You've been hailed

Increasingly, as technology becomes more personalised, it will also become more personalisable. By this I mean that not only will users be able to tailor the technology (apps, backgrounds, appearance, functionality) to their own needs, but it will also be used increasingly to appeal to their senses, and even to adjust their perceptions and behaviour. Watching a re-run of the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report, reminded me of this. The central character, a Pre-Crime Officer by the name of John Anderton is walking down the street, and animated advertising images are calling him out by name as he passes by: "John Anderton - you need this product today!" We assume that the embedded technology within the advertising hoardings is detecting some personal feature that identifies him - possibly the irises in his eyes - and can then call him by his name. Such advertising, if it were technically feasible (and some would argue it already is) would be very powerful, because as all advertisers know, it is the personal message that is the most influential.

The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser had plenty to say about how ideological messages influence the perceptions of individuals. Objects, music, art (and I would add media and technology) can all be used to 'hail' the individual and make them feel as though they are personally being addressed. This process of interpellation could be exemplified in Lord Kitchener's World War One poster 'Your Country Needs You', and all of the subsequent imitations by other governments to encourage young men to enlist in the military to protect and defend their country. His stern expression and the stark message said it all. The eyes of the interpellator followed you wherever you went, and there was apparently no escape from the fact that Lord Kitchener was calling you personally to join him in the struggle against evil.

It is highly likely that such interpellative technologies as those seen in Minority Report will be realised sooner rather than later. But it is the context aware systems and their ability to educate learners that I am most excited about. Such systems will be at the core of the Smart eXtended Web, and equipped with the appropriate handheld or wearable technology, learners will be able to interact with their environments in ways never before achievable. All of this will also be very personal, and will facilitate new and exciting forms of education.

Inspired by a Twitter conversation with Manish Malik @manmalik, Simon Brookes @Pompeysie and Pat Parslow @patparslow.

You've been hailed by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.