Nicholas Negroponte WIRED Columns

http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/

[Beyond Digital]
Being big and small
- All things digital get bigger and smaller at the same time
Being prime
- Prime time will be my time. We'll all live very asynchronous lives, in far less lockstep obedience to each other. Any store that is not open 24 hours will be noncompetitive. The idea that we collectively rush off to watch a television program at 9:00 p.m. will be nothing less than goofy. It will make sense only for sporting events and election results - and that is only because people are betting.

"Peer-to-peer is key"

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_25/b3888606.htm

Q&A With MIT's Nicholas Negroponte The cyber-soothsaying author of Being Digital looks at what's next: "Peer-to-peer is key"

Q: Which new products or services are likely to make the biggest splash?

A: Peer-to-peer is key. I mean that in every form conceivable: cell phones without towers, sharing leftover food, bartering, etc. Furthermore, you will see micro-wireless networks, where everyday devices become routers of messages that have nothing to do with themselves. Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

other articles:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_17/b3830613.htm

Internet for those who wouldn't approach a computer

collection has been conceived as an attempt to question the role of networked appliances in the domestic environment.
netObjects are designed for eight stereotypes of media consumers who are fascinated with different types of content and who seldom get online through the computer screen.

Each object has one very simple and specific function. For example, netGossip is a pot dedicated to the readers of Hello magazine and keeps them posted about the latest (mis)adventures of their favourite stars. netUmbrella, is an umbrella providing you with the weather forecasts, netFlirt is a box that stamps love messages for lonely hearts, netCuckoo is a cuckoo clock that displays news, with a switch to choose between left wing or right wing news, etc.
The project was developed by Hector Serrano (the designer of the swimmingpool lamp) and Victor Viña and launched last October 2003 at e-culture fair 2 in Amsterdam. The exhibition consists of eight interactive prototypes, eight photographs, and a video with testimonials of the eight characters of this story.

Source URL : http://www.netobjects.org.uk/en/frames.html

human body as a media

Communications path by simple touch

RedTacton is a Human Area Networking technology developed by NTT Docomo, that uses the surface of the human body as a network transmission path. Communication starts when the skin comes in contact with a transceiver and ends with physically separation.
The system works through shoes and clothing as well.

Related article URL : http://www.ntt.co.jp/news/news05e/0502/050218.html

Human skin data transmission technology
Matsushita Electric Works has developed the human skin data transmission technology and started selling it to manufacturers of mesuring apparatuses including Teraoka Seikou.
Teraoka Seikou will be able to build a system for sales agents who sell, for example, meat by weight. They will wear a wrist-band that accumulates information. When a customer orders, say, ground beef, a sales agent touches a corresponding digitally-enhanced product information card. This data is transmitted through the sales agent's skin and stored in his wristband. When he puts some ground beef on an electronic scale and touches it the data in thewrist band are transmited to the scale.

The technology can be used both for "human-human communication " and "human-machine" communication.

RFID with audio function

The speaking drug label
Thailand IC-Design Incubator is now developing a speaking drug label that will soon allow anyone to follow the instructions when taking medicine just by listening to the drug itself.

The technology integrates RFID and voice recording to allow drug labels to tell the name of the medicine, give instructions on its use and information about its possible side effects.
A small RFID chip will be attached to the drug label. To make the drug talk, users use an RFID reader which will match the information with a drug directory in a small database embedded in the reader.
Related article URL : http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2005/02/28/byteline/index.php?news=byteline_16563728.html

Concept model of RFID in a gum
NEC designers have created design possibilities with near future paradigms in mind: ubiquitous technology, smaller hardware, and expanding volume of information handled.
Among their 2003 concept models --thus and unfortunately not planned to be commercialized at this point, I had a crush on:
Gumi: RFID chips hold the usage rights to images and music available on the network. The chips are covered in a gummy capsule, sold in packages just like candies, and are edible after use.

When the play unit is connected to the container, the basic unit, it can be used as an audio player. By setting it in the cradle connected to the display through wireless LAN, users can also enjoy visual contents. Blank chips on which users can allocate data will also be available.

Source URL : http://www.nec-design.co.jp/showcase/index.html#gumi

The Final project proposal

Major Studio2 - Interactivity / Ji Sun Lee (Sun) 03/01/2005

The Final project proposal:
Exploring broadcasting and video power in next media

I am studying ubiquitous computing, especially the area between telecommunication and broadcasting because I want to find out how the future media that each person could hold or use everywhere affects an influence in everyday life in order to understand how our life style and social relationship will change and become advanced.

1) motivation
One of my friends in Korea turns on the DMB(Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) phone to watch the morning news when he wakes up in the morning in spite of having a nice HD TV in his living room. Moreover, my young cousin does her school work using a cell phone on the bus, exchanges text messages and pictures with her friends, and never goes out without her cell phone. People are as enthusiastic about getting their own cell phone as having their own telephone and television at home a long time ago. Moreover, the cell phone is absorbing other media’s functions and being a stronger convergence media. Among the functions, the broadcasting would be the most powerful and important function and content in the cell phone. When the media allows people exchange the video data in real time, they would not need to communicate with plain text or audio, because people are always eager for real communication and information with video and audio like in the real physical world. I guess this kind of media affects our life and society as much as television technology affected it before.

2) thesis
The cell phone would have not only telecommunication functions, but also broadcasting functions. This is the main phenomenon in recent technology: Verizon started to provide the broadcasting service “Vcast” on the cell phone in the first quarter of this year. In not only the cell phone and but also PDAs, smart phones, and personal laptops, broadcasting will have more meaning than in the television. Interactive technology and different sizes of the screen (like small or huge) of the broadcasting will contribute different meaning: TiVo or Demand television allow people to not watch the whole commercial and wait for the scheduled time. In addition, a camcorder function on the cell phone could provide the power of creating own personal media channels. So, if people have their own media which dangles from them all the time and if they can see and control the same resource in every screen in everyday life, what do they want to use that technology for?

References
Interactive TV in Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_tv
Verizon’s Vcast : http://getitnow.vzwshop.com/vcast.video.learn.do
Ubiquitous Korea : http://www.ittimes.co.kr/en/node.asp?em=M&mcode=200501
SK telecom’s DMB : http://www.sktelecom.com/eng/services/dmb/index.html
NTT DoCoMo’s Interconnected world and Vision 2010 : http://www.nttdocomo.com/