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dkapitan
Member Since:
17 May 2006
Posts:1
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17 May 2006 9:05 PM |
4 have marked this post as Insightful
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As an avid sci-fi reader I have always wondered whether I'd live to see the day that an pervasive, always-on computer or collective database would be available.
Today, the Internet is closely approaching that point to really become a useful public good which allows us to look up information, procure goods or ask for various services at any time of the day. Furthermore, with the first real mobile Internet services being launched in Europe (e.g. Web'n'Walk by T-Mobile) you really can have Internet available anywhere, anytime. An example from personal experience: while on holiday in France I wanted to look up the nearest Decathlon store. I looked it up on my mobile Internet device and found it was just 20 minutes by car. On that same holiday, we had a discussion about some obsure philosophical subject and we wanted to look up some definitions. Wikipedia gave us the answer within one minute.
And I wasn't in downtown Paris at this time, but somewhere in the hills of the Dordogne!
So, while Internet has undoubtedly come of age (albeit later than expected during the 2000 boom), the question remains to what extent it will really become a pervasive medium by 2010.
I am interested in your opinions on the widespread use and adoption of Internet that can be quantified. They include the most obvious ones, like the volume on Internet retail market (measured in number of transactions, or value of transactions, compared to brick-and-mortar retail), but also more esoteric ones, like the adoption of Massive-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Games (MMORPG): there are professional MMORPG players in Asia, making a living out of it. Also, currency being 'earned' in MMORPG virtual reality can now be exchanged for real-life dollars, which to me was definitely an Asimov moment.
Look forward to your reactions,
Daniel
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chrismeyer
Member Since:
20 Dec 2005
Posts:33
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18 May 2006 6:19 AM |
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Ducking the question of the quantifiable forecasts, one trend that I think will take us to the next jump in pervasiveness is the borrowing of immersive technologies from the MMOG world to apply to commerce and learning sites. This would mean, for instance, that online shopping would not feel like browsing pages, but more like the experience of picking up products in a store. I think this will lead to a substantially greater pervasiveness by 2010.
The best vision I know of where this is headed is in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, where the Metaverse is an immersive virtual commercial world, and the Librarian has is an avatar that interacts with all the searchable information in the world--and speaks it to you in the language of your choice, suitable for the Dordogne. I think we'll be significantly closer to this in 2010 in both UI and reach.
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mkb
Member Since:
05 May 2006
Posts:11
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22 May 2006 7:50 PM |
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I'm with you on the bleed of the MMORPG model into the retail, education, et al worlds. Water tends to find the path of least resistance, and if The Gap can flow into your world more seemlessly than it does now, it will find a way.
Will this lead to greater stratification socially, as Stephenson made out in _Snow Crash_? Is there a way to ensure that it leads to greater inclusiveness?
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Daem
Member Since:
29 May 2006
Posts:1
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29 May 2006 9:20 PM |
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I don´t think we would want to simulate a 3D-physical space in a world
void of the property of space, if we could. It may be done in a phase
of transition into a more mature version of this pervasive Internet.
The reason I´m skeptical is because of the positive aspects of a medium
without physical locations. Lots of everyday problem is, if you think
about it, because of space. Remember those early VR-interfaces where
you navigated a website by opening doors and walking into rooms? That´s
like taking the bad things from both worlds, instead of the good ones.
I think this pervasive Internet you talk about definitely is coming
forth - but it will also come with a shift in paradigm. This new
paradigm will enrich us with a hitherto unimaginable sense of existence.
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peter_luttik55
Member Since:
18 May 2006
Posts:5
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06 Jun 2006 9:21 AM |
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Though questions. Just a few years away. My suspicion is that the big transformations are then still a few years in the making:
- effective management of our mobility with self navigating vehicles focussed on optimizing personal preferences for travelmode, speed, costs with social preferences for traffic reduction by region,accesibility of locations etc.
- personalized learning tools, that learn themselves and follow the learning of the learner - will students become co authors?
- information war: the race between big brother and personal space. No winners, just an escalating investment war.
- health management at a personal and societal level: from managing epidemics to managing lifestyles through rapid feedback . Can we mobilize the rapidly growing information base into effective services?
in each case we could be talking about investing up to 10 % of present budgets for mobility, learning, health and communication going into new internet applications, enabling significant new business to develop.
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lannygoodman
Member Since:
03 Jul 2006
Posts:3
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03 Jul 2006 2:24 AM |
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the commercial internet thus has followed the familiar paradigms of the management generation: the store, the catalogue, the shopping cart. will the generation raised on highly representational interactive video games be satisfied with that? certainly not by 2010, but william gibson's original vision of cyberspace seems inevitable for the long term as we develop a comfort with paradigms that are intrinsic to the medium.
in the short term however, with RFID, i wouldn't be surprised if by 2010 my refrigerator is studying me with deep neural fuzzy genetic algorithms and sending me emails reminding me of what i need to pick up at the store on the way home.
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"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discovery, is not 'Eureka' (I found it!), but 'That's funny...' " - Isaac Asimov.
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