A Collaborative Vision of the Future of Mobile Media and Communication:
http://www.mocom2020.com/
Mobile Future: Wireless, Innovation, Freedom:
http://www.mobilefuture.org/
Future of Mobile: Learn how mobile is changing the world we live in today:
http://events.carsonified.com/fom
Why Cloud Computing is the Future of Mobile:
With a Western-centric view of the world, it can sometimes be hard to remember that not everyone owns a smartphone. There are still a large number of markets worldwide where the dominant phone is a feature phone. While it’s true that smartphones will grow in percentage and feature phones will become more sophisticated in time, these lower-end phones are not going away anytime soon. And it’s their very existence which will help drive the mobile cloud computing trend.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_cloud_computing_is_the_future_of_mobile.php
Touch is a research project that investigates Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things. We are developing applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices. Touch consists of an inter-disciplinary team involved in social and cultural enquiry, interaction/industrial design, rapid prototyping, software, testing and exhibitions.
RFID is currently regarded as the replacement for barcodes in logistics and supply chain management. It is also becoming widely used for contactless ticketing, credit cards, animal tracking and e-passports. But a new set of applications and services are opening up as NFC (a new standard based on RFID) is integrated into mobile phones. Commercial applications for NFC are predicted to include ticketing, payments and service discovery, where these things can be achieved with a simple ‘touch’ of the mobile device.
But Touch is not just about incremental innovations to existing infrastructures; the technology offers many unexplored opportunities. The simple integration of tags into everyday things and places, the low-cost of NFC components and the adaptiveness of the NFC specifications are all examples of the ways in which this technology promises to be ubiquitous. These opportunities suggest that many other applications and services will be built around the technology, and that ‘touch’ may well become part of everyday life in unexpected ways.
Touch interactions
NFC and ‘contactless’ systems are intended to be easy to use for everyday transactions, the interaction is carried out with a simple ‘touch’, ‘swipe’ or ‘tap’. By using these simple actions, NFC puts a sense of human control back into otherwise complex and unwieldy ubiquitous systems. Touch is a natural, expressive gesture and can be used to create satisfying interactions. There is a rich history of industrial design, ergonomic and human factors research that can be used in the design of these systems.
Touch-interactions are significant culturally and socially; our sense of touch is a large part of the way we understand and affect the world. Touch carries meaning and this changes according to context, situation and culture. The project explores these contexts through social, cultural and ethnographic research. This cross-disciplinary research will be used as a resource for further design and prototyping.
The project runs until 2009 and is based in the Institute of Design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway. It is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
http://www.nearfield.org/
A ton of technologies are ripe for further development in the coming few years. Social media and related apps are definitely going to be at the forefront of the Web for a long time. But plenty of other technologies are on the verge of becoming mainstream, either because of more social acceptance or because of advancements in hardware and applications. Read on for 15 predictions about the future of the Web.
1. Micro-Payments for Quality Content:
Micro-payments of the future may be closely-related to mobile payment systems. Payment via cell phone opens up whole new area of economic opportunity, particularly in areas where cell phones are more prevalent than computers. Being able to make and receive very small payments, the equivalent of a dollar or less in many cases, via a mobile device paves the way for many in developing nations to participate in the Internet economy in a way that only a few years ago might not have been deemed possible.
2. Wider Monitors for More Horizontal Scrolling:
Horizontally-scrolling websites are already becoming popular. Some use JavaScript or Flash to simulate a wide layout, while others use plain old HTML and CSS. In any case, a horizontal layout makes a lot more sense for certain kinds of sites, especially portfolios, media galleries and websites that rely more heavily on multimedia than text.
3. Magazines in a More Interactive Format (Wiki, Digital Video, Etc.):
Magazines will be infinitely more interactive, incorporating wikis, video and audio content, and in many cases their own social networks.
4. More Collaborative and Real-Time Content:
As broadband Internet becomes more widely available worldwide, collaborative projects will only get bigger and more frequent. Real-time updates and interaction make it possible to work on practically anything in a collaborative environment. Some projects will consist of small groups of people who already know each other, while other projects will bring together hundreds or even thousands of participants who were till then strangers. There’s really no limit to how many people could participate.
5. More Semantic Content and Apps that Exploit Them:
Semantic tagging and coding conventions are probably the most likely to gain serious traction in the next few years. Many Web designers are already using semantic labels in their code. This makes sense on several levels: it makes it easier for current and future Web apps to figure out what is being displayed on a page, and it makes it easier for designers and programmers to make changes to code without having to leave copious comments explaining what the different parts of the code do.
6. Augmented Reality in Mobile Web Applications:
Given that most mobile devices now have built-in digital cameras (some with video capability), people would naturally now want functionality beyond simple photography. Augmented reality applications can have a range of potential benefits, from making it easier to find your way if you get lost to letting you identify the person sitting across from you at a party. That last example has many security and privacy experts worried. Facial recognition software is improving all the time, and pretty soon using an augmented reality program on your mobile phone to find out who a person is might be possible. You’d just snap a picture of them, and the app would cross-reference it with social networking profiles and photos across the Web, eventually coming across a match. From there, you could see whatever information the person had chosen to make public about him or herself.
7. Better Adoption of Web Standards:
With more and more users accessing the Web from mobile browsers and browsers other than Internet Explorer, Web standards are only going to become more important.
8. Better Web Security Against Phishing, Scams and Spam:
Individual websites, Web hosts, payment processors and others involved in online transactions are constantly making security improvements. With greater consumer awareness of how to identify phishing schemes and other scams, the majority of these issues will no longer be a concern in the next few years. Of course, that isn’t to say that other tactics won’t replace them.
9. Even More Social Apps:
Social media isn’t going anywhere. While some people believe social media has gone about as far as it can go, others believe it’s still in its infancy. I think there’s still plenty of room for new apps, new platforms and new ideas in the world of social media. [...] Niche social networks will also continue to grow. Social networks exist for practically every niche, and this will not go away. Services such as Ning and platforms like Elgg make it easy for non-programmers to set up their own social networks quickly and easily. Many corporations, organizations and groups are setting up social networks for their customers and members. While some have been great successes, attracting thousands of users, others have quickly died and been replaced either by other niche networks or by groups on mainstream general-purpose websites.
10. More High Quality Online “TV” Programs:
With video technology becoming increasingly cheaper and easier to use, and broadband Internet access becoming more widespread, high-quality Internet-only programs will become only more prevalent in the future.
11. Web Apps Play a Bigger Role in Daily Life:
Web applications already play a big role in the daily lives of many people. But as more apps become available online and traditional software moves to online-enhanced or online-only models (as some programs are already starting to do), more users will turn to Web applications almost exclusively.
12. Search Engine Optimization Will Be Less Important:
Search engine optimization may become less important in the future as Internet users rely more on recommendations and social media to find information. Already, people are asking questions on Twitter and Facebook instead of Google. This means that high-quality content and usability will become ever more important, because users are more likely to recommend a website if they have found it easy to use and useful. Also, search engines themselves will be smarter, meaning they’ll be able to better discern a Web page’s usefulness to a particular user.
13. Your OS Will Be Online:
While your computer will still store some files, the future of the operating system will increasingly rely on Web-based files. In other words, without an Internet connection, your computer’s functionality will be severely limited.
14. Customized User Interfaces:
As Web apps become more integrated in our daily lives, customized user interfaces will surely follow. Being able to tailor the user experience to one’s preferences is a huge plus for many Internet users. And some websites already let you make customizations to the information you see, how you see it and even how you interact with it.
15. The Web Will Be the Center of Information and Content Distribution:
This migration to the Internet will profoundly affect how media is produced and consumed. Media will become more interactive and collaborative, and because of the lower barrier to entry, new players will participate in virtually every method of content production and distribution. The shake-up will affect much more than just the way information is disseminated.
http://www.noupe.com/trends/the-future-of-the-web-where-will-we-be-in-five-years.html
The Five Eras of the Social Web:
1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share 2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system 3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social 4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content 5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services
Update: CRM Magazine has more about the five eras, focus in on the graphic.
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/category/future-of-social-web/
Here is some more background on ubiquitous computing, in particular, the role of context-aware systems.
Researchers have long dreamt of pervasive computing, which enables everyday objects to recognize our needs and react to them in an intelligent manner. The requisite hardware is already available. What’s needed now is new software and global standards.
As computing becomes pervasive, objects such as bulletin boards will be able to exhange information with mobile devices such as PDAs and phones
Signs that show the way to the nearest cinema; cars that automatically locate the next parking space; shirts that tell the washing machine what temperature they should be washed—in the future, according to Prof. Alois Ferscha, objects and people will be enveloped in their very own “digital auras.” This might sound esoteric, but Ferscha, who is the Director of the Institute of Pervasive Computing at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria has some very concrete ideas of what it might entail. “We create an artificial aura for people and objects by fitting them, as it were, with a digital cloak. Whenever two such auras come into contact, information flows.” In other words, coded preference profiles are exchanged and compared. For example, if your profile authorizes this, an electronic movie poster might transmit the trailer of the latest box office hit to your PDA; or your cell phone might inform you that the woman sitting at the next table in the cafe wants to sell her car.
The technology is already available. The Linz researchers have fitted various objects with so-called RFID tags—small chips that store relevant data. Communication takes place via the Bluetooth wireless radio standard. Initial demonstrations already exist in the fields of healthcare, the home, and traffic management. “The major challenges now are to write universally applicable digital auras for a huge number of people and things, to ensure that these auras can change over time, to transfer and compare them wirelessly, and, finally, to use washable microchips that can be integrated into clothing,” explains Ferscha. For the last three years, his institute has been working closely on the digital aura project with Dr. Lothar Borrmann and others at Siemens Corporate Technology’s Software Architecture department, a part of the Siemens Software & Engineering division.
No Keyboard, No Mouse. Pervasive Computing (PvC)—also known as Ubiquitous Computing (see Pictures of the Future, Fall 2002, “Ubiquitous Computing”)—will usher in a new era. Instead of do-it-all computers, we will see the advent of simple, task-specific, miniaturized and intuitively operable processors that will be invisibly integrated in everyday objects. Similarly, traditional input devices such as keyboards and mice will not be required. Instead, the processors will be controlled by electronic, optical, acoustic or chemical sensors, and they will output via actuators such motors or other control units.
https://w1.siemens.com/innovation/en/publikationen/publications_pof/pof_fall_2004/software_articles/pervasive_computing.htm
Context awareness is regarded as an enabling technology for ubiquitous computing systems. Context awareness is used to design innovative user interfaces, and is often used as a part of ubiquitous and wearable computing. It is also beginning to be felt in the internet with the advent of hybrid search engines. Schmidt, Beigl & Gellersen [8] define human factors and physical environment as two important aspects relating to computer science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_awareness
Context-aware computing refers to a general class of mobile systems that can sense their physical environment, i.e., their context of use, and adapt their behavior accordingly. Such systems are a component of a ubiquitous computing or pervasive computing environment. Three important aspects of context are: (1) where you are; (2) who you are with; and (3) what resources are nearby. Although location is a primary capability, location-aware does not necessarily capture things of interest that are mobile or changing. Context-aware in contrast is used more generally to include nearby people, devices, lighting, noise level, network availability, and even the social situation; e.g., whether you are with your family or a friend from school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-aware_pervasive_systems
Pervasive Computing is a term that signifies several new elements of computing. One element involves pervasive computation - computers and sensors “everywhere” in devices, appliances, equipment, in homes, workplaces and factories, and in clothing. Another element involves pervasive communication – a high degree of communication among devices and sensors through a ubiquitous and secure network infrastructure with a wired core and wireless adjuncts that communicate with the core. Because computation will become so integrated into our lives and activities, natural forms of human-computer interaction, such as spoken dialogue with computers, will become more important.
http://www.itl.nist.gov/pervasivecomputing.html
Context-Aware Pervasive Systems: Architectures for a New Breed of Applications (2006):
The concept of aware systems is among the most exciting trends in computing today, fueled by recent developments in pervasive computing, including new computers worn by users, embedded devices, smart appliances, sensors, and varieties of wireless networking technology. Context-Aware Pervasive Systems: The Architecture of a New Breed of Applications introduces a diverse set of application areas and provides blueprints for building context-aware behavior into applications.Reviewing the anatomy of context-aware pervasive applications, this resource covers abstract architecture. It examines mobile services, appliances, smart devices, software agents, electronic communication, sensor networks, security frameworks, and intelligent software agents. The book also discusses the use of context awareness for communication among people, devices, and software agents and how sensors can be aware of their own situations. Exploring the use of physical context for controlling and enhancing security in pervasive computing environments, this guide addresses mirror worlds and elucidates design perspectives based on a declarative programming language paradigm.This carefully paced volume presents a timely and relevant introduction to the emergence of context-aware systems and brings together architectures and principles of context-aware computing in one source.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6Mfwd6xSuk0C&source=gbs_navlinks_s
The First International Conference on Acoustic Computing for Ambient Intelligent Applications (ACAIA09):
Although, much is known regarding the design of context-aware assistive systems using video, voice, temperature sensing, gas detection, etc. We argue for ways to harness Sounds and Noises, as they are underused in modern ICT and particularly to provide valuable information for assisting humans. In the XXI century, and given the importance that humans give to both normal and rare sounds in their living/working open/close environments, it is incredible to notice that information coming from acoustic signals is often underused in modern ICT.
http://acaia.org/content/acaia09-conference
The ambient intelligence paradigm builds upon ubiquitous computing, profiling practices and human-centric computer interaction design and is characterized by systems and technologies that are (Zelkha & Epstein 1998; Aarts, Harwig & Schuurmans 2001):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_intelligence
ReadWriteWeb is one of my favorite sources for keeping up with this ecosystem of information flow called the internet. Intive’s algorithmic method not only has applications for mobile phones, it may be used for any device with a sensor, and eventually could become essential for the Internet of Things.
ReadWriteWeb’s Top 5 Web Trends of 2009:
The Internet of Things is a network of Internet-enabled objects, together with web services that interact with these objects. Underlying the Internet of Things are technologies such as RFID (radio frequency identification), sensors, and smartphones.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_5_web_trends_of_2009_internet_of_things.php
The idea is as simple as its application is difficult. If all cans, books, shoes or parts of cars are equipped with minuscule identifying devices, daily life on our planet will undergo a transformation. Things like running out of stock or wasted products will no longer exist as we will know exactly what is being consumed on the other side of the globe. Theft will be a thing of the past as we will know where a product is at all times. The same applies to parcels lost in the post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things
The Internet of Things: Executive Summary
http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/internetofthings/InternetofThings_summary.pdf
The Internet of Things in 2020:
http://old.smart-systems-integration.org/internet-of-things/Internet-of-Things_in_2020_EC-EPoSS_Workshop_Report_2008_v3.pdf
The Internet of Things Council: Council Mission:
We believe the “winning solution” to making the most open, inclusive and innovative Internet of Things is to transcend the short-term opposition between social innovation and security by finding a way to combine these two necessities in a broader common perspective.
http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/what-we-want
Technology Roadmap: The Internet of Things:
http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_confreports/disruptivetech/appendix_F.pdf
What Can the Internet of Things Do For the Citizen?
http://www.autoidlabs.org/events/ciot2010
Future Internet Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVIE-t_Y1c
Ubiquitous Computing (2009), John Krumm:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RCxZl4PCXwAC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Issues with RFID usage in Ubiquitous Computing Applications:
http://www.vs.inf.ethz.ch/res/papers/RFIDIssues.pdf
The Internet of Things and Mobile Devices:
The recent Australian bush fires were tragic. But it also made me think of a technology that could have perhaps predicted or at least alleviated this tragedy. Technologies like Smartdust and RFID (Radio-frequency identification) could play a role in predicting and detecting risks such as fire or other natural tragedies. In doing so, they have the potential to make a significant difference to our lives. Human beings have always sought to influence their environment – be it the course of rivers or the spread of fires. Intelligent objects have the potential to create an environment where technology becomes ubiquitous and seamless. Intelligence i.e. the technology itself, disappears into the background and creates a world that adapts itself to humans through sensors (call it RFID, Smart dust etc). These technologies are collectively called the Internet of things. The Internet of Things links the physical world of goods and items with the virtual World.
http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2009/02/the_internet_of.html
PANEL on Electronic Textiles: http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~sld/talks/radu_20mins.pdf
Mobile Learning and the Internet of Things:
http://elearningroadtrip.typepad.com/elearning_roadtrip/2009/02/mobile-learning-at-last.html
One of the potential uses for the Intive technology is trending, which among other things is useful for “Swarm Creativity”. This is an idea coined by Peter Gloor, who studies “Collaborative Innovation Networks” or COINS at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence. Here is an excerpt from one of his interviews:
Q: What has inspired your work today?
A: So, the main inspiration for this Swarm Creativity framework, principle and the way those COINS Collaborative Innovation Networks operate, are the Bees. I was exposed to Bees very early on because my Father was, and still is, a very active Bee keeper so I grew up with Bees and he admired them for his entire life and so he sort of instilled that into me also and the more I studied how those COINS and human beings interoperate, the more I found we really can be inspired by the Bees and you know a Bee queen never orders any Bee to do something, the Bee just knows it because they share the same DNA and for me the way how COINS work together is precisely the same. You have a share set of values, and you have initially some Bee queen or you might have a group of Queens and that’s probably different because as you know in the Bee hive the Queens kill each other they only let one Queen be the Queen at one time otherwise the hive splits or you have the fight. There are some parallels to that also in Open Source there are some very highly publicized fights where for example in this Apache open source group you got some leadership changes fairly quickly so again the pattern of the Bees applies, but overall, COINS and Bees are unbelievably well in adopting to external change, being very flexible and just do unbelievable things in creating new hives, honey combs, collecting honey and finding new locations. Actually, the ‘finding new locations’ process, for me that’s a great metaphor for how we get new ideas, because we have the Bee Queen taking off with half of the swarm towards a new direction and that’s the same if you have new ideas, and then what we have is we have the scouts, the Bee scouts, that look for greener pastures that go out and we have the same thing for the COINS, we have this first group of scouts and they are the initial COIN and then they come back to the swarm, they report on those new ideas, and then we have the Bee swarm, as you know, the Bee queen takes this swarm, they fly to an intermediate place where they form this cluster and then the scouts come back and they do the Bagel dance where they tell about the new location, and in the COIN you have the same. You have people doing the Bagel dance. That’s the only way how I try to recruit people, by doing the Bagel dance, so I tell, like right now, I just tell about new ideas and that builds up the heat in the swarm and at some point, in the cluster of the Bees, the scouts change from the Bagel dancing to just building up the heat. Which means in the Bee cluster that happens by piping at each other and so the sound goes up, the heat goes up in the cluster and the same for COINS. The heat goes up and suddenly the cluster explodes and that’s when the idea gets over the tipping point. The cluster explodes, the Bees go out and they change the world with the new idea and that’s the same for COINS.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17465385/Peter-Gloor-031909-Interview
Founded in 2007, galaxyadvisors developed an Internet based social network analysis software. Galaxyadvisors’ professional solutions allow business clients to analyze virtually any online community and Web communication in real-time and on-demand basis. Through its innovative approach galaxyadvisors leverages the wisdom of crowds, wisdom of experts, and wisdom of swarms for its customers. Based on ground-breaking algorithms developed at MIT and the University of Cologne, Germany, galaxyadvisors creates an innovative comprehensive search analysis engine to retrieve and structure all kinds of information stored on the Internet.
http://www.galaxyadvisors.com/
Swarm Creativity: Competitive Advantage Through Swarm Creativity:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2mMnrPr6e-gC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
The CKN project operates as a Collaborate Innovation Network. While team members work together virtually all the time, they have their physical offices at the MIT Sloan Center for Collective Intelligence Science, University of Cologne, Henn Architects, in Munich, Germany, and Helsinki University of Technology in Finland.
http://www.ickn.org/html/our_team.htm
So many different post-industrial “economies” to keep track of these days, modernity loves to attach “economy” to everything: digital, information, network, knowledge, service, open-source, innovation…one thing we can all agree on is that these are all important facets of an emerging global economy. I recently learned of the “relationship economy”, which according to one definition is, “The Intersection Between Technology and Human Interaction”:
http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=2834
Sometimes these patterns of interaction exhibit characteristics like symbiosis, speciation, and adaptation. It seems some academics have caught on and described this as something of an “ecosystem”, with multiple players and interdependent relationships between. I suppose “mobile economics” could also be added to the model…although that would probably involve how game theory could be used in mobile networks (which I’ll leave for another time):
Visualization of Interfirm Relations in a Converging Mobile Ecosystem:
The mobile ecosystem is characterized by a large and complex network of companies interacting with each other, directly and indirectly, to provide a broad array of mobile products and services to end-customers. With the convergence of enabling technologies, the complexity of the mobile ecosystem is increasing multifold as new actors are emerging, new relations are formed, and the traditional distribution of power is shifted. Drawing on theories of network science, complex systems, interfirm relationships, and the creative art and science of visualization, this paper identifies key players and maps the complex structure and dynamics of nearly 7000 global companies and over 18,000 relationships in the converging mobile ecosystem. Our approach enables decision makers to (i) visually explore the complexity of interfirm relations in the mobile ecosystem, (ii) discover the relation between current and emerging segments, (iii) determine the impact of convergence on ecosystem structure, (iv) understand a firm’s competitive position, and (v) identify interfirm relation patterns that may influence their choice of innovation strategy or business models.
http://www.ti.gatech.edu/basole/docs/Basole.VisualizationConvergingEcosystem.JIT.2009.pdf
New devices are creating new opportunities and challenges for developers of social connectivity systems:
http://mashable.com/2009/10/14/new-flip-video-camera-includes-direct-facebook-uploads/
I also came across this interesting graphic from a blog with the clever motto, “Technology Changes, Humans Don’t”:
http://www.deborahschultz.com/deblog/2007/11/snackbyte-a-vie.html
The Mashup Ecosystem:
http://web2.socialcomputingjournal.com/the_web_20_mashup_ecosystem_ramps_up.htm
Mobile Ecosystem: Thought Leadership for the Wireless Industry:
http://www.m-ecosystem.com/
I discovered this strange and fascinating artist, Roy Ascott, who uses “telematics” as his inspirational medium. The ways people are learning to blend function and design is really interesting. Right now we personalize our ring tones, screen savers, and desktops. I can imagine a world where people not only have their foods and pharmaceuticals tailored for their unique genetic makeup, but can even design virtual realities in which they can re-experience life vicariously through “artifice”. For a Hollywood perspective, maybe I should go watch that new film “Surrogates” to get an idea of what might happen if personalization+virtualization is combined with telematics+art:
http://www.chooseyoursurrogate.com/
Roy Ascott is a pioneer of cybernetics and telematics in art whose work focuses on the impact of digital and telecommunications networks on consciousness; Ascott studied under Victor Pasmore and Richard Hamilton at King’s College, University of Durham; he has been Dean of San Francisco Art Institute, California, Professor and Head of Communications Theory in the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and Principal of Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Professor of Technoetic Art at University of Plymouth, and Adjunct Professor in Design|Media Arts at the University of California Los Angeles; the Groundcourse at Ealing School of Art, London, was the first of his radical interventions in art education;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Ascott
“The past decade has seen the two powerful technologies of computing and telecommunications converge into one field of operations that has drawn into its embrace other electronic media, including video, sound synthesis, remote-sensing, and a variety of cybernetic systems. These phenomena are exerting enormous influence upon society and on individual behaviour; they seem increasingly to be calling into question the very nature of what it is to be human, to be creative, to think and to perceive, and indeed our relationship to each other and to the planet as a whole. The “telematic culture” that accompanies the new developments consists of a set of behaviours, ideas, media, values, and objectives that are significantly unlike those that have shaped society since the Enlightenment. New cultural and scientific metaphors and paradigms are being generated, new models and representations of reality are being invented, new expressive means are being manufactured.
Telematics is a term used to designate computer-mediated communications networking involving telephone, cable, and satellite links between geographically dispersed individuals and institutions that are interfaced to data-processing systems, remote sensing devices, and capacious data storage banks (1). It involves the technology of interaction among human beings and between the human mind and artificial systems of intelligence and perception. The individual user of networks is always potentially involved in a global net, and the world is always potentially in a state of interaction with the individual. Thus, across the vast spread of telematics networks worldwide, the quantity of data processed and the density of information exchanged is incalculable. The ubiquitous efficacy of the telematic medium is not in doubt, but the question in human terms, from the point of view of culture and creativity, is: What is the content?”
http://telematic.walkerart.org/overview/overview_ascott.html
Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness:
Long before e-mail and the Internet permeated society, Roy Ascott, a pioneering British artist and theorist, coined the term “telematic art” to describe the use of online computer networks as an artistic medium. In Telematic Embrace Edward A. Shanken gathers, for the first time, an impressive compilation of more than three decades of Ascott’s philosophies on aesthetics, interactivity, and the sense of self and community in the telematic world of cyberspace. This book explores Ascott’s ideas on how networked communication has shaped behavior and consciousness within and beyond the realm of what is conventionally defined as art. Telematics, a powerful marriage of computers and telecommunication, made technologies we now take for granted–such as e-mail and automated teller machines (ATMs)–part of our daily life, and made art a more interactive form of expression. Telematic art challenges traditional relationships between artist, artwork, and audience by allowing nonlocal audiences to influence the emergent qualities of the artwork, which consists of the ebb and flow of electronic information.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zN85LrAoDwUC&source=gbs_navlinks_s
