Bruce Sterling's Hyperlocal World

Tobias posted a comment about this in my Take A Picture Of Something You See post. It took a while for Wired to get the thing up on the web as they protect the magazine subs by posting the stories to the web with a delay.

Anway, Bruce Sterling wrote a hysterical piece in Wired this month about the emerging world of hyperlocal geoblogging. It’s a world I am certainly headed towards. This part where geoblogger Harvey Feldspar is testifying before congress really cracked me up.

Anyway, fact is, a passport is redundant — even if it’s crammed full
of RFID chips that howl your ID to every passing parking meter. The US
should do what the Japanese do: track every foreigner’s mobile. If he
does anything freaky, jump on him.

"But Mr. Feldspar, suppose this international criminal doesn’t
carry a mobile?" demanded representative Chuck Kingston (R-Alabama). It
would have been rude to point out the obvious. So I didn’t. But look,
just between you and me: Anybody without a mobile is not any kind of
danger to society. He’s a pitiful derelict. Because he’s got no phone.
Duh.

He also has no email, voicemail, pager, chat client, or gaming
platform. And probably no maps, guidebooks, Web browser, video player,
music player, or radio. No transit tickets, payment system, biometric
ID, environmental safety sensor, or Breathalyzer. No alarm clock,
camera, laser scanner, navigator, pedometer, flashlight, remote
control, or hi-def projector. No house key, office key, car key… Are
you still with me? If you don’t have a mobile, the modern world is a
seething jungle crisscrossed by electric fences crowned with barbed
wire. A guy without a mobile is beyond derelict. He’s a nonperson.

Give the whole thing a read at wired.com.