By Derek (February 18, 2009) (week 4 reading response)

Ambient Intelligence and Sensor Networks are somewhat intertwined; a well-designed network can enable a useful system of ambient intelligence.  The EU did seem to describe some of the directions that technology is going today – the Maria and Carmen scenarios seem to reflect some things that are happening now, namely automating and facilitating transactions with technology. The “digital me” and “ambient learning” ones seem misguided, though. I think some technology enthusiasts have this fantasy of avatars and artificial intelligence that most average people don’t really want, especially at the level we can implement today or in the foreseeable future. The Ambient Learning one seems backward – I think people would rather learn in their own environments from a real teacher, communicating with each other over the network, rather than go to a room with other people to learn from a disembodied voice. IPSO Alliance is on one track, to establish the standards and to promote the goals of these sensor networks; Openspime feels like it’s getting ahead of itself by trying to promote the terminology “spime” and build a business from the concept without a clearly articulated need.

The Blogject Manifesto was hard to read through its thicket of buzzwords.  I already have an (admittedly irrational) revulsion to the sound of the word “blog,” and “blogject” sounds even worse.  I hope it doesn’t catch on.  Buzzwords aside, the idea that we can have objects in the world publishing data and working as social agents appears to have potential, though Bleeker’s examples aren’t particularly compelling. Would you or he really add data from a school of migrating whales to your news aggregator?

Of the personality pieces, the Wowwee products were the most interesting.  They seem to have the right balance of aesthetic and emotional appeal, along with the ability to engage and arouse curiosity and raise questions about the role of robots and what relationship they might have with humans. For example, they seem conscious of the biases that designers have had in designing past robots, and have introduced the “femisapien” to address that.  The features that they have chosen to build into it (posing, dancing, blowing kisses) may be questionable, but at least it brings the issues out into the open.