*This is a very different paradigm from "ubiquitous computing covering the whole Earth like paint" and also very different from a Spime paradigm of "designed things as the atomic elements of an Internet of Things." It's a paradigm of urbanware, of "cities being there for you to use."
*There have always been two big problems with ubiquitous computing;
(a) it isn't ubiquitous and (b) it isn't computing. But maybe it's (a) urban and (b) a cyberculture street-hustle. It's something that Web 3.0-style hustlers paint onto stuff: all the hip New York guys you know are the early-adopters at the overcrowded hamburger stand.
http://blogs.wnyc.org/culture/2009/05/04/cityscapes-ubiquitous-computing/
"One coming change in the cityscape that I’m expecting will be subtle, but pervasive: technology folks call it “ubiquitous computing.” The city will be alive with information, even more so than it is now. Every object—street signs, food carts, trains and busses, and especially people—will be digitally connected into an “internet of things.” It sounds Buck Rogers but in many ways it’s here already: Metrocards are connected to bank accounts, cell phones know where you are (and what’s nearby), signs on some subway platforms know when the next train is due to arrive.
"The things in the city that used to be dumb and physical are becoming smart and digital. Shake Shack—the great burger stand in Madison Square Park with the endless lines—has a webcam and a Twitter feed, so you can check the queue before heading there for lunch. (((You heard it hear first, New Yorkers. Try not to drop dead from burger-clogged arteries through your awesome mastery of "differential permissioning.")))
Lower Manhattan is enveloped by a so-called “ring of steel”—a combination of surveillance cameras, license plate readers, and biological and nuclear detectors meant to protect the city from a terrorist attack. Information gathered by the high-tech system is kept on file for up to five years—to the chagrin of the New York Civil Liberties Union. (((Should be especially useful once Labour sex-smear bloggers learn how to track the mistresses of American politicians through "rings of steel." Are you listening, Hillary?)))
"This is a public space issue. Ubiquitous computing has been seen as the realm of gadget makers and digital privacy activists. But recently, architects and urbanists—people who traditionally think about the physical world, not the digital one—have recognized that it belongs to them as well. As the lines blur the traditional arguments over free speech, privacy, advertising, commerce and public space are popping up in new forms and in new places.
"This fall the Architectural League of New York will mount an exhibition, “Toward the Sentient City,” that looks at the coming role of pervasive technology in the cityscape. The goal isn’t gee-whiz, but to “imagine alternative trajectories” for how ubiquitous computing might affect the city and the way we live in it... (((Hello, "Architecture Fiction.")))
