An Overview of Ubiquitous Computing issues: Utility v. Privacy

From Wired News: Balancing Utility With Privacy

There's a conference . . .

Designers of ubiquitous computing systems envision seeding private and public places with sensors and transmitters, embedded in objects and hidden from view.
The tiny devices, some the size of a postage stamp, could help cognitively impaired seniors take care of themselves, for example, by quietly watching and recording all of their activities, making decisions based on their personal histories, and communicating with their caregivers via mobile phones or other wireless handheld devices.

The AudioTag, which allows people to leave whispered messages floating around in the walls, sounds pretty cool for about the first 30 seconds --

The Audio Tag, said Future Applications Lab researcher Lalya Gaye, is only as risky to a person's privacy as the message the individual records. Most people playing with the device leave short poems and messages for lovers, Gaye said, like, "This is where we kissed for the first time."

The first time I get spammed by one of those suckers, it's coming out of the wall with my trusty crowbar....

Comments

[lalya]

there seems to be a little missunderstanding here: audio tags are not meant as end-products, they're just props for an interaction design project. so don't worry. you will most certainly never have the opportunity to smash any of them since you'll never encounter any.

[Dave]

Don't worry -- I get it ... Your installation actually sounds pretty cool, and in fact is very much like one of the art projects proposed in one of the Viridian Design contests. I'm thinking in more generic terms -- audio emplacements -- and the potential annoyances and intrusions that such technology makes available not only to folks who are artistes, but also merchants. Of whatever. I'd be very interested in seeing if you get aural "graffiti taggers" -- if you put up a nice blank (public) space, what will appear there? I should also be clear that I absolutely think that these technologies are going to become pervasive, and I hope that lots of creative people will make better use of them than trying to sell me expensive water, or penis enhancement, or whatever.