UIUC Unveils the Worlds Most Advanced Building

Eagle5596 writes "The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, one of the top Computer Science programs in the world has just officially opened their new $80 million Siebel Center. The department head describes the building as a single computing entity, meant to be programmed and to interact with those in the building via RFID tags in their ID cards. This is probably one of the biggest and most expensive projects in ubiquitous computing ever launched, touching on all the important issues in this field, from privacy to the ultimate question about the usefulness of such a system. Several papers are covering this including the Chicago Sun Times, and the Chicago Business"

Comments

I'm not sure

[odano]

I'm not sure if I like the idea that anything between me and these 4 walls is now between me and some sort of ubiquitous building-computer.

"Modern" buildings tend to not age well

[winkydink]

The old TWA terminal at JFK (round, swoopy curvy thing) and terminal 1 at CDG (aka the habitrail) both looked incredibly modern and futuristic when first opened.

The UIUC bldg sounds extremely cool, but in 5 yrs folks will be smiling politely at the "hokey-ness" of the place.

Re:"Modern" buildings tend to not age well

[MoTec]

I have to disagree... I just visited Bartlesville, OK on business and saw an amazing looking building, a true work of art. Frank Lloyd Wright's only "skyscraper" Price Tower.

It was built in the late 50's and looks good today. Of course, Frank Lloyd Wright is considered by many to be one of the great architects of all time and the Siebel Center isn't really of the same class.

Re:"Modern" buildings tend to not age well

[kfg]

I'm a fan of the FIAT 124 Spider. When it was first introduced Road & Track called it's syling "Classic, but slightly dated."

20 years later when they featured it as used classic they called its styling "Classic, but slightly dated."

Today I would, myself, call its styling "Classic, but slightly dated," and rather imagine that's the way my grandchildren will describe in in another 50 years.

On the other hand when my first gen Capri was only 5 years old it looked old. Old and stupid.

My brother's 64 1/2 Mustang looks, well, classic, but slightly dated. I think the new Mustang is going to start looking old and stupid in about, ohhhhh, next week.

His '63 split window 'Vette looks kick ass! Yes, at the time of introduction people thought it looked too dated.

Are we sensing the trend here?

Most of the people here would think my desktop theme looks "old fashioned" (i.e. what we had a few years ago). It's flat. Lacks transparency. The widgets have corners and shit. The colors are muted earth tones and lack shading.

Of course, it's also in a mode that has been considered conservatively attractive for some thousands of years.

I think I'll keep it.

KFG

Re:"Modern" buildings tend to not age well

[winkydink]

Ah, but are the fixtures, etc.. built to withstand the test of time. One of my company's buildings has "modular partitions" (not cubes, these are floor-to-ceiling) that are about 10 years old. Not only do they now mostly fall apart when you attempt to reconfigure them, they look dated as well.

This will be fun to watch...

[Black Art]

I am waiting for the first time they blow the breakers on the circuit that handles their security computer.

What happens? Does the system fail to "everything is locked"?

This sounds like a RISKS article waiting to happen.