SXSW 2011: The internet is over | Technology | The Guardian - 1 views
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We've been hearing about this moment in digital history since at least 1988, when the Xerox technologist Mark Weiser coined the term "ubiquitous computing", referring to the point at which devices and systems would become so numerous and pervasive that "technology recedes into the background of our lives".
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When the GPS system in your phone or iPad can relay your location to any site or device you like, when Facebook uses facial recognition on photographs posted there, when your financial transactions are tracked, and when the location of your car can influence a constantly changing, sensor-driven congestion-charging scheme, all in real time, something has qualitatively changed
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I have great optimism for actually being alive to see all of this happen. My fear is that it falls into the wrong hands. Or we begin to rely on it so heavily, that when the system hiccups, the world crumbles. Recently, in my "Computational World" class, we talked about how the fear is all relative. My teacher (late 40s maybe?), said he wanted nothing to do with facebook, and has a hard time understanding why people feel the need to share in that way. He also despises his cell phone, and only carries one because his family insists. My generation has embraced all of these technologies, and I am positive that my son will grow up with few reservations about this incredible growth in tech.
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credit card companies can predict with 98% accuracy, two years in advance, when a couple is going to divorce, based on spending patterns alone
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Videogame designers, the logic goes, have become the modern world's leading experts on how to keep users excited, engaged and committed
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So why not apply that expertise to all those areas of life where we could use more engagement, commitment and fun: in education, say, or in civic life, or in hospitals?
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His take on the education system, for example, is that it is a badly designed game: students compete for good grades, but lose motivation when they fail
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the internet is distracting if it stops you from doing what you really want to be doing; if it doesn't, it isn't
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A related danger of the merging of online and offline life, says business thinker Tony Schwartz, is that we come to treat ourselves, in subtle ways, like computers. We drive ourselves to cope with ever-increasing workloads by working longer hours, sucking down coffee and spurning recuperation. But "