The Real World Is Going Digital - AND Social
Thursday, April 2, 2009
As digital information merges with the real world, what I'm most excited about isn't being able to access digital information in new ways and in new places (as incredible as that is), but rather how we will begin to use the real world around us to express ourselves and cultivate relationships in a seamlessly digital world.
Faris wrote up this thought provoking post about technology gaps between generations, geographies, and socio-economic groups. But, this was the bit that stood out to me:
Faris isn't the only one who's been fascinated with the imminent merger of digital information and real-world interaction. Helge Tennø has become quite the connoisseur of augmented reality experimentation.
My personal favorite, is this future vision from Microsoft:
As inspiring as all of this is, it mostly hinges on non-social digital information being combined or used in some way with objects in the real world.
When we look at how the internet has evolved, even though it's the best tool we've ever had for accessing information on-demand, it's how we share that information and use information to construct our personal and social identity where things start to get interesting.
I'm excited about starting to integrate places we go, things we see, and even sounds we hear, into our digital lives. We're already seeing basic examples of this enabled by our mobile devices. When we look at the kind of technology imagined in that Microsoft video, and combine those capabilities with our growing social networks, the possibilities quickly become pretty phenomenal.
Image a world (the places where people have access to technology and the web) that is as well connected and networked as Twitter - news spreads at the speed of a keystroke - and any person, place, thing, or experience in the real world being able to be broadcast and shared through this network, just like a hot new YouTube video.
Imagine our reputations in the digital space being as influenced by the real-world experiences we choose to share as they are now by the ideas and content we choose to share.
And imagine how learning and problem solving in the real world will begin to take on the collective intelligence characteristics we've seen emerge online.
This is where things start to get interesting.
I'd love to hear other ideas or expectations you see coming out of all this new technology. And if you know of other interesting examples of new tools, software, mobile apps, or anything else that is helping to make this happen, please link it up in the comments.
Faris wrote up this thought provoking post about technology gaps between generations, geographies, and socio-economic groups. But, this was the bit that stood out to me:
I've pointed out before that the idea of being online, or spending time online, is starting to make less and less sense. Data will increasingly leap from the screen into the world, augmenting reality in useful ways.
Faris isn't the only one who's been fascinated with the imminent merger of digital information and real-world interaction. Helge Tennø has become quite the connoisseur of augmented reality experimentation.
My personal favorite, is this future vision from Microsoft:
As inspiring as all of this is, it mostly hinges on non-social digital information being combined or used in some way with objects in the real world.
When we look at how the internet has evolved, even though it's the best tool we've ever had for accessing information on-demand, it's how we share that information and use information to construct our personal and social identity where things start to get interesting.
I'm excited about starting to integrate places we go, things we see, and even sounds we hear, into our digital lives. We're already seeing basic examples of this enabled by our mobile devices. When we look at the kind of technology imagined in that Microsoft video, and combine those capabilities with our growing social networks, the possibilities quickly become pretty phenomenal.
Image a world (the places where people have access to technology and the web) that is as well connected and networked as Twitter - news spreads at the speed of a keystroke - and any person, place, thing, or experience in the real world being able to be broadcast and shared through this network, just like a hot new YouTube video.
Imagine our reputations in the digital space being as influenced by the real-world experiences we choose to share as they are now by the ideas and content we choose to share.
And imagine how learning and problem solving in the real world will begin to take on the collective intelligence characteristics we've seen emerge online.
This is where things start to get interesting.
I'd love to hear other ideas or expectations you see coming out of all this new technology. And if you know of other interesting examples of new tools, software, mobile apps, or anything else that is helping to make this happen, please link it up in the comments.
4 Comments:
An obvious 'problem solving by collective intelligence' is the well-documented but still fascinating http://fold.it - motivating gamers to competitively solve the medical 'folding protein' problem.
This old Wired article http://tinyurl.com/26ecj8 about ARGs touches on how you only need a few people with specialist knowledge within a shared intelligence to a difficult, obtuse problem.
Connectivity is allowing us to develop our swarm mentality. It'll be a fast-moving world when we're all switched onto it.
Have you tried IM and email enabled aardvark for social search? It feels like it's going in the direction that you're talking about here.
http://vark.com/
I think I've got some invites left if anyone is interested.
I totally agree - it's the next stage from realizing it's not the technology or tools - it's what they enable you to do...
I've been thinking about the same thing a lot, and re-reading Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs started me thinking about how the idea of cyborgs/wearable computing has been almost completely replaced by the 'Moborg' - the augmented mobile phone/internet device we all carry wherever we go.
A great example is Mobilizy's Wikitude AR travel app for the G1 - as you scan the horizon, it pulls down Wiki entries for relevant landmarks etc as you pass over them - the videos really show how cool it is:
http://www.mobilizy.com/wikitude.php
It's the seamless ability to stream immediately via Qik video, and the fact it's a natural reaction to distribute videos and content from your mobile/PC to a potentially huge audience with little or no effort - it's rapidly becoming expected that personal pictures are sent online rather than the old habit of going to visit your friends with packs of photographs to cycle through!
Hi Mike
Thanks for sharing these valuable thoughts (and giving me a very nice mention to :o).
I agree of course, and think that this is very much in line with Nokia’s ideas as well, turning the phones into sensors:
http://www.experientia.com/blog/sensing-the-world-with-mobile-devices/
These ideas are what’s been missing from the mobile applications world. It seems most brands right now are just thinking about pushing stuff onto the handset, not trying to connect people, have them create information, share and ignite action.
This is probably right around the corner, playforsquare which you pointed out seems like a good start.
As well, when Matt Jones of Dopplr back in January was talking about “a patchwork of situated software”, he touched an important idea: That applications will start working together, in a connected web, to create intelligence, rather than serve on their own:
http://www.180360720.no/?p=896
Lastly I’d agree that HOW we interact will probably be the real game changer, as our imaginations are still, to a large extent, limited by the notion of interaction happening in front of a screen and behind a keyboard. But concepts such as sixth sense from MIT show us this world is changing fast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfV4R4x2SK0
(Last question: Will the future be electronic material or ubiquitous projectors? :o)
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