Trillions Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology

PETER LUCAS is founding principal at MAYA Design, which he cofounded in 1989. He is also adjunct associate professor of Human Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a PhD from Cornell University, where he studied educational and cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. He served on the Committee on Networked Systems of Embedded Computers of the National Research Council.

JOE BALLAY is former head of the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University and a founding principal of MAYA Design. An interdisciplinarian, he holds an MFA in design from Carnegie Mellon University, a BFA in industrial design from the University of Illinois, and a BS in industrial management from Carnegie Institute of Technology. He has taught design at universities throughout the world.

MICKEY McMANUS is president and CEO of MAYA Design. He holds a BFA in industrial design from the University of Illinois, with extended studies in communication design and mathematics. His work has been published in Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of design, pervasive computing, and business innovation.

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

Chapter 1 The Future, So Far 01

Trillions Is a Done Deal 02

Connectivity Will Be the Seed of Change 05

Computing Turned Inside Out 07

The Power of Digital Literacy 11

Chapter 2 The Next Mountain 15

Fungible Devices 16

Liquid Information 25

Cyberspace for Real 30

Interlude Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Platforms and User Interfaces 39

Yesterday 40

Today 41

Tomorrow 44

Chapter 3 The Tyranny of the Orthodoxy 51

Information Interruptus 52

The King and the Mathematician 60

Links to Nowhere 63

The Wrong Cloud 65

The Dream of One Big Computer 67

The Grand Repository in the Sky 68

FUD and the Birth of the Impostor Cloud 69

The Children’s Crusade 71

The Peer-to-Peer Bogey 80

Chapter 4 How Nature Does It 83

The Internet of Plants 84

Nature Has Been There Before 85

The Qualities of Beautiful Complexity 93

At the Intersection of People and Information 102

Chapter 5 How Design Does It 105

Birth of Industrial Design 107

Novelty, Beauty, Ritual, and Comfort 113

Hearing History Rhyme 114

Instability as the Status Quo 117

Post-Industrial Design 119

Interlude Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Data Storage 133

Yesterday 133

Today 136

Tomorrow 136

Chapter 6 Design Science on Trillions Mountain 139

Beyond Design Thinking to Design Science 140

Make the Right Thing 143

Chapter 7 Architecture with a Capital “A” 167

Architecture as Organic Principles 169

Architecture as Model 170

Architecture as “Style” 171

Information Architecture 173

Architecture and Design Science 178

Chapter 8 Life in an Information Ecology 181

Components 183

Challenges in the Information Ecology 188

Chapter 9 Aspects of Tomorrow 205

Beyond the Internet 206

Simplification 208

Devices 210

The Information Commons 212

The World Wide Dataflow 213

Publishing 216

Safety, Security, and Privacy 218

Epilogue Thriving in the Spacious Foothills 221

Seize the Low Ground 224

Microtransactions and the Rise of T-Commerce 225

Strange Bedfellows 226

Big Data and Information Visualization 226

The Trillions Bubble 227

Notes 231

About the Authors 245

Index 247

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.