The following WorldBoard scenarios will all sound like science fiction. They are today. But not when WorldBoard comes along.
WorldBoard Scenario 1: Paper to Bits
customer: Hello, I have a filing cabinet with about 2000 papers in it that I would like to have moved onto the WorldBoard, same location.
telephone assistant: OK. We can have a service person out tomorrow, or if you know the coordinates you arrange to get the filing cabinet to your local Kinkos. You said you'd like the same location, would you also like an interface provided?
customer: No, we've used your service a couple times before, usually my supervisor calls. We just need the information posted on WorldBoard.
telephone assistant: All right, I'll just need your address...
If you haven't visited the Kinkos web site recently, you should check it out.
WorldBoard Scenario 2: Information Communities
customer: Hello I'm calling on behalf of the Cupertino Historical Society. My family and I just returned from the Grand Canyon. We loved the WorldBoard. I'm a history buff, my wife's a nature nut, my son's a rock hound, and my daughter loves Indian lore - we were all delighted with the infochannels WorldBoard offered, and I have to say I was pretty skeptical when my son suggested we rent your gear. At any rate, I'm new to the WorldBoard, but I understand Apple provides a service for developing similar experiences for new locations?
telephone assistant: That's right. We can move any archival information onto the WorldBoard, as well as co-register the information with relevant places, and of course provide interfaces on a purchase, lease, or platinum service basis.
customer: About how much will it cost to move our Cupertino Historical Society archives onto the WorldBoard?
telephone assistant: Our typical fee is $5000 per day per consultant, but we do have a limited number of grants and partnerships. Also, we have one day and one week do-it-yourself classes. We can have an assessor out to your location tomorrow, if you'd care to be qualified. Shall I transfer you to our qualification department?
WorldBoard Scenario 3: WorldBoard Family
telephone assistant: Apple WorldBoard Services, may I help you.
customer: I'm not sure. My brother just called and told me that your company can "move" my daughter's upcoming wedding onto the WorldBoard giving our entire family access. We're doing videos and wedding photographs of course. What is the WorldBoard any way?
telephone assistant: WorldBoard is a relatively new service of Apple Communication and Information Systems that moves information archives or events such as weddings onto the World Wide Web, or as we call it the WorldBoard. Would you like me to transfer your "wedding coverage" request to an event specialist who can help you further?
customer: Sure.
new telephone assistant: I understand your daughter's getting married and you'd like to consider moving the event to the WorldBoard. WorldBoard allows you to use the WWW to navigate to the place and time of an event and reexperience it, or go to the actual location and reexperience it. WorldBoard can provide a private, semi-public, and public archive of important events that can be reexperienced by friends or family members for years to come. When children ask about their parents' wedding, WorldBoard provides an effective and engaging experience to create a special bond between the generations. Furthermore, the WorldBoard experience can be customized and added to by family members. Fees are lower if the wedding takes place in one of our authorized WorldBoard sites. If you go to the Web, I'll be happy to give you a virtual tour of a WorldBoard wedding experience. However, to really experience WorldBoard you would want to visit the actual wedding site itself, the overlays becoming stunningly realistic...
OK, OK. Don't you think the personal computer sounded like science fiction (or at
least pretty useless) when Woz and Steve Jobs told some of their friends about it?
The fact of the matter is that WorldBoard is only as far away as we put it, given
our energy and enthusiasm for creating the future. Someday the full blown WorldBoard will
be possible. A much simpler version of WorldBoard is straightforward enough to build
today.
WorldBoard Scenario 4: Information Organizers
customer: Hello , you're not going to believe why I'm calling.
telephone assistant: Shoot.
customer: I called Closets-R-Us, you know, the company that comes in and builds a closet organizer to straighten out all the junk in your closet?
telephone assistant: Yes.
customer: Well they came in and did a super job - I now have a place for my shoes, my hats, everything has a place, and at least for the time being it's all in its place... Anyway the service person couldn't help but notice my home office was in similar disarray, and she told me a little about WorldBoard. Do you really have information space consultants that make house calls and can do for my home office what Closets-R-Us did for my closet?
telephone assistant: We do have consultants that advise clients on new information organizations, and can move any archival information onto the WorldBoard with 7 by 24 service guarantee. Would you like to be qualified, and then speak with an information organization consultant?
The point of these scenarios is that associating information with places is
turning into big business. Companies, like MapQuest, are making it a business today.
In the info-materialism
phase of human history, we begin to see scenarios such as the one below. Scenarios like
this are just beginning to be discussed at graduate schools of architecture [26].
WorldBoard Scenario 5: Buying a House
real estate agent: Well it doesn't look like much now, but wait until you see what it could be. Here try on these "Rose Colored Glasses" to see the WorldBoard view.
customer: (puts on glasses) Yes, that's much better. Let me access my interior design preferences, but I must say the defaults you recommend aren't bad. (gestures in the air). That's better. I'd like to look out at the front and back yard now to see what they could be like.
real estate agent: The WorldBoard version of this house can also provide estimates for how much the work will cost.
customer: Of course, and I assume if I make the purchase after providing my interior design and landscaping requirements, your firm will have the desired changes made and added into the price of the home. (Looking around, dropping the glasses off then on again). Of course, I could just keep the glasses on and save some money.
real estate agent: (Laughing) You'd be surprised how many people are doing that these days. Nearly all the college kids renting places back in town are doing it.
customer: Yah, but there's nothing like the real thing.
real estate agent: Absolutely.
Overlaying information on static, non-moving objects such as rooms and yards is just
the beginning. Surgeons are already using stereoscopic visualization and overlays to
assist them while operating on patients. Various researchers have already developed image
understanding systems that allows moving objects to be tracked and portions of the image can be replaced with other images. Whenever a moving object can be tracked, position-dependent
information move along with the object. Given our ability to track stormy weather with satellites, one could (for example) put hurricane warning messages in particular
areas lying in the path of a storm, and thereby give a new literal meaning to the
song writer's line "it's written on the wind."