Eleventh lecture
For this lecture, I read the paper : “The computer for the 21st century” by Mark Weiser
Source : https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Weiser-SciAm.pdf
The purpose is to answer two questions (sorry for the huge block of text) :
Are we already living in a world of ubiquitous computing ?
The text
It would be too easy to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Let’s see what the text describes and what I think of it .
Mark Weiser depicts a world where ovens, stereos, thermostat are connected. I must thing of the current mainstream idea of the internet of things. It develops fastly and 5G might be a huge step forward for it. However, we remain a bit far from the ubiquitous as, for instance, I don’t have such connected devices in my flat.
Moreover, he asks the reader to look how many display surfaces he has around him. Well, many for sure as I write those lines, but they are still raw wood ! 30 years later, displays are still rare around us. Only a few important and expensive devices have some. We stay far from what they expected.
What about requirements of this world ? ‘Cheap, low-power computer’, ‘convenient display’, ‘software’ and a ‘network’. I think we have an entire range of display for any kind of use. Software have been developed through time and can achieve many tasks. Finally, the internet has become for sure must stronger than any network they could have dreamed of.
Finally, he stays a really long time on their pad thing. To my mind, those could be one piece of a ubiquitous world. However, by his definition of ubiquitous, it would only be one of many. Actually, I think it depicts something that keep them away from what the world really become, and that keep us away from ubiquitous : the prices. This is the last “requirement” that is not ready yet. Indeed, they depict a pad that you can give like a sheet of paper. Well, give me a brand new Ipad pro, I will be glad ! Any of those devices is still very expansive. Devices and gadgets rule our live, but lives of wealthy people that can afford them only. And even those people (us) take great care of this little sheet of paper.
So after all, I will answer ‘no’ to the question anyway. No, even our small rich western world has not got the possibility to fill his life with ubiquitous devices.
What already happened that we need for this vision and what needs to happen that we get more towards ubiquitous computing ?
I did love the analogy with wires. It is indeed true more and more digital application happen without any human interaction, or even without our consciousness of its presence. I hope you won’t need it but much passive assistance for cars now protect you in real time. It is one example of many of electronic being all around us (we can’t even open a door in public places anymore !).
However, I less agree with the idea that using technology like pads in a meeting would be all natural for everyone. Simply give a current tablet to my grand-parents and see, even with classes taken, it remains difficult to do simple tasks as it is not natural for them. However, I confess it became so for us. For instance, I tried a tesla not long ago. The central console is build more or less like a smartphone. Even if all of this was new to me, I had no difficulty exploring and finding anything I needed.
To go back to technical matters, the protocol issues he wrote about seem to me less and less serious. Indeed, it could be a mess if we were surrounded by machine not capable of interacting. I think it still was an issue not long ago : what a mess to use bluetooth, to have a samsung galaxy that does not use the same frequencies as Europe for 4G, or even to send a simple text document from Mac to PC. However, great work has been made and today, it appears to me that it works quite great. This is true at least for the user, of course, it remains a big difficulty for development.
To answer directly the question, I do think that the requirements described in the first part are indeed what make us close to this vision. The internet of course leads all of this, as well as global communication system like 4G and now 5G. However, we maybe still need to increase the global level of life in order to get cheaper electronic components. Moreover, if we become more and more dependant to actual needs we have, it would I think enable companies to create new needs and new devices.
Finally, even if indeed I write those lines on an expensive computer next to an expensive phone, I do think we have to keep in mind that all of this is only a question of our rich world. Indeed, talking of “a world of ubiquitous computing” is forgetting that some part of the world still do not have access to the internet. I know that pretty well as I went to Senegal for a new computer library next to the Mauritanian border. There, most students never touched a mouse of a computer before (for real, one 14 years old one took it in the wrong direction). They actually have the internet as Orange are everywhere in the country, but they cannot afford devices or data. It could also be great not to forget that they still do not have the running water as well. So, to have a coffee maker that pings the weather in 10 ms in maybe not the priority in the world, I humbly think.
General critic of the text
I now want at last to focus on some point I found great or simply that occurred not to be true.
First, in the very title, he writes about infrared. It seems to me that those are seldom used. There are some applications, but it is nothing compare to telecommunication in general (if you don’t count lights in fiber).
Another idea : he thought this vision would occur in about 20 years. Actually, in 2011 there were already the internet and smartphones, but even today, as I showed before, it is still not it.
To contrast those negative points, I was surprise to see how privacy was already such a big thing at the time. Indeed, home assistants for instance, one central device in a ubiquitous world I think, raise such issues. However, writing that ubiquitous devices could prevent it, without really any argument, seems a little too much to me in the defense of the vision.
Anyway, I was criticising some things before, like their pad idea. Ok, but how not to notice that they actually invented the ipad ! It is amazing how much they foreseen such a concept. It is even more that they created it, as good as possible with the technology available.
Finally, how not to talk about those last sentences, really made to mark the reader. This idea that the computer and the human are in essence different relativize all the paper. Indeed, to be surrounded by machines, a link as to be present, I think. Currently, I do not think things have changed about that, deep learning chips in Iphone for instance enable machines to learn our habits, but they still work this 0 and 1, we don’t. It is what make us different for now, and maybe I will become a cranky old man with this idea ; but I do think it is for the best that way !