Who are the authors?
Gershon Dublon is a PhD student at the Media Lab at MIT while Joseph A. Paradiso is an associate professor of art and media science at the same American institution.
What are they working on?
The article reports the developments of a research project on the massive use of sensors and on the analysis, interpretation and spatial representation of the information collected.
The authors have developed a program able to manage, interpret and represent the different signals collected with different types of sensors, a program that would allow you to view and control a given environment from different points of view.
The title of the explanatory box is very clear: "The browser of reality". The program allows you to navigate within the MIT Media Lab and "see" in real time everything that happens, hear the sounds of the environments, know the temperature, brightness, control the presence of people and so on ...
The authors push themselves to indicate possible commercial uses both possible areas of interest to be developed and possible reflections on privacy.
Those interested will find the article in most public libraries, Le Scienze is normally one of the few magazines that is purchased by libraries.
But I would like to say mine on the subject, especially from the point of view of privacy and the sustainability of such a project over time.
I would not at all be content to live in a world where there is always someone who can see or hear me while I blow my nose or sing in the shower, but this is a personal point of view, there are also benefits from living in a similar world, especially in the field of security.
But what I believe will be the real problem of such a world is linked to the enormous number of sensors needed and the power of calculation and storage of information with the consequent need for energy resources used for all this. I do not want to make a quantitative analysis of a similar project because I do not have the basic data of the project but I would like to focus on the "sustainability" factor through a simple qualitative analysis.
It should be considered that most of the circuits used for the sensors contain rare elements or in any case of reduced availability, as well as the electronic circuits used for the production of calculation processors and memories.
Is a world sustainable in which all environments will be controlled by sensors? I do not think so.
The massive use of sensors will ensure that the basic materials become increasingly rare and therefore expensive.
Even today, the US controls the world production and consumption (and recycling) of many minerals just to be able to make decisions in time about a possible problem of scarcity of resources, a similar project I think could be very "demanding" from this point of sight.
Another small consideration. The collection of data from different sensors requires the use of complicated IT systems capable of collecting, analyzing and merging the information received to arrive at presenting information through methods and systems of various kinds, all of which are at the basis, among other things, military command and control systems.
What will be the use (official or otherwise) of a similar system by military structures?
Sustainability and employment in the field of espionage and Command and Control are two points that should be analyzed carefully and that could determine the success or failure of such a project.
Alessandro Rugolo
