Orwellian Ubiquitous Computing

Orwellian Ubiquitous Computing May Build Ultimate Surveillance Society

Old-Thinker News | May 26, 2008

By Daniel Taylor

"...just by walking down the street you could be subject to a personal biometric system, you could be scanned by the gateway of the transit system, there could be something embedded in the street or in the flooring beneath you... you could be touching other tangible interfaces in the environment around you... the lamp posts and the other features of the streetscape could have informational services... and last but not least there's the surveillance element, there's a UAV, a robotic helicopter which is also surveying the cityscape and communicating with all of these devices... This is really what I mean by a transformation of the relationship between user and device. This person is not a user anymore in any real sense of the English world, they are a subject."

It may seem like a vision of a distant science fiction world, but this scenario laid out by Adam Greenfield, author of "Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing", could be just around the corner. In fact, at this very moment in South Korea an entire city, a "U-city", is being built that utilizes ubiquitous technology. It had it's first test run in March of last year. Several other countries are currently planning, or are currently building cities modeled around South Korea's U-city.

What exactly is Ubiquitous Computing?

An "Everyware" world, as Adam Greenfield calls it, is a world in which computers are embedded and merged seamlessly everywhere in the environment. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags communicate their position and other information constantly in a vast network. Everyday objects become "searchable" as if they were part of the interconnected world wide web. Surveillance in an "Everyware" world is perfected to a degree that is unimaginable. Scientific management of people and the environment we inhabit becomes possible, and marketers' ultimate dreams come true.

Watch this clip as Adam Greenfield explains ubiquitous computing (skip ahead to 1:30 to hear his explanation)

-cont.