The changing nature of 'place'

A few years ago, mobility came along and altered the nature of our workspace. Its arrival has meant we are no longer tied to our desks. Just look around our towns and cities, you can see more and more business meetings taking place in coffee houses, restaurants, stations, etc. - all aided by laptops and mobile phones.

But now new developments in three key areas are about to make another step change in the way we, as both workers and consumers, use technology.

The first relates to developments being made with sensor technology. Sensors are getting smaller and more sophisticated. They can easily gather information on our environment, for example, temperature and humidity. Yet they will also be able to recognise objects, people or movement. Even conversations if we so wish.

This along, with the proliferation of GPS means that soon we will always be able to know where things are. Therefore ‘place’, or ‘whereness’ starts to become a very significant factor.

The next interesting technological development is that of artificial intelligence, or intelligent systems. Because as sensors begin to pick up more and more data, and the internet provides us with more and more information, algorithms within intelligent systems will be needed to make sense of it all for our benefit. These algorithms will enable us to control what information we want to see, when, and in what format.

Vision on

And finally we have display technologies. We can all see the revolution that is happening here in the high street. High-definition enabled flat screen TVs are the norm, with screens getting bigger and cheaper. Meanwhile our mobile phones screens are featuring increasingly higher resolutions.

So, all these three things developing together mean that we shall soon be able to start to interplay the real world with the virtual.

When our sensors automatically pick up where we are, who we are with, and what we are talking about, and our algorithms work out what we are interested in, we might like to think about the best way to deliver the information back to us?

For example would we necessarily prefer a standard mobile phone screen?

How about ‘virtual contact lenses’? For real augmented reality (the mix of the real and the virtual) then what we want is ‘immersion’. We want to feel that we are truly in that mixed space. We don’t want to look at a screen, or even through glasses. We want our peripheral vision involved. To do this we need our ‘field of view’ to be greater than our peripheral vision, say around 270 degrees. Batteries aside, something like virtual contact lenses that allow you to mix your real and virtual worlds would be ideal.

Mix and match

It is interesting how this mix of the real and virtual has already started to change our world.

Mobility has turned coffee houses into offices. Games like the Wii are changing the nature of our homes. Our lounges are no longer spaces to passively watch TV, but more like somewhere to interact and play. Our parks and city squares were designed for us to meet others in. But now we are just as likely to use the space to speak to someone else far away. Our spaces, public and private, are becoming increasingly multifunctional, increasingly connected and increasingly, almost imperceptibly, hi-tech.

So, with our sensor technology, personal algorithms and virtual contact lenses all ready and waiting, what sort of ‘place’ would you like to be in right now? Cycling alongside Olympic champions as they go for gold in Beijing? Or playing baseball in a park with your Second Life friends?