G- Situations and Situatedness

Guy Debord, et. al.”Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation”, Internationale Situationniste, v.1, 1958.

Lucy Suchman, “Preface” and Situated Actions”, Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication, Cambridge, 1987.

Malcolm McCullough, “Embedded Gear” and “Situated Types”,Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing and the Environmental Knowing, MIT Press, 2005

Rob-

1.      In the section on shopping, the idea of smart shelves and smart carts is brought up.  This seems like it would be a good idea.  Are there barriers to implementing systems like this (besides just cost of adopting this system) that are the reasons why stores have not tried them out yet?

2.      On page 69, McCullough writes about the new form of locality.  This section (and the descriptions of some of the sensors) seems to be presenting a different way of thinking about digital technology from what many people are used to.  We often think of computer technology as connecting us to places we cannot be, but McCullough says that new devices need to have situational protocols and interact more with the environment around you than what is not around you.

3.      On page 135, McCullough discusses wearable devices that could poll the vicinity and inform the user of various attributes of the people around them, for example who is listening to the same song as them.  This seems as if it would be difficult to use anywhere except where there are very dense numbers of people (maybe a mall, an airport, or a busy downtown), and a lot of people probably aren’t spending too much time in dense enough areas for these to be effective as they were described.