26 February 2007
Everyware where you really need it
Reading through Everyware always makes me think of something new, never too repetative. While reading about how everyware may be used in helping people be less overloaded by information, it came to me how easy it would really make certain parts of my life. Everyday life is all and well with everyware, but what about where we really need it? Like in places of emergency, where speed and accuracy is extremely important when concerning information. I work at a hospital and when doctors need to get test results for bodily fluids stat, it is rather hard to do, especially during peak time when everyone is trying to get there patients test results. this is not even considering all the time it takes to sludge through mislabeled specimens, and other other such problems. If RFID tags were implanted in the labels as they printed out, I can see much of the laboratory work being done in half the time, leaving techs with more time to spot and fix mistakes.
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6 comments:
Interesting thought. I agree, there are lots of places, not just hospitals, where rfid tags could do worlds of good. There are lives to be saved, and time as well, usually at the point when these things need saving the most. But for every good thing the tag can do, there are just as many bad things. This is the trouble with most of life: there is always a bad side to go with the good. We can save dying people, help the elderly, and find our misplaced keys, but we can also steal people's identifying information, take away the basic right of privacy, and pretty much turn people back into numbers. It all depends on how the technology is used. The problems with everyware come back to this idea again and again. And that leads us to realize, the problems are not with the technology, but within ourselves. Our motives and motivations are what is driving the technology. Whatever it does, it does because we tell it to. And that is something we all need to consider a bit more.
I like the idea of RFID tags employed in hospitals. According to our readings, if RFID production progresses as expected, then the cost per unit could drop to levels where it would be extremely profitable to use them. Hell, look what its done for UPS and FedEx. Hospitals and medical offices are not too much different than UPS. They both deal in the conveyance of time sensitive information. If a hospital could keep track of all the data associated with a patient and never lose any patient info ever again, then profits would increase, care would be better and doctors would be even more rich.
Now I can also see RFID devices used prisons. Wouldn't that be something? Say I go to prison and as part of my incarceration expeirience, I have to wear dog tags, a bracelet, whatever it is, its RFID equiped. Bingo, the warden knows where I am at all times. He has a record of where I've been and for how long, who I associate with etc. The problem here is usually prisoners don't like to obey rules...hence them being in prison, and would probably figure out a way around this type of surveillance.
RFIDs are pretty much here to stay, it'll be interesting to see where and how they are employed in the years to come.
Definitely! All of this technology should go where it is needed. The priority use of these RFID tags should to save lives or at least to secure our lives a little more. Sure it would be cool to be scanned in wherever you go, but whats the use of that? So that the government can know where you are 24 hours a day? I know we already have technology that can be helpful to better protect our lives but the public doesn’t even get to use it until the government or military gets its personal use of it first. I know that we have had GPS tracking for quite a while now, but it has only been easily accessible to the public in the recent years. That is definitely something useful for our well being, I think its great that we are now allowed to use GPS tracking with our cell phones so that way parents can view where their children are right from their cell phone. These RFID tags have the ability to do almost anything, we should use them for the right reasons.
Well I personally think that with more technology integrated life will be more fun. There will be more love in this world. In past technologies everyone thinks that some new technology will make peace of the world. I mean the only way to make peace is if more people are spreading love and not being selfish. Maybe somehow this could happen through integration.
I also recognized that I drift onto new ideas that the book tries to make us aware of. I like to think of Everyware as every ware...i.e. every thing. The book has made me think of the subtitle changes in technology too. Like how a chair is just a technology to sit down and the paved roads as technology for our transportation methods with automobiles. But those problems, however minor the whole scope of things on this
Earth, have been "solved". So with the advances in technology, we will see the tasks and change that we desire now. Soon we will see that things like RFID tags on the labels will be a norm because until they were "everywhere", paved roads were a luxury somewhere and a desire elsewhere.
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