[Roy] Want has developed a personal digital assistant he calls the PARCTab. About half the size of an Apple Newton, Want’s palm-held PDA sends and receives wireless data signals to another network of infrared detectors … It’s part of Xerox PARC’s “ubiquitous computing” project, an attempt to banish paper from the workplace. Want can program [it] to trade e-mail and other files with his workstation, and he can access the Internet … Want sees the tabs getting thinner and lighter. Each of us would have dozens scattered around the office, in the car, and at home. Detector “cells will start appearing in public places or the home,” he says. “The device will tell you where you are, wherever you are.” Of course, it might also tell them where you are.
Predictor: Want, Roy
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, John Whalen does a bit of surveillance at the American Society for Industrial Security’s annual convention, and quotes Roy Want, an inventor of ‘active badges,’ and a scientist at Xerox PARC. Whalen writes: ”PARC researchers are understandably excited about some of the more benign applications [for active badges]. As a companion piece to the badges, Want has developed a personal digital assistant he calls the PARCTab. About half the size of an Apple Newton, Want’s palm-held PDA sends and receives wireless data signals to another network of infrared detectors salted throughout the building. It’s part of Xerox PARC’s ‘ubiquitous computing’ project, an attempt to banish paper from the workplace. Want can program his personal assistant to trade e-mail and other files with his workstation, and he can access the Internet through his PDA anywhere in the building (except in the bathroom). Want sees the tabs getting thinner and lighter. Each of us would have dozens scattered around the office, in the car, and at home. Detector ‘cells will start appearing in public places or the home,’ he says. ‘The device will tell you where you are, wherever you are.’ Of course, it might also tell them where you are. Surely, that’s a concept that’s hardly foreign to wired world citizens.”
Biography:Roy Want, a scientist at Xerox PARC, was an inventor of “active badge” technology that allows a person or things movements to be followed and monitored. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Privacy/Surveillance
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: You’re Not Paranoid: They Really Are Watching You: Surveillance in the Workplace is Getting Digitized – and Getting Worse
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.03/security_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney