Extending Dede's [12] suggestion that "we consider devices as species evolving in
an ecosystem" we can consider planetary information and communication systems as
similarly evolving. SPECIES are Planet Earth Communication and Information Enhancement Systems. Old SPECIES like the telephone network continue to evolve and new forms like
the World Wide Web are springing up. What new SPECIES are we likely to see emerge
in the next few years? Which of these will have the broadest implications for society? Which will provide the best business opportunities for companies of the future?
Many new, extremely significant planetary communication and information systems are
about to emerge. WorldBoard is a SPECIES that will become possible when position
can be measured as easily as we now measure time. A WorldBoard is in some sense
bigger than the World Wide Web because it allows cyberspace (the digital world of bits) to
overlay and appropriately co-register with real space (the physical world of atoms).
Because of the fundamental importance of place in all observable human activity,
WorldBoard changes our notion of place in a way that could have major implications on the
way we learn, work, play, and belong to groups.
A WorldBoard connects people to information that's meaningful at a place. Ellen Wesel,
formerly in Apple Labs, wrote about the importance of "position or location dependent
information," and offered the example of a person being reminded to buy milk while passing the store on the way home [13]. Additionally, a person's personal Web page
might be meaningful information at the location of the door to that person's office.
Or a Web page describing a particular kind of tree might be meaningful information
at the location of that tree in a school yard.
A WorldBoard changes our sense of place and what can be in places. Up until now places
could contain only two kinds of things, atoms (natural or human-made) or forces (gravity,
electromagnetism, etc.). If someone wants to put information at a place, they usually do so with atoms (signs, billboards, post-it notes, etc.). With a WorldBoard,
one can associate unembodied bits of information with a place, thus creating a new
notion of place.
A new notion of place does not seem so inconceivable when considered from the perspective
of all of human history. A summary view of human history reveals a rapidly increasing
rate of change, and the Global Positioning System which has recently come on line has planted the seeds of change with respect to our notion of place. In the list
below, GA means Generations Ago, where a generation is roughly equal to 15-20 years.
175,000 GA - Stone tools
100,000 GA - Speech
34,000 GA - Division of Labor, Fire
17,000 GA - Planning Ahead
1,000 GA - Farms
500 GA - Cities, Wheel, Writing
400 GA - Libraries
40 GA - Universities
30 GA - Scientific Revolution
24 GA - Printing
16 GA - Clock
11 GA - Industrial Revolution
6 GA - Chemical & Material Revolution
5 GA - Electric Lights and Telephone
4 GA - Radio
3 GA - Television
2 GA - Computers
1 GA - Internet
0 GA - GPS
Taking a rather broad view of human history, we can divide human history into three
eras based on our human sense of place and what is in a place. Era One is the nature
phase, in which people think of places as containing mostly natural stuff (plants,
rocks, mountains, rivers). Era Two is the materialism phase, in which people think of
places as containing mostly human-made material things (cars, houses, furniture)
and some natural things. Era Three is the info-materialism phase, in which people
think of places as containing massive amounts of information to be pulled out of the air to
be used in conjunction with made and natural things (where am I, how do I get to
where I want to go, what is this, how do I authenticate who that is or who that came
from, what time is it). Things from all eras co-exist, and in fact it becomes a priority
to preserve aspects of previous eras though more and more of our time is spent dealing
with the stuff of the current era (information).