Being Human

This weeks reading covered what the author believes computing will be like and how it will affect us in the year 2020.  First the author explains the early stages of computing and how we used them.  One of the main points in his early statements shows the rapid rate at which computing is advancing.  In the 1980’s the desktop computer was introduced, and about 20 years later mobile devices are more common than the desktop in houses.

Next the author described many new technologies that are currently being developed and tested which will probably be in everyday use in a few years.  He continues to describe how the common graphic user interfaces that we deal with daily today will soon change in a drastic way.  New technologies will be introduced that recognize speech and gestures.

Soon the way we see output from computers will drastically change in the future as well.  This technology has already been accelerating at a very fast rate in the past few years.  We went from CRT computer displays to flat panel LCD screens in a very short period.  Currently companies are working on fabrics that can display information that will allow us to reach higher resolutions with a lower power cost.

Recently we have seen the change in mobile computing as well.  The cell phone has gone from the original ‘Brick’ phone to the now ever so slim and powerful iPhone.  In the future mobile phones will continue to be more powerful and useful because many people in other countries cannot afford personal computers and mobile computing is becoming very cheap and very effective.

Next the author goes and explains that computing will change the way we live our everyday lives.  These changes can include the way in which we communicate to each other to monitoring our vital signs on the fly.  Next we learn about how these new technologies will affect our human values and ways we live our everyday lives.

The first issue he tackles is the end of interface stability.  Although this sounds complicated, it basically means that the boundary between users and computers will become much more unclear.  With the advances and spread of ubiquitous computing users are beginning to be more connected to computers.  By being connected to so many technologies and use them daily, people will tend to forget that they are interacting with a computer system.  With these technologies becoming ever present in our everyday lives, our dependency continues to grow for these devices.

These dependencies are commonly referred to as ‘technodependencies’.  While we will continue to be more dependent on upcoming technologies we will tend to not question the security of these devices and the information being transmitted.  A major problem with these dependencies would be the access to the technologies.  If there is an outage or for some reason some devices stop working, will people be able to get along without the aid of those devices?

Nowadays almost everyone is connected to some sort of network in one way or another.  Next the author discuss Hyper-Connectivity and how it can make or break social connections.  Where upcoming technologies do connect people in a way in which they can communicate to each other over phone lines and the internet, however these technologies also take away from real ‘physical’ relationships.  This is ever present with cell phones, instant messaging, facebook, twitter, etc.

The next issue tackled is the end of Ephemerality.  This basically means that pretty much everything that we do will be recorded in some way.  This has many people questioning their personal privacy.  If the number of recording devices increase (video camera’s, databases), what control will people over their privacy.

Most of these changes in our lives seems like it will be a scary and uncontrollable place.  However these technological changes will allow us to be more creative.  Since more and more technologies are being created and deployed everyday, we the users continue to think of new uses for them and continue to get new inspirations from technologies.