Mobile computing
Smartphones are really starting to mess with my mind.
What really blows me away is the possibility of combining GPS with a digital compass to overlay digital images of the real world with artificial images.
You can play Tron or PacMan in real life. You can set legitimately rectangular flag football or ultimate fields in a snap.
Forget games, even-- you could register as a first-aid expert or ex-cop and get real-time updates on emergencies or crimes in your immediate vicinity. How crazy would it be if you could report a mugging and within seconds have 20 off-duty cops showing up on the exact spot, chasing down the suspected mugger? If you can patch flat tubes or fix cars, you could get real time updates from people who are stranded in your immediate vicinity, and they could compensate you for your trouble via a pre-paid online account.
You could get a real-time update on the exact minute when your bike club's peloton will be rolling through your part of town. It's already working incredibly well for CTA buses in Chicago.
You could have a 24/7 Critical Mass, with an ever-changing, ever-rotating cast of characters. Courier wages are obviously going to get pushed down even further (do they still get paid in anything besides street cred these days, anyway?)
I think GPS is already in heavy use among pizza deliverers to figure out the shortest route between stops, and to allocate certain sets of stops to certain drivers-- could this be applied to taxis in order to privatize public transit? If you have 12 strangers in nbhd A who all want to get to nbhd B, why not walk two blocks, meet up with everyone else, split a van, and charge it to your prepaid account? Hot damn! The same sort of thing could also work with car sharing services-- why limit them to be picked up and dropped off at the same spots? Why limit them to be used by only one person at a time?
You could have impromptu ultimate games, alleycats, orgies, kickball, whatever! Flashmobs take too much forethought-- why not just keep an online profile of when you're available for what, and when some quorum is reached, everyone who is down gets a message saying where to go? Totally spontaneous raves in public squares.
Traffic reports could not only be updated in real-time, but also give different drivers different re-routes so that not everyone jumps to the same secondary street. We could toll crowded streets, give cash to those who stay off streets which an ambulance will need in the next minute, and change stoplights faster for emergency vehicles.
There are perhaps other ways to play an enormous game of tag, but massively multiplayer GPS seems like the one with the least amount of prior planning.
Not only that, but direct-brain input is already starting to get figured out. If output can also be solved, then we are basically going to be living in the Matrix. I/O certainly does seem like the big hurdle right now. Voice control and bluetooth headsets seem really lame in comparison with social GPS.
Holy crap dudes and ladydudes. The future is going to be so cool. I am going to save all my money, take care of my body, and retire ASAP.
Of course, this stuff could and will also probably be used for evil. Apparently photo messaging has gotten out of control among high schoolers, and cell phones seem to be used to coordinate brawls that have left some Chicago kids dead recently. Also the mystique of some overlooked lonely spots might be lost as the hive mind clues in, so those at the social centers are going to lose their comparative advantage, possibly decreasing the production of neat stuff which require that only a few people know about it in order for them to stay neat. So, yeah, someone's gotta anticipate those downsides and figure out solutions. But in general I'd say things are really looking up!
What really blows me away is the possibility of combining GPS with a digital compass to overlay digital images of the real world with artificial images.
You can play Tron or PacMan in real life. You can set legitimately rectangular flag football or ultimate fields in a snap.
Forget games, even-- you could register as a first-aid expert or ex-cop and get real-time updates on emergencies or crimes in your immediate vicinity. How crazy would it be if you could report a mugging and within seconds have 20 off-duty cops showing up on the exact spot, chasing down the suspected mugger? If you can patch flat tubes or fix cars, you could get real time updates from people who are stranded in your immediate vicinity, and they could compensate you for your trouble via a pre-paid online account.
You could get a real-time update on the exact minute when your bike club's peloton will be rolling through your part of town. It's already working incredibly well for CTA buses in Chicago.
You could have a 24/7 Critical Mass, with an ever-changing, ever-rotating cast of characters. Courier wages are obviously going to get pushed down even further (do they still get paid in anything besides street cred these days, anyway?)
I think GPS is already in heavy use among pizza deliverers to figure out the shortest route between stops, and to allocate certain sets of stops to certain drivers-- could this be applied to taxis in order to privatize public transit? If you have 12 strangers in nbhd A who all want to get to nbhd B, why not walk two blocks, meet up with everyone else, split a van, and charge it to your prepaid account? Hot damn! The same sort of thing could also work with car sharing services-- why limit them to be picked up and dropped off at the same spots? Why limit them to be used by only one person at a time?
You could have impromptu ultimate games, alleycats, orgies, kickball, whatever! Flashmobs take too much forethought-- why not just keep an online profile of when you're available for what, and when some quorum is reached, everyone who is down gets a message saying where to go? Totally spontaneous raves in public squares.
Traffic reports could not only be updated in real-time, but also give different drivers different re-routes so that not everyone jumps to the same secondary street. We could toll crowded streets, give cash to those who stay off streets which an ambulance will need in the next minute, and change stoplights faster for emergency vehicles.
There are perhaps other ways to play an enormous game of tag, but massively multiplayer GPS seems like the one with the least amount of prior planning.
Not only that, but direct-brain input is already starting to get figured out. If output can also be solved, then we are basically going to be living in the Matrix. I/O certainly does seem like the big hurdle right now. Voice control and bluetooth headsets seem really lame in comparison with social GPS.
Holy crap dudes and ladydudes. The future is going to be so cool. I am going to save all my money, take care of my body, and retire ASAP.
Of course, this stuff could and will also probably be used for evil. Apparently photo messaging has gotten out of control among high schoolers, and cell phones seem to be used to coordinate brawls that have left some Chicago kids dead recently. Also the mystique of some overlooked lonely spots might be lost as the hive mind clues in, so those at the social centers are going to lose their comparative advantage, possibly decreasing the production of neat stuff which require that only a few people know about it in order for them to stay neat. So, yeah, someone's gotta anticipate those downsides and figure out solutions. But in general I'd say things are really looking up!
posted by AdamB at 5:56 PM
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