Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM)

Was speaking with my friend about an post that I’d done on my personal blog at the beginning of the year, and to contextualize things, I used the following Scripture (Mark 11:12-26):

…And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.” And his disciples heard it.

And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, “Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.” And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was astonished at his doctrine.

And when even was come, he went out of the city. And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.

And Jesus answering saith unto them, “Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

When I was a member of a particular church community in PA, they would use this Scripture often as a jumping off point to the power that a believer has to activate their fatih my speaking, believing, and acting. While I’ve got my own quibbles about the doctrines of “word-faith” approaches, I can appreciate the attention to the creative and instigative ability that God Himself used when taking objects that had no form, and after speaking, they became all that we know of as the earth and all that’s wihtin it (Genesis 1).

That article on my personal blog was about a similar approach to computing being taken on by Alvaro Cassinelli and Alexis Zerroug called invoked computing. You can think of this simply as invoking a specific context of computing to an object that might not by its nature have any computing ability. Invoked computing comes from taking the characteristics of a multi-modal, spatial augmented reality, and grafting it into a system which changes objects into (computational) communication devices. Here’s a snippet of their interview at The Guardian:

…In the invoked computing scenario, the object itself works as an “invocation” trigger and supports interactivity. We naturally looked for trigger-objects that are more or less pervasive in the real world, hence food-related items (the banana and pizza box). As triggers, they operate in ways similar to icons in a computer operating system: these are not the applications themselves, but keys to open them, to invoke them. On the other hand, real physical objects become the support for the interaction, provide surfaces on which to project images or sound.

So, in effect, you’re turning everyday objects into touchscreens?

Not exactly. The invoked computing project proposes systems to project “function” on real objects, but without making the interactive space resemble a screen with icons. Indeed, we are not trying to project icons or conventional representations of computer applications into the real world that when touched will launch a particular computing routine. Instead, affordances in the physical world itself should suggest and trigger function – even new, improvised functions….

Read the rest of You Really Can Use A Banana As A Telephone at The Guardian

This idea of invoked computing goes a good bit beyond mobile, and even further than simply “a computer for everyone and everyone with the ability to access whatever a computer terminal offers.” Inovked computing is about literally speaking and utilizing the activity of computers (linking, computation, creation, and communication) on objects which would not be normally associated with computing.

We can see this in part today with some of the USB items that you’d catch in a swag bag (USB bracelets that also tell time, or a rock that’s also a memory key). This goes a good bit further though. Invoked computing asks us to consider a reality where what we need from a computer is as close as what we speak out of our mouth. With such a reality, would we speak life and death as Jesus did with the fig tree, or would we move a mountain out of the way of someone else’s life so that they could see the path they were intended to travel a bit clearer?

What we do in mobile with Siri, Google Voice Commands, Vriingo, and such is going down this road. What kind of faith are we teaching people to have for their lives when more than just a question can be answered or a text sent is the result? What happens when we provoke a different kind of reallity into objects than what was originally designed?

~ video via Wired Magazine and DigiInfo.TV