Everything Everywhere
In this text, the writer looks at issues concerning microcomputers in our environment. Some of the difficulties concerning this deployment of sensors are due to the nature of technologies; the material is expensive, and it necessitates a wide array of professionals to get the project running.
It is fascinating how large networks of microcomputers could be formed to retrieve data from our surrounding. This could bring a better understanding of nature and could also help us save it. A basic example is Pister with his light monitoring system in factories, office buildings and homes. Even if the project was created for lucrative purposes, the factory (for example) can monitor it’s electrical intake and adjust it, which saves the environment by using less electricity. Pister also brought up a good point by saying that after creating commercial work, the scientific world can pick up on the technology and use it for it’s own needs. It made me think of how the Internet was once a military funded project that today is used by a wide variety of professionals. It is easy to foresee that technology like sensors will evolve to be of greater use to scientists, just like how the internet became something of a much greater impact then initially intended.
The Internet Of Things
This text starts by looking at two contrasting future cities where cameras would be omnipresent. In one city, cameras are implemented everywhere, and every image would be in the control of a secret police. It is a city of terror, much like the panopticon by Foucault, or 1984 by Orwell. The other city also has cameras in every corner, but the images are available to everyone, and not only the property of a secret police. It is a community built on trust instead of fear. The contrast was effective, using the same technologies that scare most people, one can see the future as positive and full of hope.
In a more modern approach to things, since we now know that cameras are not that effective for crime fighting, the author suggests for the City Of Control identifying all objects and humans with RFID tags. That way everything, from your groceries to the people you frequent could be identified and monitored by the authorities. In the City Of Trust, the same technology could be used differently. For example, if you forget your laptop on the train, you could locate it again and retrieve it. Since all objects would be tagged, no one would dare steal it and would much rather return it to its owner.
The need for there to be a plan, or a blueprint as to what our cities are going to become in an era of technologies is of dire importance, but not enough are thinking ahead. Many tracking technologies already exist; companies already track what their consumers buy and camera systems are already in place. But it is for us to fight the future “of control” and to make a future “of trust” for ourselves and our children.