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Silent Babel

A silent Tower of Babel seems to be in the making in the world of continuous computing. With pervasion of technology one's sense of self gets determined more and more by intelligent aggregation of perceptions about the individual - the data about us by us could be our undoing. Constant tele-prompting has potential to stunt our capacity for spontaneity and independent thought. We could find ourselves turning into a collage of images - unreal and illusory.

"The continuous computing information field is sensitive to your physical body; it's convenient and portable and can even monitor your biological functions. It allows you to extend yourself and your unique identity into the infosphere, for example in the form of digital photos and videos and instant messages.

It is especially cognizant of your associations -- family, friends, and the organizations you belong to, through always-on communications channels, group collaboration tools, and the like. It is aware of your location and offers you services appropriate to your setting at any given time in your day.

It understands your preferences and applies group intelligence to help you to find the information and products you want -- for instance, through tagging and social searching. And it its rhythm reflects the chronology of your life; it keeps your calendar and it recognizes that you are a human being moving through time, not a collection of files and folders in some static realm of cyberspace."

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