I read George Orwell’s 1984 when I was way too young and have carried its message with me – possibly too closely – through my career in technology and media. Working in the space, its far too easy to see how the tables could be turned, allowing for a society with pervasive surveillance and monitoring to arise. I already live in a country that’s covered with CCTV and find it a little too Big Brother like (and i’m not talking about the TV series here, folks).
In reading Halting State by Charles Stross, a similar – but less sinister and more dysfunctional – world view emerged.
Stross creates a world where technology has (largely) been developed with the best of intentions but sometimes its failures or misuses lead to disastrous consequences. In his near future, the characters wear glasses that automatically anticipate what their wearer needs and projects it for them – very cool – at first I couldn’t wait to sign up to get a pair.
But, what happens when these don’t function QUITE as you’d expect – at one point a policewoman wearing them has CopSpace (the all pervasive police information service that communicates with her glasses) crashes in the middle of a police manuever leaving her helpless. Do we want to be THAT dependent on our techology? The idea of CopSpace is sinister enough – but devices that make us dependent on it and that aren’t reliable make it seem truely scary, to me. And what of the character who’s fighting in a virtual world on his and ends up getting stabbed in the real world because he forgets the guy he’s fighting in the virtual world is standing only a few feet away in the real world?
One chapter is called “Systems Fail People Die” – and I think this illustrates perfectly what could go wrong in a world where we become overdependent on underperforming technology and systems.
The plot of Halting State revolves around a blur between the boundaries of reality, gaming and other media. Pervasive gaming – via the video glassses – is prevelant and characters are faced with deciphering when messages they get from their ‘games’ might be from authorities in the real world and not just characters. Initially, it sounds cool and entertaining – but as the characters find out that these systems could be using them as pawns in something far more sinister, it becomes creepier.
Please don’t read this as me being anti-technology – I’m not. Much of the technology that Stross describes could be wonderful and make our world a better place – but there’s a fine line between personal services and surveillance systems. Thanks to Phillip for suggesting this good read.
On the upside of this and back in the real world, I heard from Ken Brady (CEO of Genkii) today about the launch of Sparkle – the first live mobile touchpoint that allows users to communicate into virtual worlds while they’re on the go. Seems great to me – allowing users a pervasive connection to their virtual lives (ok, it’s only Second Life for now but that’s still damn cool) can only strengthen their relationship with the content and services there. From what I can see (still wishing for an iPhone here!) this is a great first step towards something I blogged about shortly after I met Ken in Korea last year.
You may have already heard that BBC Mobile (the site I’m the managing editor of) launched a new beta homepage this week.
There’s been some great press coverage of it (phew!) – and we’ve gone through a lot to make it easily customisable, giving users a wider range of content that they can tailor to their needs when they’re on the go and that’s more suited to their devices.
Here’s what my colleagues blogged on the BBC Internet Blog about it:
The customisation has (for good reason, I think) been the big story. But from my perspective, what’s there now is just the tip of the editorial iceberg.
I think the content that we’re offering to let users customise with is a great base to grow from, but not the endgame. I’d like to see us offering a wider range of content and letting users do more with it.
In case you’re wondering, on my phone, I’ve added: Newsbeat (from Radio 1), 6 Music and London Local news.
So, if haven’t tried the new page, please do. And please, let me know what you think of the content selection? What do you like about it? What don’t you like? What’s missing? What would you love to be able to add/remove from it? Make me a wishlist and I’ll see what I can do…
I was recently lucky enough to be part of a conversation (off the back of people being at Mobile World Congress) where a number of mobile experts were talking about the growth that smartphones are driving for mobile services. Loads of stats have shown that the iPhone and other ’smartphones’ are driving consumption at incredible rates and they (and their app stores) seem to be driving innovation in the space. Great stuff.
Thanks to Six Steps on Flickr
But wait… wasn’t the Windows Mobile phone that I was sold nearly years ago a “smartphone”? The term “smartphone” seems to have gone underground after what I think many would consider a pre-mature birth and now re-emerged for devices that truly are smart and really delivering on the promise that early devices didn’t.
I also think its important to think about the use and purpose of a device before giving it a name. No offence to my lovely mother, but an iPhone in her hands would be anything but ’smart.’ I’m sure she’d agree that a phone with buttons would be much ’smarter’ for her.
Below I’ve extracted some quotes from the conversation we were having and I’d love to know what you think – so please comment:
“Phones capable of push email and browsing desktop websites.”
“Phones capable of running 3rd party apps.” – according to Mobile Entertainment Forum
“Maybe … a smart phone is:
1. Capable of rendering xhtml
2. Capable of video playback
3. Capable of running 3rd party applications”
“Nokia will simply tell you that a smartphone is a multi-media computer.”
“A smartphone bridges the gap between the computer and phone; it is a converged device with superior capability. What this means in practice will vary over time.”
“A data oriented device that also had all the voice functions of a mobile phone with an open (or semi-open) OS that has an SDK that allows for the development of native third-party apps. The voice functions are not accessable by third party apps.”
I read George Orwell’s 1984 when I was way too young and have carried its message with me – possibly too closely – through my career in technology and media. Working in the space, its far too easy to see how the tables could be turned, allowing for a society with pervasive surveillance and monitoring to arise. I already live in a country that’s covered with CCTV and find it a little too Big Brother like (and i’m not talking about the TV series here, folks).
One chapter is called “Systems Fail People Die” – and I think this illustrates perfectly what could go wrong in a world where we become overdependent on underperforming technology and systems. 
