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The Internet of Things - What is a Spime?
CoolVibe writes "From the abstract in the talk: "World-renowned Science Fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling will outline his ideas for SPIMES, a form of ubiquitous computing that gives smarts and 'searchabiliity' to even the most mundane of physical products. Imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth." It's a very interesting lecture given by Bruce Sterling about something we might see in the near future. The lecture can be viewed here on Google Video."
By the time any of this technology could ship we'd probably have thought controlled car locks. No need for keys then.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
... to find my car keys I'm never going to be able to make a beer run tonight.
I've been looking for my cell phone for the last 30 minutes. Checked the office, checked the car, had the wife check the house. Been calling it! Can't find it!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
I didn't VTFV but I have strong opinions on this matter....{add your own rant here}
P226
"Imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth."
Imagine a thief doing the same?
Imagine letting anyone who wants to steal your car be able to search for your keys on Google Earth.
Simon's Rock College
But if I can imagine finding my lost car keys on Google Earth, I sure can imagine trying to find someone else's car keys on Google Earth.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth.
http://static.flickr.com/108/261905722_d2912c0465
Still waiting for them to add it to Earth.
http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/googl e%202084.jpg
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
But, all I could think about the whole time is about those darn car keys. I kept hearing in my head my parents calling me: "Son, I need you to come look at the computer. Google keeps telling me my car keys are in the house, but I've looked all over for them. I think Google is broken again."
First car keys, then a small injection when you are born and now 'Big Brother' knows where you are.
Isn't this the beginning of the huge "everything will have a computer in it" world that we have expected? I know that technology can sometimes go to far, but something like this, if implemented correctly, could actually be extremely practical.
As long as you can reticulate them, of course.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It's called RFID chips. Of course it doesn't have the long range abilities the summary seems to suggest, but it's still pretty close. And they are cheap.
Imagine losing your car keys and having someone else find them with Google Earth. Imagine someone without a warrant keeping track of your car keys.
I don't usually wear a tin-foil hat, but this idea has exploit written all over it.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
n/t
Super Powerful Intelligent Monster Elephants
IANAMA but how often do designers predict technology accurately?
And I'd expect better chairs at Google...
imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth."
That's as useless as mammary glands on a bull.
google earth has this flashing Dot on my house. with a arrow, "your keys are here".
DUH!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Spi Me. If you can find your carkeys on Google, then so can Google. And if Google can, the government you're under can find your carkeys too. Normally you're near where your carkeys are, or maybe your cellphone, or maybe the governmental id card.
God spoke to me.
"Imagine the government being able to find your exact location using Google. Err, I mean your car keys."
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Do you really want google to know where your car keys are?
That's pretty personal there folks. Think about it.
Who would you call people looking for your keys on Google Maps? Spimers? Spimps? Spiminals?
Any self-respecting drunk will make sure he always lives within staggering distance of a liquor store.
There is nothing about being able to use Google Earth to find your keys which implies by its very nature the ability for Google itself to find your keys, any more than the ability for Google Desktop to find your pr0n implies by its very nature the ability for Google itself to find your pr0n.
I want my home computer to be able to have disconnected local extensions enabling me to perform searches on things which Google itself doesn't consider relevant.
If I really wanted to, I could (right now!) go out to radioshack and get everything required to set up a Home Positioning System- like a GPS, but with less G. I could then interface the data from that with Google Earth using its existing extension mechanisms and- without Google knowing a thing about it get Google Earth to tell me where my keys are.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Imagine losing your car keys and being able to search for them with Google Earth
...
By the time any of this technology could ship we'd probably have thought controlled car locks. No need for keys then.
If I end up so far from my car keys that I need GOOGLE EARTH to find them, I have failed miserably...
Or had a really good time. I suppose it could go either way (or both).
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Imagine being able to find, not only anyone who stole your car, but anyone who stole your car keys.
I think a SPIME-rich world would present a lot of challenges to all but the cleverest of thieves.
I need my car keys, I call a number and this loon screams at me that they're under my dresser or something like that, sprinkled with expletives and mutterings about the John Birch Society, Freemasons, and IRS and I have my keys just like that. Of course, the Psychotic Friends Network isn't for everyone, but it doesn't involve RFIDs and notoriously insecure web systems either.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I'll be able to enjoy spam 24hrs/day and 7days/week, targetted specifically towards my taste in women, tool sizes, drugs, and vista preferences... all through my car keys, my nail cutter, my shaving appliance, my dishes, my glasses, my boots, and my underwear. I can hardly wait.
Shaping things! great book, but so 2005! And here i am reading /. to stay up to date...
I'll be more enthusiastic about "ubiquitous computing" when I see something that economically and pleasingly replaces the paperback book. Not even close yet.
Have you read my blog lately?
Why the hell are people so comfortable with themselves and everything they care about being able to be located at the push of a button!?!?!?!?!?!?!
If you can find it, your enemies can too. and if you think you don't have enemies, your a fool.
Take it personal if you want....
"AAAARGH!! My SPIME!"
Invader Zim, best cartoon ever!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
we were looking for my moms keys.
So my brother called 411 (information, usually phone numbers)
They said they were under the couch...They were.
true story.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
can you use triangulation to find your mod points?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
... you can crack nuts with a sledgehammer. Film at 11!
This guy is the biggest wind bag I've ever heard and I've sat through many a University colloquia. I can't believe Google put this guy on. This guy's picture is next to the definition of pompous.
Oh yeah, Just a second hun, I lost my keys, let me ping them on the net.
Do you put them into the DNS?
In the future...
- Separatism will be forgotten!
- No more wars!
- Parents and their kids will get along better!
- Enough stuff for everyone!
- Flying cars!
- There will be more of this but less of that!
- Time won't be the same!
- People will vacation on Mars!
- No one will be ill!
- We won't need money!
- Everything everywhere will be ok!
- People will be writing even more articles about the Future which will turn out to be at least partially incorrect and more often entirely incorrect!
I asked a Google Earth person a few years ago at the Accelerating Change conference about whether they were experimenting with this idea, and she just smiled slyly. It's right up their alley of making your information accessible and searchable.
They should have chosen a different name for this. Spime is the name of a cutting-edge mathematical theory by George Nayef Kayatta, the Foremost Renaissance Man of our age and a Megagenius in the Arts and In The Sciences. It's bad enough that his groundbreaking research has been suppressed for so long, but to give something else the same name is a slap in the face.
Is this any way to treat the megagenius who created the monumental work The Holy Bible in Verse?
tag: spyme
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I hope by that time there won't be cars or keys anymore.
Slashdotter : "But Google-earth says your sperm..."
I think Vernor Vinge called it a localizer a number of years back.
Not sure what Drexler et al were calling the idea in the late 80s, but they were talking about much the same thing as well as general assemblers and such things as utility fog that could do the same thing.
People have been working on ubi-comp for a long time.
...they are right in my stolen car. Thanks google!
I am not very sure if Mr. Sterling is using this "Internet of Things" short phrase as something he has conceptualized, imagined or otherwise invented. But the terminology "Internet of Things" has been used many years before Mr. Sterlings' book was published, to refer to a global network of EPC (Electronic Product Code)-based RFID tags and the infrastructure that supports it, the EPC Network. Actually you can see reports of as soon as January 2001, by the then Auto-ID center, now Auto-ID Lab MIT, mentioning the "Internet of Things".
My point is that the concept Mr. Sterling is talking about is not new, not even from 2004. Finding out the location of RFID tags (those tags being attached to any type of object) is part of the envisioned EPC Network functionalities, not only Supply Chain Management or Product Lifetime Management. Many people have been working on that for very long time (no real global working solution yet though).
Oh yeah...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
*ducks*
http://www.collude.biz - Ignore this, it's for Project Honey Pot.
no where in that article was any reference to porn! NONE! WTF?
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
If you're having trouble thinking of realistic use cases, the key is to work from the assumption that rfid and rfid scanners are ubiquitous. Think of things in your home or in your place of business. Now, ask yourself what would it mean to you if you could uniquely identify that item and track its location anywhere in the building, and what if you could do that remotely (with proper safeguards for privacy)?
Now couple this with ubiquitous eletronic mapping of your home and the buildings you spend your day in.
Your Dinner Plates Are Trackable
It's time to do dishes. You have a glass and a small plate at your family computer from that snack you ate while reading the news after work. You have two glasses on the coffee table and one on the sofa from the guests you had over last night. Your son has three plates, a bowl, flatware, and a few glasses up in his room. You left a drinking glass on the washroom counter.
But you don't know that they are there yet! Sure, you could walk into the family room and look around and pick up any you see, but you can do better. Open up your mobile, direct the interface to show the location of all diningware in your home. Now filter that to exclude diningware not already in the kitchen. How do you do that? I don't know, maybe it's as direct as typing "diningware +home -kitchen" into a prompt. But however you do it, now you see on your mobile a layout of your home with red dots indicating the location of diningware you need to round up to wash.
Your Refrigerator Is Queryable
Only it isn't that clunky Refrigerator of the Future you saw in that magazine article.
You're at the grocery store. You're out of milk, low on soy sauce, and out of eggs. But you can only remember the eggs! Open up your mobile. Query "groceries +refrigerator +out" to get a list of groceries that belong in your refrigerator that you are out of: "1. milk, 2. eggs". How does it know what you are out of? After all, if you are out of it, it isn't there. AI? Of course not. It gives a list of groceries that have recently been in your refrigerator but aren't now.
But wait, what about the soy sauce? Well, it's still there, so your query for things you are out of didn't catch it. How can it know you are low on it? Does the soy sauce bottle have a amount remaining meter that can be read? Of course not, let's be realistic! What you did is designate to your fridge when you set it up that the bottom door-shelf is for things you are running low on. You put the soy sauce bottle there last night after the meal to be sure you'd remember - or rather so it would remember - and your fridge has rfid scanners with sufficient granularity to know what is on this shelf. So you rewrite your query: "groceries +refrigerator +out +low" and you get "1. milk, 2. eggs, 3. soy sauce". Aha! Soy sauce, that's what you were missing. Because you configured your fridge like this when you set it up, when you query "low" in the context of "refrigerator" that's becomes an alias for "top left shelf".
Your house would have more rfid scanners than electrical outlets. And everything from a carton of milk to your cat's collar would have an rfid tag.
Other good examples once you make these assumptions? 1) Tracking locations of projectors, televisions, and media carts in the office or school. 2) Tracking locations of books in a library. 813.11A. Where the heck is that? Instead of asking the librarian or following signs through the winding maze of shelves until you find 800xxx, just query it in your mobile and it will show you exactly where it is in the electronically mapped library. Just walk over and pick it up.
So this "internet of things" idea of tagging everything and having metadata about all things physical...
For this to create a "sustainable" framework, all objects when broken down to be recycled would have to be worth something. If my TV (or whatever) has 4.2 million tagged parts in it, everything from the logo down to the solder on the boards, the only way that TV is going to get recycled and reused in manufacturing is going to be if:
A) There must exist an automated way for the TV to "disassemble" to those parts
B) Those parts/materials are all reusable
C) I get paid for every single one of those parts (or get a little more in "credit" if I buy from the same manufacturer)
ISSUES:
Tag spammers. If manufacturers can put tags on everything, what's to prevent "spammers" from spraying their nano tags on everything. What about people that place fake tags on objects to make them seem more valuable or just to confuse the "system". However, maybe the system would have a way of tossing out bad tags by using some sort of "hash" or something along those lines. Privacy? No longer exists.
PLUSES:
All theft would be traceable. Unfortunately that also makes you 100% traceable even if you aren't a criminal. Insurance companies would begin associating risk with the types of tags you are in close proximity to. Heck, as you walk down the street, you might get real time "danger assessments" on some sort of meter depending on who is near you, what products are near bye...You could plan routes to avoid those areas that statistically are more dangerous. The possibilities are endless.
The amount of information and metadata this "internet of things" would create are mind boggling. I guess that's where quantum computers will come in handy.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
This one's too good to stay hidden.
Imagine this same response being modded up 4 times...
Just sayin'...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596 007655/findability-20/
This book has been shaking things up a bit in some circles in the same way as The Tipping Point did.
And Stirling's quoted on the book's blurb. Bit of a giveaway.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Close. I'd call my grandchild to have him/her talk to the Roomba and if Google is broken again, I'd call the same kid. I'm soooo looking forward to being able to blame being a jerk on age and senility.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
What is the RFID tags had no unique ID in them?
Instead a Datablock describing, who made the item
what raw products the item contains etc...
Then you could build a 'cheap' sorting unit that recycling centers could
use to sort the junk into the appropriate bins for melting back down into raw products
Simple example...
Glass here, Plastic here, Metals here, etc...
MOST of the stuff that goes into landfills can be recycled one way or another.
the rest in generally organic anyway so composting it isn't too hard.
Help! help!, the termites are eating my DRAM!!!
A stupid name for something.
And while I personally have nothing against Sterling, he is the most unimaginative, super corporate author around - while he is espousing those most silly futurist predictions of his (he is both soooo glib and gullible) - reality is constantly passing him by. No critical thinker is he......
we're used to rocket scientists being unable to handle metric / imperial conversions. mars missions, anyone?
:D
hmmm. would it be possible to mess with someone using google earth to track things down and convince them that they're located in a different area... have them running around their office like crazy while you're standing outside holding them
---- I was woken up this morning by a face full of fur. Damn cat thought my head made a good pillow.
User-agent: wife /pr0n
disallow:
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."