I did a talk on Sunday about all this Object Network and OnexOS stuff. I thought attendees and subscribers would benefit from seeing my notes, to get a quick summary of the material.
The pre-talk blurb
Re-imagining technology for freedom
🎭 Activity Host: Duncan Cragg
🗓 Date: Sunday 13th August
⏰ Start Time: 15:00 PM
📍 Location: Stage 1
🤓👍 This talk is for NON-technical people!
🪤⛓ We have to rethink technology from the ground up. To free us from Big Tech and their "app traps". To empower us over our own data and devices.
😲🤯 Come along to hear about my radical solution: I'm building an operating system that has no apps!
🏕🌳 Instead, we will freely co-create in a single, shared virtual world, where everything works just like in the real world.
My notes
Problems
Big Tech
their apps take over control of the local and personal stuff we create
ship it all to servers in the US
and to the security services!
drawn in to each walled garden by empowering us in superficial ways
so cleverly done that most people are unaware of being trapped at all
Surveillance Capitalism: we’re the product not the customer
censorship, narrative control and manipulation
can't get something directly to someone standing right next to you
a hack can reveal everyone's data, all in one go
we’re not important enough to ask for functionality that suits us
or any way to program our own!
apps and applications slice up our stuff so nothing works together
our stuff:
photos, documents, spreadsheets, emails, calendars, contacts, to-do lists, notes, messages, videos, music, workout plans, sleep records, game characters and scores, playlists, alarms, travel itineraries, map pins, news feeds, phone call history, texts
20 apps!
all this stuff isolated from each other
account (log in) on most apps
can’t pin a to-do list to an event?
screenshots to snapshot stuff!
the operating system (OS) works against us, not for us
apps and applications are built deeply in to every OS
OS often hands over ownership of our devices to Big Tech
this is the “app trap”!
alt services and apps are still app traps: Telegram, Substack
Solutions
need to rebuild the whole tech stack from the OS up
part of “flipping the power pyramid”: open, local
get rid of the apps - “the OS without apps!”
no apps, so no app traps!
so still leaving behind all our data, our 2D stuff, files
OS user interface is a 3D and 2D virtual world
like reality
reuse our intuitions and expectations about interaction
flat screen, or AR / VR in future
a thinking, creative space in 3D
pin up and pin together 2D stuff in 3D
like paper calendars, newspapers and photos
panels to build rooms and noticeboards
notes, media, messages, posts, events, contacts, to-dos
pin to walls, make collections, arrays, containers of 2D stuff
can pick up a single para or to-do
organise how we like, re-mash, pin together, etc
make new collections of notes, to-dos, contacts
document: build from paras, images, grab snippets
to-do list: pull out a "today" sublist
link events to to-dos to messages how you like
many other examples on my Substack
stuff nested in other stuff; pull out aside in 3D space
keeps our own digital stuff on our own devices
we have full control and sovereignty
no surveillance or censorship
this OS returns to us full control over our own physical device
social, sharing co-creating
making a single, shared world
build 3D world together
share stuff in-world just like in reality
chat
like real life: just meet and chat!
so meet in my virtual 3D room
but no record: speech or bubbles ephemeral
so each edit a conversation transcript document in there!
networking
direct connections between our devices
stuff and updates go directly
even on same WiFi, not leaving house
P2P - peer-to-peer - on internet, decentralisation
radio mesh in wild, off-grid
E2EE - end-to-end encryption
devices
open hardware, maker, makerspace, hacker, freedom-to-tinker
crowd sourcing
3D printing, laser cutting, PCB design
Chinese production lines; small runs (1000 devices)
And here’s three pictures that I would have put up if there was a projector!
Source: https://dribbble.com/shots/6112246-floating-UI
This picture illustrates how some of this may look: it’s a 3D world with all of us in it, along with 3D rooms. There are also flat 2D objects like panels on the walls, the floor, and floating in space. Some of these objects appear in more than one location, thanks to cross-links. Some objects are embedded in other objects and render and interact just as well like that, but can be pulled out aside if needed.
Content I missed out from the talk
I didn’t get to these ones - but it’s more into the detail, really:
names of things
the operating system is called “OnexOS”
the virtual world is called the “Object Network”
"objects": fine-grained bits of stuff, a para or single to-do
"links": the unique IDs of each object
“lists”: sequences, arrays or collections of IDs or links
links work across our devices, peer-to-peer
so obviously we need read/write permissions per object or link
which is metaphorically “locks on the doors” and “do not touch”
creating a second, third, etc, link into an object
means any object can be in two or more places at once
can reuse a 2D photo, etc, in multiple docs without copying
can drop the same 3D tree, etc, around
integration to current tech
email, web, chat, filesystems
What do you think? Drop your thoughts into the comments below. And I’ll see you in the next Lab Note!