Sentient Data Access

CowboyRobot writes "From Queue comes a piece subtitled Why doesn't your data know more about you? From the article: 'It has been more than ten years since such information appliances as ATMs and grocery store UPC checkout counters were introduced. ... A common language for these devices has not been standardized, nor have current database solutions sufficiently captured the complexities involved in correctly expressing multifaceted data. ... As computing devices expand from the status-quo keyboard and desktop to a variety of form factors and scales, we can imagine workplaces configured to have a society of devices, each designed for a very specific task. As a whole, the collection of devices may act much like a workshop in the physical world, where the data moves among the specialized digital stations. For our society of devices to operate seamlessly, a mechanism will be required to (a) transport data between devices and (b) have it appear at each workstation, or tool, in the appropriate representation.'"

Comments

perhaps a good thing?

[joethebastard]

i'm not an expert on the subject.... but, at least in the case of devices like ATMs, which have fairly simple tasks, how would we benefit from a standardized language? i put my PIN in, money comes out, my bank account balance goes down. the elegance of the code behind it doesn't concern me.

i know that "security through obscurity" is a cheesy solution, but i can't help thinking that if every ATM in the country had the same architecture, the system as a whole would be more prone to hacks and abuse. what do you think?

What a poor pretentious article

[rcastro0]

Did anybody try to read the article ? Holy, that is the type of logic that drove me away from social sciences. And the authors seem to be computer science guys !

Let's see what this is all about:

1) FIND AN OBVIOUS TREND
We think microprocessors are spreading everywhere, and see/predict they doing a lot of things, including communication

2) GIVE IT A SOPHISTICATED SOUNDING NAME
I think I will call it... UbiComp (ubiquitous computing)!.

3) ELABORATE ON WHAT NAMED TREND WILL IMPLY
Computers will be everywhere. People will talk to them. They will talk to people... they will talk with each other ! (claps)

4) WRITE ABOUT WHY IMPLICATIONS DIDN'T HAPPEN
"New forms of interaction must be developed for this environment (...)"

5) PEPPER IT ALL WITH UNBEARABLY OBSCURE PHRASES
"Thoughts exchanged by one another are not the same in one room as in another. This includes "thoughts" exchanged between people and/or machines, and implies that behavior is sensitive to location, and as a consequence of mobility, must adapt to changes in physical and social location." Make sure you make references to lots of other authors and experts.

6) RELEASE TEXT TO A "WANT TO LOOK INTELLECTUAL" AUDIENCE
Which will pretend this is the smartest piece of writing ever, and the uninitiated simply are just not smart enough to understand.

No thanks, I think I can do without concepts like UbiComp.