My responses to Adam Greenfield’s window essay:

Christian’s comment about his weather widget led my mind down a different path. It’s certainly noteworthy that we can now experience a change in weather while being snugly sequestered inside, but at least that information is readily verifiable by using a physical window or door. What about windows into data about the world that’s not so easy to confirm? What happens if those windows start lying to us?

For example, my only view into what my computer is doing at any given time is the computer itself. (Excepting, of course, network activity, but it faces a similar problem.) What happens if my computer started lying to me or obscuring it’s activities? We’ve already seen the start of this with spyware, but what happens when the system itself begins acting at cross-purposes with it’s user, such as the first version of the iTunes mini store sending music data without asking permission, or Windows Vista’s treatment of every user as a potential attacker.

If the only window into the workings of a device we have is the device itself, how can that device be trusted?

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In thinking about cameras used to create windows across spaces, and pulling distant things into adjacency, the idea of creating such windows inconspicuously and as-needed becomes really interesting. There are, after all, both military and consumer-grade throwable cameras, opening impromptu windows into previously inaccessible or dangerous areas.

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In a similar vein to my last comment, the proliferation of camera phones is about to make webcam and security cam deployment seem quaint. At the moment phonecams in the US are still time-lagged and largely focused on still photographs, but video is gaining quickly, and several initiatives heading toward live broadcasting of video from mobile phones to the internet. While this certainly raises privacy concerns (in that previously anonymous or private - as opposed to secret - actions have great potential to become public), it also offers some unique opportunities for communication and socialization. Being able to turn on my camera in my phone in the middle of a call to open a window into my current situation will be the killer app for mobile video, in my mind. Much more so than video conferencing, I think.

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Also, in reference to Corrine’s earlier comment about the media as our window on the world, I think the proliferation of consumer video and the internet as a distribution platform, though making it possible for obfuscation, provides enough points of view that it might be possible to construct something closer to reality. When I can stream live video to you from my phone from, say, the Super Dome after Katrina, will you watch my video or CNN’s? Probably both, in the near term. How about the long term?