The Internet of Things is the second issue in the series of Network Notebooks. It’s a critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID by Rob van Kranenburg. Rob examines what impact RFID and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society. He currently works at Waag Society as program leader for the Public Domain and wrote earlier an article about this topic in the Waag magazine and is the co-founder of the DIFR Network. The notebook features an introduction by journalist and writer Sean Dodson.

… Rob van Kranenburg outlines his vision of the future. He tells of his early encounters with the kind of location-based technologies that will soon become commonplace, and what they may mean for us all. He explores the emergence of the “internet of things”, tracing us through its origins in the mundane back-end world of the international supply chain to the domestic applications that already exist in an embryonic stage. He also explains how the adoption of he technologies of the City Control is not inevitable, nor something that we must kindly accept nor sleepwalk into. In van Kranenburg’s account of the creation of the international network of Bricolabs, he also suggests how each of us can help contribute to building technologies of trust and empower ourselves in the age of mass surveillance and ambient technologies.

There’s a launch party in October, if you happen to be in Amsterdam. Kudos to Léon & Loes for the great design.

As you may imagine from my writing lately (here, here), the word “Bricolabs” caught my attention. From their site:

A distributed network for global and local development of generic infrastructures incrementally developed by communities.

A global platform to investigate the new loop of open content, software, and hardware for community applications, bringing people together with new technologies and distributed connectivity, unlike the dominant focus of IT industry on security, surveillance, and monopoly of information and infrastructures.

You can go to the Institute of Network Cultures blog to download a copy and learn more

about it.

Via Karl.