JARGON ANALYTICS is a tool to highlight and question keywords associated with predictive infrastructures. By installing the JARGON ANALYTICS Chrome PlugIn, webpages are analyzed for jargon, which is consequently tagged. When scrolled over, tagged content is expanded and users are presented with provocative questions and hyperlinks to the PREDICTIVE CITY glossary. [read more]
Smart things
SmartThings lets you connect with hundreds of compatible smart devices for limitless possibilities… Stay aware of changes in temperature and movement, find out when something unexpected happens, and teach your home to fit in with your daily routine.
–Samsung Website [using term as a name for their product] http://www.samsung.com/uk/smartthings/
Accessed 03/04/16 17:01
You have such an odd relationship to your environment,” mused the man. “Such a paranoid relationship. You seem intent on existing in smaller and smaller spaces, filled with more and more gadgets, with the mistaken impression that this will give you more control over your lives. There’s something a little impious about it.
-Wilson, G. Willow. Alif the Unseen, p309. Corvus 2012
User
The smarter way of accelerating digital-city strategies is to leverage proven, shared, commodity solutions and services which can be used anytime, anywhere and can scale rapidly. Increasingly powerful and useful applications and services will be available over the Internet and delivered via cloud computing models – no up-front investment, pay-as-you-go. (…)
Even large government agencies are now starting to use cloud services for core applications. In December 2010, the US government’s Government Services Administration (GSA) agency selected Google Apps in a $6.7m, 5-year deal to replace Lotus Notes as the email and collaboration platform for its 17,000 users.
–Hodgkinson, Steve Is Your City Smart Enough? Reference Code: OI00130-007, p25. Ovum 2011 http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/solutions/industries/docs/Is_your_city_smart_enough-Ovum_Analyst_Insights.pdf
Accessed 05/06/16 11:30
He lacks those privileged positions, “user” and “customer” (…). Politically speaking, the relationship between the reader to the Internet of Things is not democratic. It’s not even capitalistic. It’s a new thing. It’s digital-feudalism. People in the Internet of Things are like woolly livestock of a feudal demesne, grazing under the watchful eye of barons in their hilltop Cloud Castles. The peasants never vote for the lords of the Cloud Castles. But they do find them attractive and glamorous. They respect them. They feel a genuine fealty to them. They can’t get along in life without them.
–Sterling, Bruce. The Epic Struggle of The Internet of Things, p 13. Strelka Press 2014
Internet of things
In terms of phases or eras, Cisco believes that many organizations are currently experiencing the Internet of Things (IoT), the networked connection of physical objects. As things add capabilities like context awareness, increased processing power, and energy independence, and as more people and new types of information are connected, IoT becomes an Internet of Everything — a network of networks where billions or even trillions of connections create unprecedented opportunities as well as new risks.
-The Internet of Everything for Cities (pdf, 2013) Cisco and/or its affiliates [Online] Available
http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en_us/solutions/industries/docs/gov/everything-for-cities.pdf
The door refused to open. It said, ‘Five cents, please.’ He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. ‘I’ll pay you tomorrow, ‘ he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. ‘What I pay you,’ he informed it, ‘is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.’
‘I think otherwise,’ the door said. ‘Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.’
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
‘You discover I’m right,’ the door said. It sounded smug. …
-Philip K Dick, Ubik, 1969 in Ian Steadman’s Tweet “why the Internet of Things will suck under capitalism” 9th Feb 2015, [Online] Available https://twitter.com/iansteadman/status/564574611460063233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Pre-crime, predictive policing
#001a
Predictive policing is the application of analytical techniques—particularly quantitative techniques—to identify likely targets for police intervention and prevent crime or solve past crimes by making statistical predictions.
The RAND Corporation, Predictive POLICING The Role of Crime Forecasting in Law Enforcement Operations Walter L. Perry, Brian McInnis, Carter C. Price, Susan C. Smith, John S. Hollywood. xiii http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/RR233/RAND_RR233.sum.pdf online, last viewed [30 March 2016]
#001b
WITWER But let’s not kid ourselves, we are arresting individuals who’ve broken no law.
JAD (precrime officer) But they will.
FLETCHER (precrime officer) The commission of the crime itself is absolute metaphysics. The Precogs see the future. And they’re never wrong.
WITWER But it’s not the future if you stop it. Isn’t that a fundamental paradox?
-Minority Report, script by Scott Frank. 2001 p27 http://www.screenplaydb.com/film/scripts/Minority-Report.pdf online, last viewed [11 Feb 2016]
Algorithm
The next time you hear someone talking about algorithms, replace the term with “God” and ask yourself if the meaning changes. Our supposedly algorithmic culture is not a material phenomenon so much as a devotional one, a supplication made to the computers people have allowed to replace gods in their minds, even as they simultaneously claim that science has made us impervious to religion.
-Ian Bogost, The Cathedral of Computation. Jan 15, 2015, The Atlantic
Algorithm: A process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. Origin: Late 17th century (denoting the Arabic or decimal notation of numbers): variant (influenced by Greek arithmos ‘number’) of Middle English algorism, via Old French from medieval Latin algorismus. The Arabic source, al-Kwārizmī ‘the man of Kwārizm’ (now Khiva), was a name given to the 9th-century mathematician Abū Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Mūsa, author of widely translated works on algebra and arithmetic.
–Oxford English Dictionary