1,435mm is a decidedly significant, if seemingly arbitrary figure.
As it happens, it the precise amount of space between train track rails dictated by Standard Gauge (occasionally referred to as Stephenson Gauge), and the specification used on some 60% of the world’s railway mileage.
Four feet, eight and one-half inches – a standard that allows trains to cross borders, enabling global commerce in a manner unimaginable prior to 1892 (when Stephenson became a widely-adopted standard).
How did this seemingly arbitrary figure become the standard? Principally because British railroad engineer George Stephenson was responsible for the construction of the highly-trafficked Liverpool-Manchester Railway, and passed along the standard to his son, Robert, who oversaw development of a number of subsequent rails. Additionally, though, the 4′8.5″ standard allowed train cars built to both the 4′8″ and 4′9″ standards to run on the same rails. The Stephenson Gauge became the Standard Gauge because it provided latitude.
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Some 117 years later, we’re still taking a great deal about standards – web standards, mobile standards, encoding standards. The most successful of these (HTML standards, for example) flourish because they are both easy to adopt and easy to adapt. A similar set of standards, the W3C web standards, have (in the opinion of this author) failed in large part because they are both difficult to adopt and near-impossible to adapt.
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Standards breed familiarity, which encourages adoption – a not-insignificant reason for the occasional success of inferior standards (the continued adoption of Internet Explorer, for example).
In a move that is garnering a good deal of online attention, Google has pulled back the curtain (a little) on Cupcake – a branch of Android that comes with a number of significant enhancements (you can read more about the gory details over at Ars Technica).
What’s particularly significant about Cupcake, I think, is that it signals an extension of a heretofor mobile operating system into a potential device OS – that is, the opportunity to deploy Android on all manner of devices – from in-dash GPS and entertainment systems to POS kiosks to your television to your satellite radio to your refrigerator. More significantly, it creates new distribution channels for all manner of Android applications, enabling a move from portability (your phone) to mobility (functionality in the context of place) – more on this idea soon.
The bellwethers of success? A potential for a unified set of interface elements (as forecast at this year’s CES where a number of electronics manufacturers unveiled cross-device interface standards), an open development platform, and relatively low cost of implementation.
Cupcake, if things are as they appear, is poised to be both easy to adopt and easy to adapt – the very principles of an emerging standard.
Stay tuned.
Related posts:
- Who’s Going to Own our Preferences?
- It’s More Fun to Compute
- Great Street Games as a Platform for Urban Exploration
- Eyeball Gestures and Connecting with Strangers via Proximity
- Mobile Phones and FM Transmitters