Pervasive Computing: Embeddingthe Public Sphere
2005; Washington and Lee University School of Law; Volume: 62; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1942-6658
Autores Tópico(s)Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
ResumoI. IntroductionPervasive Computing (PerC) is what happens when the Internet gets ubiquitous, embedded, and animated. Ubiquitous access to the Internet through mobile, wireless devices is imminent. More important and less understood, the Internet will soon invade space as networked elements become embedded into physical objects and environments. Through this implantation, the physical world will gain digital qualities, such as computer-addressability through unique identification codes. Because these elements can also be animated, the environment will be able to respond directly to what it senses.Like digital kudzu, PerC will spread and cyberize what we have tenuously preserved as space. If the line between cyberspace and space has grown increasingly difficult to draw, it may soon become impossible.1 Widespread implementation of PerC will mean that the Internet will always be around-in the air and the walls-providing an ever-ready information template overlaid on the real world we navigate.2 In addition, by embedding into the physical world, PerC will bring the qualities of cyberspace, including some of its information economics, into the material realm. It will enable the cyberized environment to respond, perhaps autonomously, to data previously uncollected and uncollectible. Imagine not a robot, not an isolated and identifiable device, but a world saturated with networked intelligence.We can speculate about benefits, such as increased personal safety by better monitoring of public spaces. Just as easily, we can speculate about costs, such as diminished privacy through excessive surveillance. Will these benefits and costs, as well as other political, social, and ethical concerns, be adequately vetted before PerC becomes a reality? We doubt it, especially given PerC's decentralized research and development, piecemeal adoption, obvious cost savings, and deep invisibility.This Article is a necessarily transdisciplinary intervention3 into how PerC becomes embedded into our public sphere, in the sense of public spaces, and conversely how the public sphere, in the sense of the cultural, ethical, and policy judgments made through public discourse, might be embedded into PerC itself. We seek to spot major issues, provide an analytic vocabulary, and initiate preliminary analyses. Predicting, much less advising about, even nearfutures may be in vain. Still, given what is at stake, we take up that challenge.II. Pervasive ComputingA. PerC DefinedThe term pervasive computing does not have any orthodox definition. We use this term to describe the kind of that will result from the convergence of three computing-communication trends.Ubiquitous. Access to information-best represented by current use of the Internet-will become ubiquitous. Right now, most people use the Internet while sitting in front of desktops with a wired network connection. But that model of data access is changing rapidly. First, the nodes used to access the Internet are diversifying and shrinking. In addition to notebook computers and tablet PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs) as well as mobile telephones are increasingly providing limited, but useful, access to the Internet. Indeed, previously separate electronic devices are converging into communicators that provide not only voice telephony but also access to the World Wide Web, email, instant messaging, and other communicative functionalities in a single, compact form-factor.4 Second, the channel of communications is increasingly becoming wireless and widespread in the form of 802.11x wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi), 3G (third generation) mobile telephony networks, and even newer technologies.5Access nodes will further shrink in size and grow in power, with correlative improvements in user interfaces to make the information received legible (for example, with visor interfaces, or anywhere-readable communicator screens) or otherwise comprehensible (for example, with spoken messages through wireless ear prosthetics). …
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