- Wi-Fi Aware will let nearby smartphones detect one another and share information, helping to create a new breed of proximity services.
This just reminds me of Super Sad True Love Story. I can see a world where you walk into a bar and are told of everyone else there on tinder. You're told that the woman over there likes hiking but as you approach you get a red flag notification that says she has cats and you hate cats. Everyone sits in silence, their phones not telling them that there's a good match here. Another woman walks in and a quartet of near silent buzzes rung out from different corners of the bar. Each man pulls out their phones, answering compatibility questions in a quick attempt to improve their match scores before one seems to hit jackpot. The two silently leave again, knowing they are comparable but not quite knowing how to start a conversation.
This is a perfect example of a technology that will not catch on, at least not in it's intended way. I'm not the only one who read the article with a sour taste in my mouth. The whole social aspect will take on a google glass effect. It's uncouth and incompatible with how we act. I wouldn't expect anyone to have face to face interactions based on proximity notifications. We don't meld digital socialization and real socialization like that. >For instance, a consumer subscribed to a social gaming network would get pinged whenever another gamer walks into the same room, allowing them to instantly set up a face-to-face match over their smartphones. No. I don't like the sound of that. I don't want to interact with a stranger that way. Awkward and ham fisted seem like good descriptors. >Devices using Wi-Fi Aware will intermittently scan the vicinity for other Wi-Fi gadgets. This is what it will be used for. Collecting big data. It will go on that long list of permissions that people blindly accept. Facebook will know who you spend time in rooms with. They will know who didn't come to the family reunion. LinkdIn will know who you work in the same building with, who you commute with (If their development team can figure it out since they seem to be stuck in 2003).
I was thinking that law enforcement would love this new technology. Especially since, Apps will probably "hamfistedly" force you to activate Wi-Fi Aware or give it access if you want to use the App - which we'll probably have limited control over what information is shared across the Wi-Fi Aware network. I think that the best application for this would be meshnetworks like Fire Chat, or even as a replacement for the cell network in the case it goes down where a Wi-Fi Aware phone could be connected at the edge and pass data through the whole network.
Yeah, everything I can predict this would be used for would be a trifle or a data dig. All of these innovations are neat, but as long as the data barron's are controlling our devices we just won't have any net benefit for us. I really want one of these struggling phone companies to say "fuck it" and provide a competing service for people like me where my data isn't shared or stored remotely. Where I control my own server from my own home. And where everything is easy enough for me to set up and maintain. I doubt it will happen. The data economy and escaping from the data economy will be the overbearing reality and fight of my lifetime.