Now forward to a time when the ‘internet of things’ has been adopted, where objects are no longer static but have agency to monitor and independently initiate action. The Ericsson advert (shown in lecture) really opened my eyes to the possibilities of the future.
If the same situation occurred to me when these objects are ‘tangible social actors’, the room I live in could be connected through interactive objects, into one unified network. Rather than a frantic dash to clean my room and organise the night, each object would record data, such as cleanliness, room temperature aromas and various other stats regarding the room. After a quick message to my networked room regarding the situation “female company” in this case, each object could act accordingly; windows open, fans turn on automatically, room deodoriser sets off and laptop begins to download a movie (horror is her favourite).
This utopian approach to the technological changes of objects is one I wish to hope the outcomes come from such innovation supported by android and their open source technology. But as a marketing major, I tend to think such innovation will be exploited to record and track personal data, for the benefits of corporations in order to further push products onto us (as seen in minority report).
Also the tales of things technology seems very interesting to me, by being able to add a story through annotations and QR codes to any space or object. I find this means of communications influential in passing down family stories. Family heirlooms and their stories attached to such items could be recounted; reinforcing their importance and speciality through such accounts from the role they played in that current family member’s life, and could be updated as they are passed down. This can be seen as a new way of ‘story-telling’. But once again, I can not help to think of the marketing implications of this technology, but never the less this seems to be inevitable.
5 comments:
hey matt, really interesting post for this weeks topic. I loved the scenario you gave us, i doubt you could find a single person that wouldnt like to come home to a clean and pleasantly smelling room (especially if it wasnt like that when they left)
i think ted put up some of the best examples on the internet of things, which made it hard to find some of our own good examples for this weeks blog... but youve put it in a really interesting way. i would have to agree with you, that no matter how good this is for our technological futures, companies are bound to tinge it with marketing schemes, but i guess we'll have to take what we can get huh. Great post.
I agree that the marketing implications of this technology are inevitable. One thing that interests me is how these objects will adapt after a while. I mean there are computer programs and things doing stuff like this now, by interpreting what it perceives to be of interest to us based on past experiences. For example my iPhone puts in words that it thinks I want to use when I write a text message. Although this is helpful in some cases, because of my lacklustre typing skills I often find myself back-pedalling as it has chosen the wrong word. If we take this a step further to say an oven which learns that Tuesday and Saturday are its work days and the rest it does not. It will automatically turn on on these days, even though you may have decided to go out on a Saturday night. Obviously, these aren't the most crazy or dangerous scenarios but the implications can be linked to various objects and obviously be much worse.
The Ericsson ad Ted showed was very cool, but something I thought about later was relinquishing control. Sure it's cool to have the basics taken care of technology, but anything above that, I want some input. I want to feel like I'm controlling the situation, because I'm the only person I trust. Even today, the parts of my life I let technology take care of, I research what it's doing exactly. If something goes wrong, I want to know why.
Hey Matt, what I love about your scenario was how mundane it is. When we talk about some new development in technology we often get carried away with how it's going to 'change the world', but it's much more realistic when we think about how it might change my personal world. I think you're completely right, if the internet of things ever reaches as far as your scenario suggests, we will mostly use it to make normal, everyday tasks easier.
But I think you're also right-it won't take long until(and I'm sure it's already started to happen) these connected devices are exploited by marketers, big businesses and governments. I'm sure that along with convenience we will also get surveillance.
It will certainly be an interesting future to see family heirlooms passed down with QR codes where people can read the thought of the great grandparents who once owned the item they had and even what the item thought of it's owners.
I wonder what the future will bring. Maybe there will be a car social networking site with cars complaining about how little they get washed and how dirty their oil is...oh what it's already here. Crazy.
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