Thesis 66

For many of us, everyware is already a reality.

Maybe it's time for a reality check. We should be very clear about the fact that when we raise the question of ubiquitous computing, we're not simply talking about the futureeven the near futurebut also about things that actually exist now.

Far from presenting itself to us as seamless, though, everyware as it now exists is a messy, hybrid, piecemeal experience, and maybe that's why we don't always recognize it for what it is. It certainly doesn't have the science-fictional sheen of some of the more enthusiastic scenarios.

There are systems in the world that do begin to approach such scenarios in terms of their elegance and imperceptibility. The qualities defined way back in Chapter 1 as being diagnostic of everywareinformation processing embedded in everyday objects, dissolving in behaviorcan already be found in systems used by millions of people each day.

We've already discussed PayPass and Blink, the RFID-based payment systems that will receive their large-scale commercial rollouts by the end of 2005. What if they succeed beyond their sponsors' expectations and become a matter-of-fact element of daily life? What if you could use the same system to pay for everything from your mid-morning latte to a few quick copies at the local 7-Eleven to the train home in the eveningall with a jaunty wave of your wrist?

If you've ever visited Hong Kong, or are lucky enough to live there, you know exactly what this would look like: Octopus. Octopus is a contactless, stored-value "smartcard" used for electronic payment throughout Hong Kong, in heavy and increasing daily use since 1997, and it gives us a pretty good idea of what everyware looks like when it's done right.

Appropriately enough, given its origins as a humble transit pass, Octopus can be used on most of the city's wild and heterogeneous tangle of public transportation options, even the famous Star Ferries that ply the harbor.

Even if getting around town were the only thing Octopus could be used for, that would be useful enough. But of course that's not all you can do with it, not nearly. The cards are anonymous, as good as cash at an ever-growing number of businesses, from Starbucks to local fashion retailer Bossini. you can use Octopus at vending machines, libraries, parking lots, and public swimming pools. It's quickly replacing keys, card and otherwise, as the primary means of access to a wide variety of private spaces, from apartment and office buildings to university dorms. Cards can be refilled at just about any convenience store or ATM. And, of course, you can get a mobile with Octopus functionality built right into it, ideal for a place as phone-happy as Hong Kong.^[*]

^[*] Despite the popular "Octo-phone" moniker, Nokia made the canny decision to embed the Octopus RFID unit not in any one model of phone, but in an interchangeable faceplate.

If this description sounds a little breathless, it's because I have used Octopus myself, in many of the above contexts and experienced a little millennial flush of delight every time I did so. The system's slogan is "making everyday life easier," and rarely has a commercial product made so good on its tagline. And if you want to know what "information processing dissolving in behavior" really looks like, catch the way women swing their handbags across the Octopus readers at the turnstiles of the Mong Kok subway station; there's nothing in the slightest to suggest that this casual, 0.3-second gesture is the site of intense technical intervention.

According to the Octopus consortium, 95 percent of Hong Kong citizens between the ages of 16 and 65 use their product; you don't get much more ubiquitous than that. As of late 2004, the last period for which full figures are available, Octopus recorded some eight million transactions a daymore, in other words, than there are people in the city. Is this starting to sound like something real?

Nor should we make the mistake of thinking that the daily experience of everyware is limited to the other side of the Pacific. Something closer to home for American readers is the E-ZPass electronic toll-collection system, now used on highways, bridges and tunnels throughout the Northeast Corridor.

E-ZPass, like California's FasTrak, is an RFID-based system that lets subscribers sail through toll plazas without stopping: A reader built into the express-lane infrastructure queries dashboard- or windshield-mounted tags and automatically debits the subscriber's account. While the system is limited to highways and parking lots at present, some Long Island McDonald's outlets are experimenting with a pilot program allowing customers to pay for their fries and burgers with debits from their E-ZPass accounts. It's not quite Octopus yetnot by a long shotbut a more useful system is there in embryo, waiting for the confluence of corporate and governmental adoption that would render it truly ubiquitous.^[*]

^[*] In retrospect, the stroke of genius that secured early success for Octopus was enlisting all of Hong Kong's six major transit systemsand thus, indirectly, the majority-partner government itselfin the joint venture. Ordinarily competitors, each had strong incentive to promote the system's wider adoption.

What fully operational systems such as Octopus and E-ZPass tell us is that privacy concerns, social implications, ethical questions, and practical details of the user experience are no longer matters for conjecture or supposition. With ubiquitous systems available for empirical inquiry, these are things we need to focus on today.