“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
– Mark Weiser, The Computer for the 21st Century, 1991.
21 years ago, in a paper for Scientific American. It can still be found here in draft form. I find this particular observation to be quite astute. Mr. Weiser continues to talk about technology becoming so commonplace that we don’t notice it, spend all our time with it, and just go on through our daily lives. Until,
“The ‘virtuality’ of computer-readable data — all the different ways in which it can be altered, processed and analyzed — is brought into the physical world.”
Really?! Hehe..this is common to many of us VWers in 2012, but it’s not all fun and games either. It’s more than having friends to hang out with and colleagues to work with no matter where they may live. Even back then, they could see what would happen. It’s very interesting to read about their experiments with “embodied virtuality”.
This is my old blog domain, on a new server, with a new design, using TextPattern instead of Geeklog..it’s just all new. For those of you who remember my scripting tutorials, I’ll probably include some of that here. However, my focus has changed. I’m far more interested in how Humanity and Technology – particularly Virtuality – affect each other.
What do I mean by “Real Virtuality“? Partly what Mr. Weiser was writing about, and partly my observations. If one’s concept of reality is summed up in their experiences and perceptions, then Virtuality == Reality…doesn’t it?
Real Virtuality
by ELQ Homewood
baddaBEAN.com
http://baddabean.com/articles/1/real-virtuality
The Computer for the 21st Century
by Mark Weiser
(1991)
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~corps/phaseii/Weiser-Computer21stCentury-SciAm.pdf