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I've come in a couple of minutes late to David Rose's talk on The PC-free Internet: Ambient Computing, so I've ended up sitting on the floor at the back of the room. The room is packed full, wth people sitting everywhere on the floor. Looks like the organisers severely under estimated how popular this talk would be...

He's got an interesting take on ubiquitous tech, he's started off by talking about fictional examples. Wonder Woman's lasso of truth, the wicked witch's magic mirror, the Weasley's clock.


He's talking about how we perceive; early stage processing (in hardware) which is rapid and parellel and late stage processing (in software) which is a slower and much more serial process.

He's talking about interfaces and making good points about shape, colour and reusing existing metaphors like dashboards for new purposes. He's illustrating some of these points by examining Internet Devices, from his own company Ambient Devices, and the data casting network they've built.

Oh that's cool, he's talking about using transparent LCD technology to embed information in glass, although it looks like for the production devices he's using something a bit less cool than that...

...he's arguing that ambient devices are a new class of electronics. Sometime summarisation is more valuable because it requires less time and attention.