Continous Computing and Mobility Changing Rapidly
Social Machines
MIT Technology Review, August 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/feature_social.asp?p=1
Excerpts:
After a decade of hype about "mobility," personal computing has finally and irreversibly cut its bonds to the desktop and has moved into devices we can carry everywhere. We're using this newly portable computing power to connect with others in ways no one predicted--and we won't be easily parted from our new tools.
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This explosion of new capabilities shouldn't be mistaken for "feature creep," the accretion of special functions that has made common programs such as Microsoft Word so mystifyingly complex. There is something different about the latest tools. They are both digital, rooted in the world of electrons and bits, and fundamentally social, built to enable new kinds of interactions among people. Blogging, text messaging, photo sharing, and Web surfing from a smart phone are just the earliest examples. Almost below our mental radar, these technologies are ushering us into a world of what could be called continuous computing--continuous in the usual sense of "uninterrupted," but also in the sense that it's continuous with our lives, in all their messy, social, biographical richness.
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This information field enables people to both pull information about virtually anything from anywhere, at any time, and push their own ideas and personalities back onto the Internet--without ever having to sit down at a desktop computer. Armed with nothing more than a smart phone, a modern urbanite can get the answer to almost any question; locate nearby colleagues, friends, and services; join virtual communities that form and disband rapidly around shared work and shared interests; and self-publish blog entries, photographs, audio recordings, and videos for an unlimited audience.
MIT Technology Review, August 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/issue/feature_social.asp?p=1
Excerpts:
After a decade of hype about "mobility," personal computing has finally and irreversibly cut its bonds to the desktop and has moved into devices we can carry everywhere. We're using this newly portable computing power to connect with others in ways no one predicted--and we won't be easily parted from our new tools.
---
This explosion of new capabilities shouldn't be mistaken for "feature creep," the accretion of special functions that has made common programs such as Microsoft Word so mystifyingly complex. There is something different about the latest tools. They are both digital, rooted in the world of electrons and bits, and fundamentally social, built to enable new kinds of interactions among people. Blogging, text messaging, photo sharing, and Web surfing from a smart phone are just the earliest examples. Almost below our mental radar, these technologies are ushering us into a world of what could be called continuous computing--continuous in the usual sense of "uninterrupted," but also in the sense that it's continuous with our lives, in all their messy, social, biographical richness.
---
This information field enables people to both pull information about virtually anything from anywhere, at any time, and push their own ideas and personalities back onto the Internet--without ever having to sit down at a desktop computer. Armed with nothing more than a smart phone, a modern urbanite can get the answer to almost any question; locate nearby colleagues, friends, and services; join virtual communities that form and disband rapidly around shared work and shared interests; and self-publish blog entries, photographs, audio recordings, and videos for an unlimited audience.
posted by Larry Malone at 11:33 PM
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