04-08-2012, 01:09 PM
Social Defense Mechanisms
[attachment=30217]
Introduction
The Media Lab focuses on pioneering advances in media and technology, often with the aim of improving human-machine interaction. Much of this work has been in new sensor designs, innovative interfaces, and unconventional integrations of existing technologies. While the Computing Culture group contributes to this body of work, its main focus is to investigate “how artists can refigure technology to address the full range of human experiences,” primarily from a social and cultural perspective. For example, many universities have research groups that study how wearable computers can be used to better manage our time, but Kelly Dobson explores how wearables can help us better manage our emotional needs. The work in the group ranges from queries into combative user interfaces, to full-scale implementations of software that helps citizens ‘keep tabs’ on their elected officials, to PDA software that assists users in mapping out walking routes in NYC that avoid security cameras.
The charter for the Computing Culture Group at MIT includes the question “What do technologists miss?” The research I have engaged takes this question and extends it to ask “What do people want technologists to develop?” Many engineers aim to design a technology (or sensor design, or interface) and then try to create an application for that technology, effectively building an answer and then inventing a need. In contrast, my research aims to identify a lived, experienced human need, and then determine how technology can address that need. Out of the “full range of human experiences,” I chose to focus on human-machine experiences and, in particular, our dislike of certain common electronic devices.
Last year, a research group polled more than 2,000 Americans, asking them “What technologies do you hate the most, yet cannot live without?” In examining two of the top three answers, televisions and cell phones, I sought to determine why is it that we hate these devices. My investigation included trying to find a common theme in their modes of operation from a social/interface standpoint. To do so, I investigated their use of “Hertzian space,” an architecture of human/device interaction previously defined
Introduction
and explored by the designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. By characterizing how electronic devices and humans intersect in the Hertzian aether, I theorized that we find these devices frustrating to use because they invade our personal space via distraction. For example, cell phones and their users may be distracting because they are often impolitely loud. Televisions, on the other hand, are distracting in the sense that they have a ‘hypnotic’ quality to them that makes it difficult for many people to avoid staring at one if it is in the area.
Manufacturers of these cellphones are aware of our frustration with these devices. In fact, cell phone companies now include a section of etiquette advice in their user manuals. However, there is little incentive for them to support an active censorship scheme, such as cell phone bans in places such as hospitals, theaters and places of worship. Just as tobacco corporations lobby against smoking bans, cell phone manufacturers instead push for “voluntary action.” Likewise, broadcasting companies have no incentive to make television less distracting because the addictive qualities of television are the same ones that bring high ratings and thus large advertising revenues. The corporate solution, consumer self-enforcement, is basically, “try to be polite.” The problem is that this technique is barely effective, to which nearly anyone can attest.
Since we cannot depend on others to respect our personal space, I have decided to instead focus on how we can defend it ourselves, using special electronic devices specifically designed to combat wireless communication technologies and televisions. Having defined the problem, I set out to design two “counter-technologies,” a set of portable electronic devices that enable the user to defend their personal space from intrusion. For protection from unwanted wireless communication such as cell phones, I designed and built a personal cell phone jammer, named Wave Bubble, which creates a small ‘bubble’ of wireless-free space. To help people who find themselves distracted by televisions, I designed and built a pair
of electronic spectacles, named Media-Sensitive Glasses, that darken whenever the wearer stares at a television for too long. These “counter-technologies” bridge art and engineering; the prototypes masquerade as something that could be mass-produced and sold, and yet function as a statement about us and how we interact with popular technologies. This form of product design takes part in a tradition of culture-jamming industrial design that has been coined “Design Noir” (Dunne and Raby 2001). Much of “Noir” product design aims to use consumer electronics as social commentary, tracking how such devices can be used to address those ‘real human needs.’
Having built the two devices, I also attempt to categorize why we may find them interesting. I compare them to other related projects and art pieces constructed in the “Design Noir” style, such as those recently created by Steve Mann. I find that there exist common themes for all these pieces: control, personal space, and subversion, and that these themes are essential to their categorization as “Noir.” Finally, I detail the engineering and construction of both Wave Bubble and the Media-Sensitive Glasses, so that interested parties may experiment in building their own ‘social defense mechanisms.’
Background
Hertzian Space
All of the electronic devices that are produced and sold to us, by their very existence, participate in our culture. Many of them are designed to be interactive, and we engage with them on a daily basis. Some of these devices, such as computers, video games and personal digital assistants, are explicit in their interactivity. However, even devices like electric coffee pots, remote controls and radios are interactive, in the sense that we use them and they affect us. In Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” This space encompasses not only the form and function of a device, but also how people react and relate to it. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions. Dunne and Raby describe this “electro-climate,” inhabited by humans and electronic machines, as the interface between electromagnetic waves and human experiences: “Hertzian space describes what happens in front of the screen, outside of the object, it is part of the space our bodies inhabit, even though our senses detect only a tiny part of it” (Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12). Visible lights are part of Hertzian space, as are radios, medical X-rays, televisions and UV tanning lamps. Although we cannot sense much of this space (other than visible light of course), the authors claim that we are affected by it, both physically and psychologically. Machines that otherwise seem to be contained in their plastic shells can escape their boundaries and ‘bleed’ into this space, affecting all who are in it. Taking this idea to an extreme, the authors cite research into ‘electrosensitives,’ people who are literally allergic to electromagnetic radiation. Of course, there are less pathological examples of how people respond to Hertzian space, such as fears that cell phone radiation causes brain cancer, or how some find more comfort in cassette tapes than CDs because they think the sound ‘feels’ different.
Design Practices of Hertzian Space
Dunne and Raby believe that increased awareness of Hertzian space
will assist our design practices. They believe that we are only beginning to understand its effects and consequences, and that “it is an environment that must be fully understood if it is to be made habitable’’ (Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12). Unfortunately, many manufacturers of electronic products do not consider Hertzian space as an important element in their design process compared to, say, the technical specifications or manufacture costs. As a result, the environment enclosing both device and user is unbalanced. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan describes this cause and effect specifically in regards to electronic media2 that have been forced into a social system without any regard for social convention:
“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. ...It is the entire system that is changed” (McLuhan 1964, pg. 70)
We see clear examples of such ‘surgeries’ and ‘infections’ all the time, when new technologies are introduced at the pace of engineering without full consideration for their possible effects on society. The Lemelson-MIT Program, an organization for researching issues related to inventions and inventors, organizes an annual study for gauging popular view on invention technology called the “Invention Index.” In 2004, the Program asked Americans “what inventions they hate the most but cannot live without.” The cell phone placed first with 30% of the votes. When the Program also asked in a related study whether such inventions have improved American’s quality of life, 95% of respondents said “yes” (Lemelson 2004).
In a press release discussing these results, the director of the program commented with his interpretation: “Cell phones have clearly been beneficial in terms of increasing worker productivity and connecting people with family and friends. However, the Invention Index results show that the
2. While Dunne and Raby use ‘Hertzian Space’ to talk about technology, McLuhan focuses specifically on media. However, McLuhan’s idea of media is inexorably tied to the medium device itself and in that sense, I feel that both are essentially discussing the same thing, but from different perspectives
benefits of an invention sometimes come with a societal cost” (Lemelson 2004). Essentially, he is restating what McLuhan observed in 40 years prior.
What is interesting to note is that, along with the cell phone, the third “most hated/necessary” device in the survey is the television. The fact that both of these devices are disruptive may explain why they are so disliked. (Contrast their mode of operation to that of say, a microwave oven, or even a PDA.) Dunne and Raby’s assertion that devices must peacefully inhabit Hertzian Space if they are to coexist with people seems to fit these devices in particular: they ‘leak’ heavily into their surroundings, blasting anyone in the area with noise and light. Cell phones and televisions are so prevalent in modern societies that it is increasingly difficult for us to avoid them. Couple this prevalence with the aforementioned devices’ antisocial use of Hertzian space, and one finds symptoms of the ‘infection’ McLuhan has described. By using these devices in public (for example, placing a call on a cell phone while on the train, or turning on a TV in a restaurant) everyone in the area is affected, without any say in the matter.
It is my theory that we dislike these two devices because they invade our personal space, and we feel as if we are unable to protect ourselves. More specifically, both cell phones and cell phone users can be distractingly loud and since we cannot ‘turn off our ears,’ we have no way to keep ourselves from listening. Televisions are visually distracting; even with the sound off, we find it difficult to keep from staring at the screen if it is in sight despite
The results of the 2004 ‘Invention Index’ show that Americans hate some electronic devices more than ingrown hairs.
the fact that we may not be particularly interested in watching television. These devices can be physically distant, but their Hertzian presence (in the form of sound and light) enters our personal space uninvited.
Personal Space
The concept of “personal space” was first studied by Edward T. Hall and published in The Hidden Dimension (Hall 1966). By doing ethnographic studies relating physical distances and psychological comfort, Hall determined that people have well-defined ‘bubbles’ of space that surround them. For each person there are multiple nested bubbles, each one corresponding to a space that becomes more innately “personal” as the diameter decreases. The largest bubble which we still consider personal space (the ‘far phase’) extends 2.5-4 feet beyond the body. Hall theorized that this distance is not arbitrary, but that it is directly related to the distance at which others could successfully control us: “Far enough for two people to touch hands, this is the limit of physical domination in the very real sense. Beyond it, a person cannot easily ‘get his hands on’ someone else” (Hall 1966, pg 113). When unknown or untrusted people enter this space, one may become uncomfortable and aggressive. Hall called the study of personal space “proxemics” because it discusses the social effects of physical proximity, but there are other ways in which we may find our personal space inhabited. For example, by visual, aural and other “Hertzian” encroachments. Just as we become uncomfortable when people enter our personal space, so too may we become uncomfortable when unfamiliar electronic devices do the same.
Indeed, while our culture finds physically invading one’s proximal personal space abhorrent, other methods are regarded as merely good advertising techniques. In Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte explains that “the economic models of media today are based almost exclusively on ‘pushing’ the information and entertainment out into the public’’ (Negroponte 1996). Indeed, one of the metrics by which advertising value is counted is by
‘eyeballs’: how many people are watching, and how much attention can you garner from them. While it is true that billboards have been distracting us for a hundred years, electronic devices such as the television and cell phone are a bigger nuisance because they invite interaction. That is to say, we find phones and televisions more distracting because they are, as McLuhan puts it, “cool”. As described in greater detail in Understanding Media, the “cold” adjective implies that the technology requires the viewer or listener to “complete” the content. McLuhan thought that phones ‘demanded’ to be picked up; his argument for television’s attraction was that the low-resolution ‘mosaic’ of video required the viewer to ‘fill’ in the missing information.1
Electronic devices can also invade our personal space by betraying our privacy. The introduction of RFID tags has prompted privacy-protection groups such as the Center for Democracy & Technology and the ACLU to call attention to how such technologies can impact people and their personal space. In a statement to the Senate Committee on Energy and Commerce, the CDT states that while “RFID devices hold possibilities for consumers, businesses and government” they are a privacy risk for consumers because the tags communicate information without notifying the user (CDT 2004). This is because the tags are so small, they can be embedded, unnoticed, into everything from clothing to soda cans, and they can be scanned merely by pointing an RFID reader at the person from a
The personal space bubble extends up to 4’ beyond the body, far enough to guarantee physical safety.
The effects of electronic devices, however, can easily extend into this space
1. Although the need for visual ‘completion’ may contribute to television’s entrancing nature, recent studies have determined that a physiological response accounts for much of the effect, as discussed in section 4.
few meters away. Thus, someone with an RFID reader could, surreptitiously, determine where you bought your clothes, and how much you paid for them, essentially tracking your purchase history without your knowledge or consent.
There are similar privacy issues with Global Positioning Service (GPS) receivers. Since the commercial introduction of GPS to consumers in the mid 1980s, the service has been used for everything from geographic surveying to automobile navigation systems. Since then, GPS receiver modules have become inexpensive enough that they can be built into cell phones and cars. As a result, multiple companies have begun offering tracking services: employers can track their employees, parents can track their children, and car rental companies can track their customers. Of course, the receivers are discrete enough that they may easily be hidden, and the tracker may decide not to inform the tracked of its existence. As a result, an unaware user may not realize that their car or phone is broadcasting their every move to any interested party.
Proposed Solutions
While it has taken some time, many designers are starting to realize that the technologies they help bring to market can bring about social discomfort through use, i.e. they are adversely affecting Hertzian space.
[attachment=30217]
Introduction
The Media Lab focuses on pioneering advances in media and technology, often with the aim of improving human-machine interaction. Much of this work has been in new sensor designs, innovative interfaces, and unconventional integrations of existing technologies. While the Computing Culture group contributes to this body of work, its main focus is to investigate “how artists can refigure technology to address the full range of human experiences,” primarily from a social and cultural perspective. For example, many universities have research groups that study how wearable computers can be used to better manage our time, but Kelly Dobson explores how wearables can help us better manage our emotional needs. The work in the group ranges from queries into combative user interfaces, to full-scale implementations of software that helps citizens ‘keep tabs’ on their elected officials, to PDA software that assists users in mapping out walking routes in NYC that avoid security cameras.
The charter for the Computing Culture Group at MIT includes the question “What do technologists miss?” The research I have engaged takes this question and extends it to ask “What do people want technologists to develop?” Many engineers aim to design a technology (or sensor design, or interface) and then try to create an application for that technology, effectively building an answer and then inventing a need. In contrast, my research aims to identify a lived, experienced human need, and then determine how technology can address that need. Out of the “full range of human experiences,” I chose to focus on human-machine experiences and, in particular, our dislike of certain common electronic devices.
Last year, a research group polled more than 2,000 Americans, asking them “What technologies do you hate the most, yet cannot live without?” In examining two of the top three answers, televisions and cell phones, I sought to determine why is it that we hate these devices. My investigation included trying to find a common theme in their modes of operation from a social/interface standpoint. To do so, I investigated their use of “Hertzian space,” an architecture of human/device interaction previously defined
Introduction
and explored by the designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. By characterizing how electronic devices and humans intersect in the Hertzian aether, I theorized that we find these devices frustrating to use because they invade our personal space via distraction. For example, cell phones and their users may be distracting because they are often impolitely loud. Televisions, on the other hand, are distracting in the sense that they have a ‘hypnotic’ quality to them that makes it difficult for many people to avoid staring at one if it is in the area.
Manufacturers of these cellphones are aware of our frustration with these devices. In fact, cell phone companies now include a section of etiquette advice in their user manuals. However, there is little incentive for them to support an active censorship scheme, such as cell phone bans in places such as hospitals, theaters and places of worship. Just as tobacco corporations lobby against smoking bans, cell phone manufacturers instead push for “voluntary action.” Likewise, broadcasting companies have no incentive to make television less distracting because the addictive qualities of television are the same ones that bring high ratings and thus large advertising revenues. The corporate solution, consumer self-enforcement, is basically, “try to be polite.” The problem is that this technique is barely effective, to which nearly anyone can attest.
Since we cannot depend on others to respect our personal space, I have decided to instead focus on how we can defend it ourselves, using special electronic devices specifically designed to combat wireless communication technologies and televisions. Having defined the problem, I set out to design two “counter-technologies,” a set of portable electronic devices that enable the user to defend their personal space from intrusion. For protection from unwanted wireless communication such as cell phones, I designed and built a personal cell phone jammer, named Wave Bubble, which creates a small ‘bubble’ of wireless-free space. To help people who find themselves distracted by televisions, I designed and built a pair
of electronic spectacles, named Media-Sensitive Glasses, that darken whenever the wearer stares at a television for too long. These “counter-technologies” bridge art and engineering; the prototypes masquerade as something that could be mass-produced and sold, and yet function as a statement about us and how we interact with popular technologies. This form of product design takes part in a tradition of culture-jamming industrial design that has been coined “Design Noir” (Dunne and Raby 2001). Much of “Noir” product design aims to use consumer electronics as social commentary, tracking how such devices can be used to address those ‘real human needs.’
Having built the two devices, I also attempt to categorize why we may find them interesting. I compare them to other related projects and art pieces constructed in the “Design Noir” style, such as those recently created by Steve Mann. I find that there exist common themes for all these pieces: control, personal space, and subversion, and that these themes are essential to their categorization as “Noir.” Finally, I detail the engineering and construction of both Wave Bubble and the Media-Sensitive Glasses, so that interested parties may experiment in building their own ‘social defense mechanisms.’
Background
Hertzian Space
All of the electronic devices that are produced and sold to us, by their very existence, participate in our culture. Many of them are designed to be interactive, and we engage with them on a daily basis. Some of these devices, such as computers, video games and personal digital assistants, are explicit in their interactivity. However, even devices like electric coffee pots, remote controls and radios are interactive, in the sense that we use them and they affect us. In Hertzian Tales, author Anthony Dunne extends the physical interactivity between device and person into an architecture he calls “Hertzian Space.” This space encompasses not only the form and function of a device, but also how people react and relate to it. In a sense, Hertzian space is a holistic view of the electronic device and its cultural interactions. Dunne and Raby describe this “electro-climate,” inhabited by humans and electronic machines, as the interface between electromagnetic waves and human experiences: “Hertzian space describes what happens in front of the screen, outside of the object, it is part of the space our bodies inhabit, even though our senses detect only a tiny part of it” (Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12). Visible lights are part of Hertzian space, as are radios, medical X-rays, televisions and UV tanning lamps. Although we cannot sense much of this space (other than visible light of course), the authors claim that we are affected by it, both physically and psychologically. Machines that otherwise seem to be contained in their plastic shells can escape their boundaries and ‘bleed’ into this space, affecting all who are in it. Taking this idea to an extreme, the authors cite research into ‘electrosensitives,’ people who are literally allergic to electromagnetic radiation. Of course, there are less pathological examples of how people respond to Hertzian space, such as fears that cell phone radiation causes brain cancer, or how some find more comfort in cassette tapes than CDs because they think the sound ‘feels’ different.
Design Practices of Hertzian Space
Dunne and Raby believe that increased awareness of Hertzian space
will assist our design practices. They believe that we are only beginning to understand its effects and consequences, and that “it is an environment that must be fully understood if it is to be made habitable’’ (Dunne and Raby 2001, pg. 12). Unfortunately, many manufacturers of electronic products do not consider Hertzian space as an important element in their design process compared to, say, the technical specifications or manufacture costs. As a result, the environment enclosing both device and user is unbalanced. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan describes this cause and effect specifically in regards to electronic media2 that have been forced into a social system without any regard for social convention:
“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. ...It is the entire system that is changed” (McLuhan 1964, pg. 70)
We see clear examples of such ‘surgeries’ and ‘infections’ all the time, when new technologies are introduced at the pace of engineering without full consideration for their possible effects on society. The Lemelson-MIT Program, an organization for researching issues related to inventions and inventors, organizes an annual study for gauging popular view on invention technology called the “Invention Index.” In 2004, the Program asked Americans “what inventions they hate the most but cannot live without.” The cell phone placed first with 30% of the votes. When the Program also asked in a related study whether such inventions have improved American’s quality of life, 95% of respondents said “yes” (Lemelson 2004).
In a press release discussing these results, the director of the program commented with his interpretation: “Cell phones have clearly been beneficial in terms of increasing worker productivity and connecting people with family and friends. However, the Invention Index results show that the
2. While Dunne and Raby use ‘Hertzian Space’ to talk about technology, McLuhan focuses specifically on media. However, McLuhan’s idea of media is inexorably tied to the medium device itself and in that sense, I feel that both are essentially discussing the same thing, but from different perspectives
benefits of an invention sometimes come with a societal cost” (Lemelson 2004). Essentially, he is restating what McLuhan observed in 40 years prior.
What is interesting to note is that, along with the cell phone, the third “most hated/necessary” device in the survey is the television. The fact that both of these devices are disruptive may explain why they are so disliked. (Contrast their mode of operation to that of say, a microwave oven, or even a PDA.) Dunne and Raby’s assertion that devices must peacefully inhabit Hertzian Space if they are to coexist with people seems to fit these devices in particular: they ‘leak’ heavily into their surroundings, blasting anyone in the area with noise and light. Cell phones and televisions are so prevalent in modern societies that it is increasingly difficult for us to avoid them. Couple this prevalence with the aforementioned devices’ antisocial use of Hertzian space, and one finds symptoms of the ‘infection’ McLuhan has described. By using these devices in public (for example, placing a call on a cell phone while on the train, or turning on a TV in a restaurant) everyone in the area is affected, without any say in the matter.
It is my theory that we dislike these two devices because they invade our personal space, and we feel as if we are unable to protect ourselves. More specifically, both cell phones and cell phone users can be distractingly loud and since we cannot ‘turn off our ears,’ we have no way to keep ourselves from listening. Televisions are visually distracting; even with the sound off, we find it difficult to keep from staring at the screen if it is in sight despite
The results of the 2004 ‘Invention Index’ show that Americans hate some electronic devices more than ingrown hairs.
the fact that we may not be particularly interested in watching television. These devices can be physically distant, but their Hertzian presence (in the form of sound and light) enters our personal space uninvited.
Personal Space
The concept of “personal space” was first studied by Edward T. Hall and published in The Hidden Dimension (Hall 1966). By doing ethnographic studies relating physical distances and psychological comfort, Hall determined that people have well-defined ‘bubbles’ of space that surround them. For each person there are multiple nested bubbles, each one corresponding to a space that becomes more innately “personal” as the diameter decreases. The largest bubble which we still consider personal space (the ‘far phase’) extends 2.5-4 feet beyond the body. Hall theorized that this distance is not arbitrary, but that it is directly related to the distance at which others could successfully control us: “Far enough for two people to touch hands, this is the limit of physical domination in the very real sense. Beyond it, a person cannot easily ‘get his hands on’ someone else” (Hall 1966, pg 113). When unknown or untrusted people enter this space, one may become uncomfortable and aggressive. Hall called the study of personal space “proxemics” because it discusses the social effects of physical proximity, but there are other ways in which we may find our personal space inhabited. For example, by visual, aural and other “Hertzian” encroachments. Just as we become uncomfortable when people enter our personal space, so too may we become uncomfortable when unfamiliar electronic devices do the same.
Indeed, while our culture finds physically invading one’s proximal personal space abhorrent, other methods are regarded as merely good advertising techniques. In Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte explains that “the economic models of media today are based almost exclusively on ‘pushing’ the information and entertainment out into the public’’ (Negroponte 1996). Indeed, one of the metrics by which advertising value is counted is by
‘eyeballs’: how many people are watching, and how much attention can you garner from them. While it is true that billboards have been distracting us for a hundred years, electronic devices such as the television and cell phone are a bigger nuisance because they invite interaction. That is to say, we find phones and televisions more distracting because they are, as McLuhan puts it, “cool”. As described in greater detail in Understanding Media, the “cold” adjective implies that the technology requires the viewer or listener to “complete” the content. McLuhan thought that phones ‘demanded’ to be picked up; his argument for television’s attraction was that the low-resolution ‘mosaic’ of video required the viewer to ‘fill’ in the missing information.1
Electronic devices can also invade our personal space by betraying our privacy. The introduction of RFID tags has prompted privacy-protection groups such as the Center for Democracy & Technology and the ACLU to call attention to how such technologies can impact people and their personal space. In a statement to the Senate Committee on Energy and Commerce, the CDT states that while “RFID devices hold possibilities for consumers, businesses and government” they are a privacy risk for consumers because the tags communicate information without notifying the user (CDT 2004). This is because the tags are so small, they can be embedded, unnoticed, into everything from clothing to soda cans, and they can be scanned merely by pointing an RFID reader at the person from a
The personal space bubble extends up to 4’ beyond the body, far enough to guarantee physical safety.
The effects of electronic devices, however, can easily extend into this space
1. Although the need for visual ‘completion’ may contribute to television’s entrancing nature, recent studies have determined that a physiological response accounts for much of the effect, as discussed in section 4.
few meters away. Thus, someone with an RFID reader could, surreptitiously, determine where you bought your clothes, and how much you paid for them, essentially tracking your purchase history without your knowledge or consent.
There are similar privacy issues with Global Positioning Service (GPS) receivers. Since the commercial introduction of GPS to consumers in the mid 1980s, the service has been used for everything from geographic surveying to automobile navigation systems. Since then, GPS receiver modules have become inexpensive enough that they can be built into cell phones and cars. As a result, multiple companies have begun offering tracking services: employers can track their employees, parents can track their children, and car rental companies can track their customers. Of course, the receivers are discrete enough that they may easily be hidden, and the tracker may decide not to inform the tracked of its existence. As a result, an unaware user may not realize that their car or phone is broadcasting their every move to any interested party.
Proposed Solutions
While it has taken some time, many designers are starting to realize that the technologies they help bring to market can bring about social discomfort through use, i.e. they are adversely affecting Hertzian space.