The Internet to me is one of the biggest innovations ever. When you think of it, as the developer of the Internet, where did he even start?! Like the camera, the Internet is hands down one of the most beautiful creation yet. It will continue to amaze us and behold, we now have objects who blogs!
Julian Bleecker's 'Why Things Matter?' sheds a light on these thingies. It is a tricky concept to understand I must say but maybe with these videos, you'd understand the idea of Blogjects (objects that blog).
No, I'm not kidding you about Blogjects. These objects already exists and in the future, billions more Blogjects will surface in our homes. The social web now isn't solely for us humans only but it is becoming the "Internet of Things". These thingies joins and exchanges ideas through the web. They will become like human bloggers (you and I) by starting, maintaining and being smart in conversations. The relevant topics blogged by Blogjects will contribute to human's decision making.
Their characteristics includes
- Being able to track and trace where they have been
- Having embedded histories of their encounters and experiences
- Having an assertive voice within the social web
Which brings us to the point of why things matter? It is twofold, 1) For cohabitation - Space and Place; 2) For co-participation.
Cohabitation - Space and Place
Of these two points, I do agree with them pertinent to why Blogjects matters. Now in terms of space and place, it's really true how Bleecker has put it. Our things can now upload, download, disseminate and stream meaningful stuff. And all of these translates into being informative.
It is important to pay attention to these things because with an array of information, surely it will affect the physical world. These Blogjects will actually take up the space in various places in reality - a CCTV in a shopping mall, a body sensor in our pockets, a temperature device in our homes. If we're talking about CCTV being placed everywhere, it possesses a threat of privacy where we will feel uncomfortable with the rise of Blogjects.
Food for thought, wouldn't this function be an absolute thrill for Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks team? Where information can be achieved with these devices plugged into our surroundings?
Co-participation -
The Internet is ubiquitous and this applies to Blogjects too. As long as there's a network connection, these things will be exchanging information and participating in the media and content. They will be our Personal Assistant if I may put it. They will be participating in our daily routine to give us information, a different point of view, help and convenience.
This does get a lot of work done in a systematic order as our Blogjects has worked together to schedule out the most on time schedule for us. A very good function as we're all living in a fast paced era and especially the fact that it not only benefit us but others as well.
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In my opinion, there are the good and bad of Blogjects. The good thing is, we will benefit a lot from them. One thing is we will be able to know about important elements around us - the creatures under the sea, the animals on the brink of extinction in Amazon, the ferry being 15 minutes behind schedule. With devices and sensor embedded in various places, we will get these information as the objects will blog to us about the latest happenings. Information drives the world on.
Also, Blogjects can save lives! Now imagine this, if you were 80 years old, fragile and accident prone, specific medical related Blogjects will be useful. If you've fallen down in the bathroom and you've passed out, the Blogjects will automatically notifies an ambulance or someone about it. This does not necessarily applies only to the senior citizens but to everyone else as well, depending on the issue and the situation.
The bad thing is, I will see these Blogjects as an intrusion. Don't get me wrong, to have Blogjects waking you up, turning the hot water on the shower for you, automatically brewing your coffee and more really does makes life easier for us. Everything's on the go, but if this is how the future really rolls, then I believe certain people would not be comfortable to having objects in our house talking. It will seem odd and creepy at first. It's like we're being scrutinized and watched at so these Blogjects can speculate what to do for us.
Other than that it will be the usual on how human will be lazy and will be overly dependent on these devices and also the cost of having Blogjects in our homes would be another matter to ponder as well. I guess innovation will seem strange at the beginning, but once everyone accepts it, it'll eventually become a norm. Question, with Blogjects rising to the top, will it completely takes us over? If so, Houston, we've got a problem!
To date, I have not own any Blogjects yet. But it intrigues and excites me to see what's in store in the future. I think Blogjects are relatively cool and interesting which will bring the world to a whole new shift. Anticipating Blogjects!
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Hello Michelle!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that Blogject is some kind of intrusion to our lives. If objects start to invade our daily lifestyle, what's left of us? I personally think we should be retained with our own private space; thus, I would rather technology (Blogject, to be specific) to be an option instead of a dominant of our lives. Like, for instance, we choose to be connected to Facebook & Twitter when we want to be connected. It's not a priority in our lives, but when we start asking objects to do every single thing for us, it will affect us for sure in terms of demeaning humanity.
In my opinion, there ought to be a choice for individuals in choosing if they want to rely on objects or not. But, as you said, there are both advantages & disadvantages for Blogjects, and personally, I think one of the biggest disadvantages of the over-development of Blogjects is the fact that humans might be too dependent on objects to get their job down. So, I would say that it's all up to us to set our own limit and know the place of these intelligent objects so as to allow them to be able to help us both in our job and our self-development in the same time.
Referring to your highlight on whether intelligent objects will take over our lives, I agree that it is a huge concern if such development becomes too influential. What will happen to hands-on tasks? Will we lose our distinctive feature that makes us human to think for ourselves? And this again, would be very dependent on the individual. In short, I would say that input of objects intelligence would need to be monitored closely by humans themselves. They are meant to help us with our tasks, not to replace us.
Hi Michelle!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the good and down side of the blogject. It really comes useful when you wants to get latest information. Better than Twitter/Facebook, instead of keep clicking the refresh button to check the latest update, it'll comes all by itself.
You won't be worry if you're injured/kidnapped/die or whatnot as well. Guess by that the crime rate will decrease as well? It's like keeping a spy in each of the corner in the world. Whenever a thief tries to still something from the shelf, the shelf might just alert and say : One bottle of milk stolen. 30 seconds ago. Hahaha! Efficient much?
As for the down side, like what you said, people will start depending on it and turn lazy. Personally, I think the future generation would be worse if blogjects spread all over the world. You see, for our generation, you and I will only turn lazy and let the machine to do the job. But what about the future generation? They might not know how to brew coffee, how to cook, how to flush, how to boil water. All they need to do is just a command, and pooof! Everything is done. Don't you think so?
I was talking to a friend of mine earlier and we discussed about blogjects. He told me it will be creepy to stay in a house that can communicates. And what if the house doesn't like you? Will it just lock the whole house and burn you down? Hahaha. Or even what if the system broke down? You can never leave the house! haha Scaryyy!
Anyway, I like how to describe blogject! Thanks Mich! =)
Hey Michelle!
ReplyDeleteA lot realization have been made in concern of awareness that a product or device could actually easily turn over to their dark side and leave us humans aside without a need for us anymore. However, as intelligent I believe a device may be, without us there will be no objects! We are the father & mother of these objects that we created, one could say that objects can be treated as though they are our child, raise the child nicely it will definitely help us in our task at work, however taking a wrong turn and raising it in the wrong way, such as installing lots extra intelligence into the devices could actually benefit us temporary but if one day it decides to suddenly it has too much intelligence, we could actually be very vulnerable and at the mercy of this devices.
Thanks for the interesting post Michelle!
Yoohoo Su Wern! I absolutely love your punchline 'They are meant to help us with our tasks, not to replace us.' Innovations start off as intelligent, smart and beneficial. But when something becomes a trend, everyone wants to follow in the footsteps as well. Then some nasty people will start coming up with devices or Blogjects that are made specifically to help us on the easiest things ever. We might laugh and joke about it, but in the long run, these meaningless Blogjects doing the simplest jobs for us will leave humanity on the brink of falling right off the rocker.
ReplyDeleteBeneficial and informative is the key of Blogjects. They are our Personal Assistant, they assist and help us with our task - sorting, organizing, rerouting. They are not our clones. If we get all these devices to do our jobs, there's no point even going out of the house. The next thing we know, we're like the obese people in Wall E where they just laze around while the robots and technology fuss around their lives.
I like your opinion on being able to choose whether we want to accept Blogjects or not. Since Week 1 we have been talking about users' limits when using such innovations. We don't want to be completely swallowed by technologies. We need to have the balance and rational of what's right. Blogjects will go a long way to help us in doing so many things but it shouldn't be our clone. If not, what's the purpose of being in this world?
Thanks Su Wern, really appreciate your thoughts on this! Enjoyed!
Jia Xin! Yes, Blogjects might even serve the purpose of being our technology policemen or detective! If a car is hijacked or our laptop goes missing, Blogjects will be able to track our items down with their constant exchange of information! Seems like a really great idea huh!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you input the word 'Command' in with Blogjects. It's true with all these Blogjects helping us out with everything, we will somehow turn into being a bossy owner throwing orders around to these Blogjects. Which is wrong because they are just there to keep us on schedule and not to be our little slaves.
On the fact that our house will be filled with Blogjects is a creepy idea! You go home to devices talking to each other, watching your every step to know what you need and it gives off a really eerie feeling. Imagine sleeping and your bed starts blogging with the fan and the fan blogs with the table and so on so forth. A very disturbing thought I must say!
Thank you for your funny stories and thoughts about Blogjects, Jia Xin! Appreciate them!
Wow Kok Han, I really like how you tie Blogjects with the relationship of a parent and their child. I would say it's a really strong relation of example made. Anything that are misused or abused in power and usage will contribute to a chemical reaction affecting everyone - like domino.
ReplyDeleteI understand where you're coming from about so many Blogjects being around in our house. And baring in mind that these devices are intelligent creation who thinks and talks differently than us. Maybe it's the media effect of movies, but you'd never know there might be a storm brewing between these objects and then a take over and invasion pow!
But yes, getting back to the point, such innovations are great but knowing the correct usage and avoiding exploitation is really important as well. Innovations will change the world to be a better place. Why risk such wonderful creation? We should do everything we can to keep it going at its maximum potential benefiting us.
Thanks Kok Han, I really enjoyed your opinion here at this space. Thanks!
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeletetotally agree with you that it would be creepy to have blogject in the future and also the fact that initially we would not like it but as time passed we would get used to it.
But, it just makes me feel like we are robots living among other robots. To add on, if everyone uses the internet to do everything in their life, I am sure the internet ecosystem could crash in time. right?
Sharmila