There is an existential unease lying at the root of theInternet of Things a sense that we may emerge not less than human, certainly, butotherthan human.
So, if were going to be cyborgs, argues Breseman, lets be competent, sophisticated cyborgs. For one thing, its now in our ability to upgrade beyond the screen. For another, being better cyborgs may make us paradoxically more human.
Im really concerned about how we integrate human beings into the growing web of technology, says Breseman, who will speak at OReillys upcomingSolidconference in San Francisco in May. Its easy to get caught up in the cool new thing mentality, but you can end up with a situation where the point for the technology is the technology, not the human being using it. It becomes closed rather than inclusive an app developers developing apps for app developers to develop apps kind of thing.
Those concerns have led Breseman and her colleagues at Technical Machine to the development of theTessel: an open-sourceArduino-style microcontroller that runs JavaScript and allows hardware project prototyping. And not, Breseman emphasizes, the mere prototyping of cool new things rather, the prototyping of things that will connect people to the emerging Internet of Things in ways that have nothing to do with screens or smart phones.
Im not talking about smart watches or smart clothing, explains Breseman. In a way, theyre already pass. The product line hasnt caught up with the technology. Think aboutepidermal circuits you apply them to your skin in the same way you apply a temporary tattoo. Theyve been around for a couple of years. Something like that has so many potential applications take the Quantified Self movement, for example. Smart micro devices attached right to the skin would make everything now in use for Quantified Self seem antiquated, trivial.
Breseman looks to a visionary of the past to extrapolate the future: In the late 1980s,Mark Weisercoined the term ubiquitous computingto describe a society where computers were so common, so omnipresent, that people would ultimately stop interfacing with them, Breseman says. In other words, computers would be everywhere, embedded in the environment. You wouldnt rely on a specific device for information. The data would be available to you on an ongoing basis, through a variety of non-intrusive even invisible sources.
Weiser described such an era as the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives That trope calm technology is extremely appealing, says Breseman.
We could stop interacting with our devices, stop staring at screens, and start looking at each other, start talking to each other again, she says. Id find that tremendously exciting.
Breseman is concerned that the Internet of Things is seen only as a new and shiny buzz phrase. We should be looking at it as a way to address our needs as human beings, she says, to connect people to the Internet more elegantly, not just as a source for more toys. Yes, we are now dependent on information technology. It has expanded our lives, and we dont want to give it up. But were not applying it very well. We could do it so much better.
Part of the problem has been the bifurcation of engineering into software and hardware camps, she says. Software engineers type into screens, and hardware engineers design physical things, and there have been few if any places that the twain have met. The two disciplines are poised to merge in the Internet of Things but it wont be an easy melding, Breseman allows. Each field carves different neural pathways, inculcates different values.
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