Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the computer as a device will disappear, although its functionality will persist in a ubiquitous fash-
ion. The Ambient Agoras environment was designed to transform places into social marketplaces of
ideas and information (
agoras
) and provide situated services, place-relevant information and a feel-
ing of the place (
genius loci
). It is possible to add new layers of information-based services to each
place
or
memory
that is accessible to users. All these functions are achieved by integrating infor-
mation into architecture via smart artefacts and expanding reality by providing better affordances
(a quality of an object or an environment that allows an individual to perform an action) and infor-
mation processing to existing places and objects. The emergence of AI will represent significant
progress towards the development of the information appliances that Norman (1998) envisioned.
In summary, ubicomp is rapidly contributing to an emerging AI that has the following
characteristics: (1) embedded (many networked devices are integrated into the environment),
(2) context aware (these devices can recognise users and their situational context), (3) adaptive/
personalised (they can be tailored to individual needs) and (4) anticipatory (they can anticipate
users' desires without conscious mediation). We need to bear in mind that no technologies exist or
develop in a vacuum. Like all powerful technologies, ubicomp's development has been driven by a
series of socioeconomic, political and even personal factors (Crang and Graham, 2007), including
but not limited to the corporate sector's relentless pursuit of friction-free capitalism, governments'
determination to increase security and surveillance in the context of the war on terror and our exis-
tential pursuit of meaning through more affective computing in the broader fields of art and culture
(Dourish and Bell, 2011; Ekman and Fuller, 2012).
16.3 UBICOMP AND GEOCOMPUTATION: FROM THE MIRROR
WORLDS TO EVERYWARE IN THE METAVERSE
GC currently faces a computing environment that has drastically changed since it was first proposed
as a field of inquiry nearly two decades ago. Instead of the traditional distinction of hardware and
software, we have witnessed the emergence of
everyware
(Greenfield, 2006) as ubicomp replaces
the traditional mainframe and desktop computers to become the dominant paradigm for computing.
The future scenario of everyware (sometimes used interchangeably as ubicomp) - when people and
objects are connected via distributed computing and unconstrained by geographical contexts - has
arrived faster than expected. Concomitant with the growth of ubicomp/everyware, we are also rap-
idly entering a new age of metaverse - a hybrid world in which the virtual world based upon digital
bits is increasingly linked to the atom-based physical world (http://www.metaverseroadmap.org).
First coined by Neal Stephenson's (1992) science fiction novel
Snow Crash
, metaverse refers to a
fictional virtual world where humans, as avatars, interact with each other and software agents, in a
3D space that uses the metaphor of the real world. The rapidly evolving metaverse is a result of sev-
eral converging technologies. According to the metaverse road map report, the browser for engaging
this metaverse will be based upon a 3D web that brings together the following four technologies:
•
Mirror worlds - digital representations of the atom-based physical world, such as Google
Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, NASA World Wind, ESRI ArcGlobe, USGS National Map
and the massive georeferenced geographic information system (GIS) databases developed
during the past 50 years
•
Virtual worlds - digital representations of imagined worlds, such as Second Life, World
of Warcraft, computer games, various cellular automata models and agent-based models
•
Lifelogging - the digital capture of information about people and objects in the real or
digital worlds, such as Twitter, blogs, Flickr, YouTube and social networking sites such
Facebook or MySpace
•
Augmented reality - sensory overlays of digital information on the real and virtual worlds
using a heads-up display (HUD) or other mobile/wearable devices such as cell phones or
sensors via participatory sensing
