The Times's John Markoff writes a story "With a Cellphone as My Guide" about GPS-enabled phones in Tokyo that let you point at objects and see what they are. The technology from GeoVector is pitched as a way to let you "click on the real world", using your phone and accurate positioning information as a key in a search for information about local items.
I'm generally skeptical of claims that a closed device like a phone can deliver accurate local information. Typically the way these things are rigged up is that there's a database owned by some provider of business details, and your search goes into that walled garden. You'll get the generally positive restaurant description, and not the latest health department report warning you of lukewarm food, when you point at a place to eat. The assumption is that you are a consumer, ready to gulp products and crap some cash. (Otherwise, how do you pay for such a thing?) It's a free service because it's only ready to deliver messages that have been paid for by someone else.
The premise of Adam Greenfield's Everyware is that computing becomes ubiquitous, and all sorts of devices we don't current think of as being active elements start to light up to guide our attention. Rather than think of the world as a convenient source of queries into a remote database, the perspective is that lots of stuff around you radiates information which you pick up and listen to. That perspective, rather than a query into the all-knowing search engine in the sky, makes a lot more sense to me.
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