Here’s an interesting entry from Nat Torkington of O’reilly on the subject of ubiquitous computing. He draws from an interview with William Gibson, focusing on this quote:
One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from the real, the virtual from the real. In the future, that will become literally impossible. The distinction between cyberspace and that which isn’t cyberspace is going to be unimaginable. When I wrote Neuromancer in 1984, cyberspace already existed for some people, but they didn’t spend all their time there. So cyberspace was there, and we were here. Now cyberspace is here for a lot of us, and there has become any state of relative nonconnectivity. There is where they don’t have Wi-Fi.
Check out the report Torkington refers at trendwatching.com called “OFF=ON”
It’s an interesting subject that goes to the relationship between the digital world and the “real” world.
One Comment
That’s a really interesting concept to think about. It does make a lot of sense though. It reminds of a time when I couldn’t find my other sock and without thinking about it I thought “Oh, I’ll just Google it.” Not quite the same concept but similar.