Doors7: Self-assembly Furniture gets Clued-Up and the Building of Fetish Objects

Looking at the next computer paradigm, Lars Erik Holmquist of the Viktoria Institute's Future Applications Lab in Sweden, asked: 'Ubiquitous Computing: Cargo Cult or Next Big Thing?', saying we are 'still far from the grand vision of supporting and augmenting human activities'.

He started his talk with a description of the Melanesian Cargo Cult, which involves making a totem airplane to attract the real planes sent from paradise by ancestors. He likened much work in technology to this building of fetish objects – things that appear but don't do. He commented that things are easy to make if they don't have to work or no one has to use them. But the situation was improving: there was less faith in technology and developers were thinking more about the human side. The art was balancing blue-sky work with feasibility.

Then he identified four areas that he sees as key to enhancing mobile connectivity - the focus of his lab and collaborations such as those under the 'Disappearing Computer' EU umbrella: networking infrastructure, miniaturisation, sensing and power.

He gave several examples of applying digital information in physical situations, the most immediately appealing of which was the example of context awareness to illustrate sensing. The Smart-Its are small digital devices that can be attached to anything. He showed how they could be used in flat-pack furniture: equipped with orientation sensing devices, pieces can indicate if they are being assembled correctly together.

Associated Link: Smart-Its

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