For Throwback Thursday, we’re reprising an article we published January 31, 2013:
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Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security, must have seen the movie Minority Report many times. The video below which been around for a couple of years teases how the lab is developing future work environments for the emergency management community called Precision Information Environments (or PIEs). PIEs will hopefully provide tailored access to information and decision support capabilities in a system that supports the multiple user roles, contexts, and phases of emergency management, planning, and response.
Do you think the windshield of a fire vehicle will ever be able to instantly transform into a huge computer monitor?
Thanks go out to Jim
Growing up the rule in our house was eat your dinner before desert. Looks like the the rule here would be more PIE first and then less meat and potatoes. We need more, not less, boots on the ground. My fear with this PIE technology would be that with shrinking budgets there will be less money for firefighters on the ground.
In order to be effective, this requires connectivity throughout the field that does not exist. Comm isn’t there yet.
The problem with many information systems designs like this one is that they tend to become “information push” systems that focus on supporting “top down” command and control. A top down design tends to centralize and hoard information and only push information to the end user based on someone else’s assessment of end user requirements. It also further enables those who already have a tendency to micromanage operations from the top.
If this information system is designed from the end user’s perspective, information on the net can be shared by all and users will normally “pull” most of their information. This could be a significant step up in coordinated, safer, more effective operations “at the pointy end of the of the work”.
Here’s some light reading that explains some of the merits of “bottom up” organization: http://www.infoq.com/articles/what-are-self-organising-teams
Fire vehicle touch screen transparent windshield:
When the auto industry can use this as the laminating film in safety glass windshields it might be possible.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523221/nanomaterials-could-enable-large-flexible-touch-screens/