#dConstruct - Time and Relative Devices in Space

We take synchronised time for granted but it’s only a few centuries old. With the railways came the need to synchronise and make sure London and Brighton aren’t 15 minutes apart. People already had “pocket” watches – they were early adopters, but as they become smaller and time became more synchronised, they became more common. Society adapted to a new network.

Connections you make through the things you carry around bleeding into everything you do. They show what’s most important to you. A Boris Bike key in your pocket in San Francisco reminds you of the network it’s part of – people, places, home?

Oyster cards are avatars of yourself. It represents you to a system. It registers as you, and has an effect on the system that has an impact on you. The RFID chips within them have the potential to represent you in many ways.

Now think of this in the context of another pocket object the iPhone – and the ways it represents you and your life, over time.

Service on an aged object?

Should we care about the objects we carry with us? Should we regard them as “old friends”?

So, yeah. Mobile devices are personal devices, life companions. And that should change the way we build for them. It’s a metaphor (and bigger on the inside).