The convergence of handheld computers and cellphones with positioning technologies like GPS make it possible to annotate any place with layers of digital information. As computing and communication devices become smaller and cheaper, the potential for ‘ubiquitous computing’ becomes more real: people begin to imagine computers as things that are embedded into the environment, rather than placed on a desktop or carried around. This week we discuss the implications for historical practice and public history, concentrating on the possibility of making each thing in the world “the protagonist of a documented process … an historical entity with an accessible, precise trajectory through space and time” (Sterling).
Readings for Discussion
Buckland, Michael and Lewis Lancaster. “![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
Combining Place, Time, and Topic: The Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative,” D-Lib Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 2004).
Crane, Gregory. “Georeferencing in Historical Collections,” D-Lib Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 2004).
Dodson, Sean. “The Internet of Things,” The Guardian (9 Oct 2003).
Hill, Linda L. “Georeferencing in Digital Libraries,” D-Lib Magazine 10, no. 5 (May 2004).
Leung, Wency. “Life Murder and Bootleggers: Every House Tells a Story,” Toronto Globe and Mail (19 Oct 2007).
Rogers, Garett. “Google Earth in 4D,” Googling Google (12 Nov 2006).
Roush, Wade. “From Lewis and Clark to Landsat: Digital Maps Marry Past and Present,” Technology Review (Jul 2005).
Roush, Wade. “Killer Maps,” Technology Review (Oct 2005).
Sterling, Bruce. “When Blobjects Rule the Earth,” SIGGRAPH (Aug 2004).
Sterling, Bruce. “Dumbing Down Smart Objects,” Wired 12, no. 10 (Oct 2004).
Unsworth, John M. “Vernacular Computing,” AAUP Electronic Publishing Workshop (14 Jun 2006).
Weiser, Marc and John Seely Brown. “The Coming Age of Calm Technology” (5 Oct 1996).
