a $6 an hour clerk working for someone who still believed in the class system, trying to work the till with a cheery smile. The customers, for their part, had just realized that the Kincaid-painted, Matha Stewart world of Christmas perfection had once again somehow fallen beyond their grasp. ("I needed only 3 more transparent blue bulbs to fill that string on my eaves...and all they had left was SOLID blue. Can you believe it? Christmas is ruined!")

They responded as only an affluent, Christmas-crazed culture might: they decided that the holidays were a sham, the most horrible time of the year, and that it was All The Direct Fault of the Evil, Minimum-Waged Clerk Behind the Till. The resulting bitchy snarling and downright meanness that resulted was at once both sad and amusing.

I confess, I had fun with it, by turning the whole affair into a bizarre social experiment. Depending on my mood, I began to offer my services in one of two different modes: 1) Pleasant and friendly but kind of pokey, deliberate and slow, or 2) Pleasant and friendly but super fast and efficient. Predictably, the result of mode 1 was a long line of Christmas shoppers that didn't move so fast. Just as predicably, Mode 2 resulted in a much shorter queue with smaller waiting times.

Not surprisingly, the public's reaction to these two styles of service was very different indeed. What WAS surprising was what those reactions were:

Mode 1 customers, who got the slower, friendly service, showed signs of calming down. Even the grumpier ones seemed a little better when I got to them, even as I took my time ringing them up, as long as I continued to serve them politely. Mode 2 customers, on the other hand--the ones who got the fast and efficient, yet still-friendly service? Those poor souls lost their minds.

At first I thought I was imagining it, but the weight of evidence grew. I went faster and faster, still giving the same polite, friendly service. The line grew shorter, waiting times dropped...and those served grew angrier and angrier. By the time my assistant and I reached the maximum speed the computerized till could handle, customers were actually wiggling their fingers at the printer, tearing their almost-finished receipts right out of it in a rage, then storming out the door. Some, during their abbreviated wait, actually pulled out their mobiles to complain to absent companions about the ''excruciatingly slow'' pace of clerks who obviously wanted to wreck their day. At least they tried to; by the time they'd started their rant, it was their turn at the checkout. This only seemed to enrage them more.

Then we'd drop once more to the pace of a snail--and the smiles would return.

I took away from this experience a trio of different things, one negative and two constructive. First, I learned that most people in the world are nuts, completely and utterly bonkers. But I also learned, at this time of year, to recognize in myself the signs of holiday stress. When that panic rises within me, that feeling of needing to get it ALL done, I simply remind myself that I don't. Forgot to stock up on eggnog? A glass of juice will do. Christmas light display a tad less spectacular than last year's? The neighbours will get over it. Kids (or yourself) miss A Charlie Brown Christmas? It's on now on three other channels. I've proved it to myself time and again: if I just let the holidays flow on their own, not forcing anything in at all, I'll discover later that our flawed, incomplete Christmas was the best we've had so far.

Lastly, I've learned just a bit to be kind. I know what the clerks in the stores are going through. Even if they seem grumpy themselves, I know they have their reasons. If I'm kind to them anyway, they just might respond to me the same.

And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

.

Review: Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything

For everyone plagued by digital clutter—you know, those tens of thousands of decade-old files filling up folders on your computer’s hard drive that you may not even remember you had, much less the purpose of—Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell have a solution.

Generate more of it.

That, of course, is not quite the premise of Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything. Rather, Total Recall is meant to document the advent of what the authors see as the Next Big Thing in computer use: e-memory. E-memory, apparently, is the use of various technologies to capture and preserve as much of your life as possible. The authors once worked for Microsoft Research on something called the MyLifeBits project. Bell began recording his calls, scanning his documents, and wearing a camera and a biometric recorder; in short, recording his life. As a result of this, they have convinced themselves that e-memory will be something everyone wants very soon.

The premise of the book, then, is to somehow convince us of that.

With a forward by no less than Bill Gates himself, the book charges into it with Chapter One: The Vision. In this, we come across a paragraph that may well some up the excitement the authors feel for their subject:

With the same ease with which you can now search for just about any subject on the Web, you will be able to search your own electronic memory for any arbitrary item of knowledge you have ever encountered, any snippet of conversation to which you have ever been party, any document that has ever passed before your eyes, any place you have ever visited, any person you have ever met.

Beyond the obvious advantages of being able to do all this, the authors suggest more subtle ones. Software, they insist, will allow you to sort and sift through your digital memories to uncover patterns in your life you could never have gleaned with your unaided brain, for example.

The authors claim this software will store away the digital clutter of life, the 99% of it that is dull routine, while presenting only the highlights (unless asked to do otherwise). For example, if your e-memory GPS shows you in the same location for breakfast as usual, it will not consider that of much note. But if there are more faces at the table than usual, or if you are in a different location, than it will.

Part Two of the book devotes chapters to the supposed advantages of e-memory in work, health, learning, and everyday life and afterlife. Remember the 2004 Canadian film The Final Cut, starring Robin Williams? In that, everyone had memory chips implanted in their bodies as babies, chips that recorded every moment of their lives. After their deaths, Robin Williams’ character (a “cutter”), edited the contents of these chips down to a “rememory” film, the ultimate home video. This is sort of where the authors are going with that last bit.

And here is where the book hits one of its fatal flaws: it invites us to take our history and write it down in disappearing ink. As other researchers have pointed out, we are already doing this. For a quick example of what I mean, consider this scenario: a scientist has two items on her desk, a slab of rock with 8000-year-old hieroglyphics, and a 20-year-old research paper stored safely on a disk. Which of the two is she not able to read?

Answer: the modern document, of course. While the researcher has translated the ancient writing, safely preserved in stone, she is completely unable to read the contents of the two decade-old large floppy disk before her. Even if she could track down the necessary hardware—no longer manufactured—that disk may well have de-magnetized by now. And if not, how can she read the Whatever 1.0 file format the document was stored in? Is the company that made it still in business? Does Microsoft or someone make a format conversion plug-in? Are there software licensing issues to consider?

Consider that tape Grandpa made of his dad telling stories of his WW2 experiences. Sure, it was on reel-to-reel tape, but Uncle Bobby transferred them faithfully onto cassette back in 1972. Then brother Joe made CD copies of that for everyone in the family. Little Sarah, who has a thing for history, converted it all into MP3 for anyone who wanted it. Of course, MP3’s days are numbered now that FLAC is coming into existence…but someone will convert it again when the time comes.

Yeah, right, to all the above. The reality is, cousin Stan used that original reel-to-reel tape for packing ribbon 25 years ago. And this is where the premise of the book begins to fall apart. Even the author himself admits to putting films on VHS—and from there onto DVD. DVD’s days are numbered, as are BluRay’s (sooner than you think). And if you think there will always be someone available and willing to convert an ever-growing body of e-memory into the next format-o’-the-day, dream on. And if there was, even digital data can deteriorate, if converted from one format to another using consumer-grade applications.

The last part of the book promises to show the reader how to start recording his own life in a similar fashion. There are some good tips here, but nowhere near enough. The problem is one of data-mining, really—the more you got, the harder it is to sift through. And easily-obtained software that can do some of what is described in the book is not exactly sitting on the shelves of your friendly neighbourhood Future Shop.

All of this is not to say that Total Recall is not worth reading, however. The fact is, I very much enjoyed hearing what these two had to say. I myself have already managed to put much of my own life online (and discovered for myself some of the problems mentioned above).

I do not believe, however, that the average person is going to find his/her own life quite so fascinating that they would want to go to all the fuss, any more than I believe my own life is, really. It all seems rather a futile effort to try and achieve immortality by inserting oneself onto a chip.

And I’m sorry. That just ain’t gonna happen.

Review: "Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ", by Richard Dooling

The cover of Rapture harkens to the days of green text on a grainy black monitor: the highlight is an electric smiley winking back at you. What’s behind that smiley? Does the almighty computer know more than it’s letting on? Not likely, you say…but will it, and if so, when? And what’s going to happen then?

These are the questions Richard Dooling attempts to explore in this engaging essay on the singularity: the point in history, predicted to happen soon, when the capacities of computing machines surpass the capacities of us.

Not a tame subject, and Dooling knows it. He isn’t afraid to go places with it, though, places that are sure to offend some, amuse others, and give everyone in-between pause for thought. The book is stuffed with technological tidbits…did you know the capacity of the human brain is 10 petaflops? That IBM created a machine three years ago that runs at 3 petaflops? That NASA’s newest is currently receiving upgrades that will bring it by 2012 to 10 petaflops—the same as the human brain?

That computer hardware will match us is not in question. What Dooling concerns himself with is more esoteric matters of the singularity—for example, will the software ever be written that can mimic the human condition? That bit is not so clear, and he cites the opinions of many experts in the various affected fields to argue yay or nay. There are religious or spiritual considerations as well, and these are delved into also. After reading some chapters of this book, I was beginning to see reality itself in a different light. Just what is reality, anyway?

And what about consciousness? Let’s assume we invent a machine that can match us in every way we can think (pun intended). It acts like us, dreams like us, has wishes and desires like us. Maybe even pack it into an android body. Okay…is it sentient? Does it, or should it, have rights the same as us?

Does it have a soul? Do we?

The mind reels at all these considerations—and Dooling delights in reminding us that we may need to be making these considerations in the not so distant future. (I did find it disappointing that he didn’t mention the very latest in experimental computing, specifically, the use of organic brain tissue. That’s a whole other can of digital worms there. Fifty years from now when the time comes to throw out your old toaster, is that toaster going to want to go?) Aside of all that, however, this book is just fun reading for your inner geek. Consider one prediction for the future in which computers, having surpassed our intellectual abilities (the logical follow-up to the singularity), decide that man isn’t actually needed. Didn’t Asimov write about that? Or Bradbury? This time around, though, the story may be for real.

The book rambles into other areas as well. For example, the fragility of modern-day documents. Why is it we can read documents carved in stone 3000 years ago, but ones placed in Starwriter format (or whatever) on big reels of tape (or whatever) 20 years ago may be gone for good? Not only does the hardware media fade away into obsolescence, so do the proprietary file formats we store them in.

Lastly, the book is peppered with informative, ironic, or hilarious quotes from near and afar. If nothing else, I’m glad I read it just to collect a few of these gems.

All in all, a thought-provoking, interesting read.

Review: Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change, by Bob Seidensticker

First of all, this is not the kind of book I normally read.

The non-fiction I normally devour promotes technology as a way of life. The volumes I crack open paint pictures of digital Nirvana, its circuits woven through our lives until they become invisible ingredients of the very fabric. The tech-tomes I love are ones which tell me that all problems known to mankind can be solved with technology.

Well, not quite…but I am obviously a techie. Anyone who’s expressed the goal of making his house a self-monitoring, intelligent entity—more on that some other day—has got to be a fan of tech. So it was a bit unusual for me to pick up a book that proclaims the e-Emperor to be wearing no clothes. It might be because I’ve noticed lately that too much of my time is spent configuring things. I’m just old enough to remember when the world was analogue…things seemed simpler then as opposed to now. What’s happening to our digital utopia? I decided to get another point of view.

The author of the book, Bob Seidensticker, wants to talk to us about the times we’re living in—these times of rapid-fire change unlike any that has ever been in the history of man. And what he wants us to know about all this change, this acceleration, this what-on-earth-will-they-invent-tomorrow blur we live in is simply this:

It’s all a bunch of hype.

The book is intelligently presented, first with examples of technologies developed in centuries past. It weighs the importance of each, and comes up with surprising answers. Not everything we’ve done in the past generation or two was really all that important in comparison. And not every technology of millennia past pales in comparison to those of today.

The book is peppered with quotes worth remembering, from tech and political leaders present and past: “We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.” “I have seen the future, and it’s still in the future.” “The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” My personal favourite: “For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”

Seidensticker never seems to be content to state an opinion without backing it up with relevant facts. For example, he points out how “the next big thing” is usually just a technology that has temporarily received society’s spotlight…until the next big thing after that comes along. Thus, the age of cathedral building…of printing…of steam…of nuclear power…the space age…the information age…nanotechnology…and onward.

The book is divided into two main parts, the first dealing with the ways we see technology incorrectly. The second part discusses how “the more things change, well…”

The author wisely makes no attempt to get us to disrespect technology. What he does do is to leave us with a healthy set of guidelines for interpreting change correctly. What signs are there that the “next big thing” really will be? Is it really going to change humanity in the way that the printing press did? Or will it wind up as a footnote in the path of mankind’s development?

In all, a fascinating book, one guaranteed to help us keep it all in perspective.