Heavyset

There continues to be plenty of chatter regarding – and some fabulous¹ advances in – embedded technology at the moment, what with the recently-concluded Consumer Electronics Orgy in the Desert and yesterday’s outstanding post from Russell Davies².

This from Faris Yakob some months back:

Invisible technology is a concept coined by Heidegger to describe tools that stop being tools and become integral aspects of how we live in and experience the world, extensions of ourselves.

His example is a blind person’s cane. My point was that only when the web is as integrated as that, in ways that are hinted at by the ‘mobile’ web and augmented reality applications, will we really understand the impact it will make on the world.

Let’s run with that, shall we? If embedded technologies, which we’ll define as (largely) web-enabled technologies integrated into (for this discussion) products that become extensions of our every day lives, then we ought to consider them in the context of our frequently-imperfect, reasonably-disordered every day lives. For the time being, we’ll dispense with our the inner Bradbury³ and put aside issues of privacy, which is discussed in great length elsewhere, focusing instead on the following questions:

1. How walled are these gardens? My next refrigerator – the one with a broadband connection that uploads status data to Sub Zero⁴ headquarters and alerts them when a part breaks – is using my internet connection to share data with a company from whom I have already purchased. What then, precisely is it sharing with me? Can it steer me towards a local certified repair shop or dealer, or allow me to order parts and make a repair myself? Does it create choice (and hence value) for the user, or does it create a one-way data stream for the manufacturer? Does it scan product barcodes and collect purchase profile data, or will it alert me when my milk has expired? Will it do both? What is the trade-off that the manufacturer and the consumer are willing to make in this regard, and does that decision come with a price point attached ( will consumers pay a premium for embedded technologies that don’t report home ) ?

Which brings to mind…

2. Are embedded technologies using opt-in or opt-out models? Is the integration turned on or off by default? What mechanism is the consumer given for interfacing with his new extension of self? Are we to employ mobile interfaces for each one of these devices via our telephones, changing settings in various applications that alternately turn on and off the Twitter notifications from our litter boxes, but allow text messages when it’s time to clean our ovens? Who will be designing this next generation of interfaces for our smart objects of desire, and will a standard take shape or will we be reliant on proprietary platforms from a broad range of manufacturers?

and as long as we’re talking manufacturers…

3. Do embedded technologies play to the strengths, or conflict with the nature, of the expertise of the companies that embed them? Is there reason to believe that companies skilled at manufacturing are inherently able to apply their existing faculties to digitally integrate into our lives? Do I trust that the good people of Saab, so skilled at making a quality automobile⁵, are likewise skilled at both understanding the digital relationship I want to have with my car and comprehending the terms on which I want that relationship to take place? Likewise, how are companies going to approach embedded technologies in the post-purchase phase of the consumer lifecycle? Does the repairman have the ability to repair the embedded digital components of my refrigerator, or simply the mechanical ones? Do these products become disposable, like DVD players with damaged lasers, once the embedded technology inevitably shits the bed?

and finally…

4. Do we want our technologies embedded or encapsulated? Do the technologies transcend the lives of the products into which they are encased? Can I take my chip/card/RFID super thingy with me when I toss my future tech running shoes? Better yet, can I put them in my new shoes? If I have preferences⁶, and these belong to me, is portability an option that is made available?

Some of this I ask in fun, though hardly jest. Certainly the answers to these are:

a. evolving.

b. highly dependent on the specific nature of the products being discussed.

Consider the questions, though, in this context: In a world in which something as fundamentally common as HTML⁷ is read on radically different terms by two standard-bearers as Firefox and Internet Explorer; in a domestic (US) mobile space crippled by the inability to develop a single set of standards, is it not necessary to consider the possibility that efforts to mature inherently immature spaces – like that of embedded technologies in consumer products – might be best served by asking some of these questions at the outset.

1. and, honestly, some rather gruesome [↩]
2. who followed up with another gem today [↩]
3. not as impressive as Heidegger, I admit, but then again I’m no ninja [↩]
4. A man can dream. You can, too [↩]
5. This, it seems, is debatable, although my experience has been nothing short of outstanding [↩]
6. And I do [↩]
7. readily acknowledging that the very structure of HTML is poorly-formed [↩]

Related posts:

1. Reinvention is Coming
2. Really Small Formats, Really Big Brands
3. The diminishing value of abundant content
4. Geoff Livingston on Evading Accountability
5. Transparency or Translucency?