second office

josh lifton (of pushpin computing fame) presented his work on ‘dual reality‘(pdf) at the moda+tecnologia event. as part of his phd thesis he deployed activity sensors all around the medialab which look (and act) as power strips, but they record activity in the form of sound level, power consumption and movement. the data is collected in a virtual copy of the building housed in second life where it is represented by abstract animations such as josh’s avatar growing wild medusa hair if things go crazy (above). aside from being able to know who’s in their office and when, this kind of intimate connection between the physical and virtual worlds could make possible all sorts of remote collaboration and control. you can easily find out how much different machines are consuming when you’re in the office or away, and you can also arrange meetings in the common virtual office while working from distant but probably cozier home offices. eventually a second office could evolve for each of us where all of the resources and people we depend on are conveniently located in one beautiful non-existent office.