Wikipedia: Simulacrum
7 June 2009 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | No comments
Today's Wikipedia article is "Simulacrum":
Simulacrum (plural: -cra), from the Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity," is first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Philosopher Frederic Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real. Other art forms that play with simulacra include Trompe l'oeil, Pop Art, Italian neorealism and the French New Wave.
Wikipedia: Internet of Things
6 June 2009 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | 1 comment
Today's Wikipedia article is the "Internet of Things":
In computing, the Internet of Things refers to a network of objects, such as household appliances. It is often a self-configuring wireless network. The concept of the internet of things is attributed to the original Auto-ID Center, founded in 1999 and based at the time in MIT.
The idea is as simple as its application is difficult. If all cans, books, shoes or parts of cars are equipped with minuscule identifying devices, daily life on our planet will undergo a transformation. Things like running out of stock or wasted products will no longer exist as we will know exactly what is being consumed on the other side of the globe. Theft will be a thing of the past as we will know where a product is at all times. The same applies to parcels lost in the post.
If all objects of daily life, from yogurt to an airplane, are equipped with radio tags, they can be identified and managed by computers in the same way humans can. The next generation of Internet applications (IPv6 protocol) would be able to identify more objects than IPv4 which is currently in use. This system would therefore be able to instantaneously identify any kind of object.
The Internet of objects should encode 50 to 100,000 billion objects and follow the movement of those objects. Every human being is surrounded by 1,000 to 5,000 objects.
