Chapter 4: The Era of Sentient Things by Ralph Patterson

This is Steve Mann in 1981 wearing his computer and living as a cyborg. Hmmm? In Star Trek…yes you had to know I’d invoke those sacred words. In that movie and television series computers were ubiquitous. A person could stand in the middle of the floor and simply ask a question and it would be answered. Not only are the computers everywhere, and frequently invisible. Often sentient by Rehingold’s definition, they have the ability to ,”…sense, receive, store and transmit information.’ Of course science fiction, would do them an disservice if it didn’t give them license to reason. Excluding the occasional Klingon, planet- eating asteroid, and leaps into hyperspace there are parallel themes explored in Rehigold’s Chapter 4 of Smart Mobs The Era of Sentient Things.

My computer is a toaster, an appliance. Yours? As sophisticated as it is, it compels me to sit in front of it to find much use for it. My Blackberry has telephone and computing function, is does not restrict me to one place and is networked to as many sources as my laptop. When Scott Fisher’s (p.84) world tells me the sky is blue, will I deny myself the opportunity to think of it as azure or the color of a robins egg or link it to some personal experience even in a subtle way?

When information is everywhere will we still have the drive to discover it? In a conversation I might argue with you over such things, but in a mediated view of the world will I be less inclined to dialogue?

The push to drive technology to its maximum is a very human thing and when the outcome is beneficial, we cheer. But is there an unintended consequence lurking in the evolution to invisible computing, seamless computing ubiquitous computing? When television was brand new people would gather at store fronts to watch the phenomenon. Fifty years later there are screens and cameras everywhere including the elevator and the supermarket check out. I think sometimes we expect the world to be experienced through some form of media. Will computing that is everywhere enhance our experience of the world or will it dull our ability to sense the new? Our culture has been so accustomed to television, computing, etc. that we seek to control the world by, framing it and adjusting it to our comfort level. -end rant here-

Rheingold leads us through the implications of several theoretical and some real developments in computing that when put into play will yield a change for world culture. To each I will pose a question.
Information in Places
What benefit do you see in Scott Fisher’s tree? p84
Smart Rooms
Would modern cars qualify as “smart rooms”? Some can sense the weight difference between a child and an adult, respond automatically to cooling and heating needs, sense rain, and respond to voice command for radio and telephone. p89



Digital Cities
How will politics change to create “smart cities” where in computers are by design (building codes) employed in a network for safety and security of citizens? p99
Tangible Bits
What happens to wealth and poverty when computers can create Sutherland’s chair? P91
Wearable Computers
Taken to its logical extreme, Ismail Haritaogul’s wearable computing could translate spoken languages in near real time through wireless connections. What implications might a “universal translator” have on international politics? p93-94

With the devices we have in our hands currently , I’d say our sense of identity is altered, knowing that somewhere on the other side of the planet we can easily be known through a link or picture or blog on the Internet. Along with the power to know and be known comes the challenge to privacy and its potential for abuse. For those of us who are consumers rather than developers of technology, though usage does drive development, the power to restrain technology’s abuse is a continuing issue. I agree with Rheingold when he says the power to find the benefit of technology lies beyond the power to compute. It is linked to “…trust and willingness to risk the sucker’s payoff.” Here we are as students unadorned swapping ideas through an exchange of zeros and ones in the safety of our classroom for a larger good, a chance to discover, be corrected, perhaps validated or maybe to find Reinhold’s “sucker’s payoff”