Dalal suggests that a picture of a bird, for instance, could also carry data and models that can reproduce the bird’s song, display its feeding or mating behavior, and describe its habitat and food preferences. This vision of “ubiquitous imaging” [ubiquitous seems to be the buzzword of the day in IT] was presented by Dalal at the International Congress of Imaging Science.
“The whole nature of imaging is changing,” says Dalal, “What the industry needs to work toward is a time when information and imaging are synonymous.” His view is that automation will be driven not by a system or a device, but by the image itself.
Pointing to the abundance of devices that display and transport images today, from camera phones to monitors and scanners, he predicts that over the next 20 years the images will become more important than the devices that display them, and they will fit as naturally into our work and home environments as electricity does today.
All the information necessary for human interactions will be embedded in the images, producing what he calls robust images. For example, information carried in an empowered image will enable it to arrange itself to display differently on the small screen of a mobile phone and the large screen of a monitor, or will enable a black-and-white image to transform itself into a color image.
Dalal’s concept parallels the ubiquitous computing model, which gained currency after it was described 15 years ago by another Xerox scientist Mark Weiser.
Adapted from a Xerox press release.