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Web 3.0 - Don't Follow the Japanese Model by John Bottorff
Elvis has left the buildingThere is a tsunami size change coming to the Internet called Web 3.0 and it is simply defined, not as artificial intelligence, but as Web 2.0 moving out-of-doors. The Internet is no longer about being inside at your desk in a social network. The defining act, of this new phase, will be the masses of currently disconnected and disinterested populations joining on-line for the first time from all parts of the world, leap frogging past all previous Web iterations and landing in a nearly seamless mobile communication environment with the physical world. The goal of this article is to bring attention to how one part of this act has started to unfold in a flawed manner. That concern is focused on how we choose to hardlink (hyperlink) from the objects in our world.
Learn about the object in front of youThe Japanese are already well underway in both experimentation and real world use in their communication with physical objects and maybe it's too late to alter their course, but the rest of the worlds countries can learn from their contributions. The process they use, as pioneered by at least one Japanese company, works something like this: You take a picture of a special tag (barcode) with your phone as it is found on some object (box of cereal), and that act then redirects your phones Web browser to the manufacturers site. See QR Code for more information. This is of course only one simple example of application and hardware.
The concept itself is absolutely wonderful and I hope that we can all use our imagination and visualize how this has the potential to educate and elevate people everywhere in education. There are not many concepts in the human experience that have the potential to contribute to our well being with the magnitude that this one does - we have to get it right.
Wrong Turn because we saw something shinyMy concern, my waving of arms, is to bring to the attention of as many as I can that we are on a train that has veered in the wrong direction, simply because we saw something shiny.
The problem that I am so concerned about is the use of tags (barcodes). From a purely academic perspective I am fascinated that tags have become as popular as they have in their modern incarnation. Interestingly enough, it was an idea that was born not out of utility, but rather novelty. It was cool to do this Internet barcode thing with your phone (e.g. The shiny) and it has since taken on a life of its own entailing overkill comparable to hunting quail with the USS Missouri.
Exquisitely dressed pigMy argument against tags is founded on a number of issues, but possibly the most critical is that the current tagging model is no where near capable of covering what we need to accomplish with hardlinking. It's just not broad enough, not to mention you have to make your own tag. For example, it's just not practical to ask your little league team players to stick barcodes on their uniforms, only to find they are too small or move to fast for your camera to focus at the correct angle - you can imagine all the application problems here from farming, extreme climates, efficiency and many more. By using tagging, we are in a sense putting lip stick on a pig - they are barcodes for heavens sake!
Its not a matter of IF but WhenIt's interesting that most folks walking the streets today have no conceptual idea of what a physical hyperlink is, but in about 5 years it will be as common as the cell phone itself. It is fairly easy to speculate on this because the advantages of pulling information from an object when you need it is a powerful concept that we now have the technology to make happen.
In my humble opinion, I think we should all hold hands and pray that a natural linking system is the model of choice for the countries that are just learning about it. A natural linking system or model is one that will not require you to load proprietary software on your phone and it does not require that you print or buy RFID's or barcodes to put on your target object. It is a system that will use text in the form of an objects natural name, part number, model number, barcode number or even the image of the object itself. I was so nervous about this outcome not evolving that I have entered my own horse in the race - but he's quite insignificant to the big players.
One of the big players is Microsoft. I am not the biggest Microsoft fan, but some interesting things are going on in Redmond, Washington related to this topic that are encouraging. In the first week of May 2007, Microsoft told those remaining workers in the AURA project that it was being shut down and that has indeed happened as of the end of June 2007. This is important because the AURA project is one of many fledgling barcode projects in development around the globe, all with their own proprietary software. In my small corner of the world, this was great news. Why Microsoft did this I don't know, but they are still working on an image based linking system and this is also good news. An image based linking system could be the ultimate natural system if they can pull it off without undue licensing requirements and vendor entanglements. Such a system would allow a user to take a picture of the object and that would then be resolved in a database returning information relating to that image.
Best wishes to you!
About the Author
John Bottorff is an educator and adviser on adult training and education. He is also principle member of OracleJane LLC, which holds controlling interest in http://www.BUILDhardlink.com
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