Critique

Critique of EventWeb: Developing a Human-Centered Computing System

In the article, EventWeb: Developing a Human-Centered Computing System, Ramesh Jain tells of his belief that a human-centered computing system is the future of computers and the Internet. Much research is being done to make these computers systems that are more in tune with the abilities of humans. There is no question that these systems will someday be developed and available. Jain seems to think that these systems will be working in the near future, but the actual timeframe is much father off.

Jain writes that computing has already gone through two major evolutionary stages. The first two were revolutionary while the third will change how computing influences humans. Each stage builds on the previous stages’ advances.

The first stage was marked by the invention of electronic computers. These computers were millions of times faster at calculations than humans. Computers were extended to large businesses during this period.

The second stage involved personal computers and the Internet. Information and communication became more prominent than data. This period connected the world in such a way that had never been seen before.

The third stage will focus on the insights and experiences of humans. Humans use sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste to have experiences. Computers convert sight, sound, and touch to electronic form and then convert them into something humans can perceive. Since sight and sound are the dominant senses, they are mainly used. The whole third stage is about experiencing events and sharing these events with others. This is imminent when one looks at the top web sites and sees many social networking and user uploaded video sites.

Several areas already connect humans with computers. Virtual reality systems integrate the user into the story. These systems are becoming more realistic and more immersive. These systems are immersive in the first place because their environments respond to the user. The environments must be rendered fast or the user will get ahead of the action.

Most multimedia information systems deal only with archived video, audio, or images. Media running over live streams is becoming a big research topic. The media stream comes from sensors that can be placed almost anywhere. The system has to be capable to assimilate the data into a unified model. The system considers each sensor as contributing to the model.

The databases of yesterday and today have relied on indexing to store and retrieve data. An immersive telepresence system must deal with indexing in a different way. Current systems create a silo by indexing data and stashing it in a silo. If a layer was put onto each silo, an event or object could be modeled in the layer. This would help in assimilating the data because knowledge about the event could be stored on the layer.

Since there are many different sensors, there are many different perspectives on one event. The user could switch between the different sensor streams to get different perspectives. This current cannot be done; new media-streaming techniques must first be discovered.

The EventWeb would require some of these techniques to be developed. As opposed to the tradition Web, the EventWeb organizes data in terms of events and experiences. The EventWeb collects all the audio, video, and other data from an event and allows the user to experience it from their perspective.

EventWeb allows for multiple perspectives of events. Each event is represented by time, location, participants, audio, or video. These events could be produced by anyone. Any type of sensor data could be used to capture the information related to the event. The EventWeb is basically the regular Web linked to physical locations with sensory characteristics. So the Web and EventWeb would work together.

People can post their events using an Event Markup Language. This would also provide a place to express and create relationships among events. People would also be able to identify events of interest to them. EventWeb would not use a keyword box to search though. New techniques need to be developed in order to search images and videos themselves instead of just text.

There is much support that shows events should be the way multimedia systems are organized. Events can be defined by other events, so this process can continue forever. Each event should define the information, experiences, and relationships with other events. Time, location, and identification are an event’s basic characteristics.

If a system was created, the interface should work toward the strength of humans. The data should be presented in a way that the human senses can easily and rapidly interpret. The system should also present the data that is relevant to the person’s state and context.

Through all of this, Jain got his point across that EventWeb will become a major part of the Internet. Most of the information he presents in the article is relevant to his point. Throughout the article, he defines his terms. Jain also uses his information in a fair way.

I do not agree with Jain’s view of the three stages of computing. The first two stages are fine, but the third stage seems to be off. His third stage consists of multimedia sites as pushing us toward the EventWeb. But I think that this is a part of the second stage. My third stage would be ultra-high speed internet and billions of people with computers because I believe that this will happen before the EventWeb. Then there would be a fourth stage that would be dominated by the EventWeb. It also seems as if Jain thinks that the EventWeb is in the near future. But I think that it will be many decades before it is ever possible. Jain believes that we need to end our dependency on text. I think that we have used text for thousands of years and there is no reason to stop now.

EventWeb: Developing a Human-Centered Computing System is a great article to learn about what the future of the Internet could be. He is successful in making the reader believe that the EventWeb will be reality. Although Jain describes everything in great detail needed to have the EventWeb, he makes it seem like it will come sooner than it actually will.

Works Cited

Ramesh Jain. “EventWeb: Developing a Human-Centered Computing System.” 16 Mar 2008 .