city noise

My new blog

2007-02-18T21:25:00.000Z

I'm starting a new blog... I've become more interested in sustainability and how ICT can contribute to sustainable cities over the last year or so. The new blog will try to develop these ideas, and collect applications and examples. It's called ICT for Sustainable Cities (does what it says on the tin...). I hope to be a bit more assiduous about updating it than this one..! Come and check it out!

Return to the blog...

2006-11-26T21:24:00.000Z

Following a couple of enquiries, I've been thinking about resurrecting this blog... in the meantime I've taken advantage of a handy new (well new to me) del.ic.ious feature where my links appear on this blog. Yes, this is the lazy person's answer to providing blog content, but I do update my links regularly so there might be some value in it for somebody... and it saves me writing anything right now...

New report: The Strength of Internet Ties

2006-02-07T10:16:00.000Z

Thanks to ce-more for pointing me to a new study from The Pew Internet & American Life Project called The Strength of Internet Ties. Authored by Jeffrey Boase and Barry Wellman of the University of Toronto and John B. Horrigan and Lee Rainie from the Pew Internet Project, the report states that

The internet and email aid users in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions.... Our evidence calls into question fears that social relationships — and community — are fading away in America. Instead of disappearing, people’s communities are transforming: The traditional human orientation to neighborhood- and village-based groups is moving towards communities that are oriented around geographically dispersed social networks. People communicate and maneuver in these networks rather than being bound up in one solidary community. Yet people’s networks continue to have substantial numbers of relatives and neighbors — the traditional bases of community — as well as friends and workmates.

Some useful material for the Future Cities debate. I wonder what the spatial implications of this are. More time spent engaging with people who live overseas to the detriment of more local ties? Or would those ties have sprung up anyway? Maybe being able to maintain ties with friends and family who are far away makes it possible to live apart from them? It's not straightforward.

Also, an interesting article from Will Davies in this month's Prospect magazine entitled Digital Exuberance. My comments here.

Google Earth with Time and Sound

2006-02-01T20:16:00.000Z

Thought-provoking post over on the excellent cityofsound blog* about extending Google Earth with time and sound. The idea is that you could scroll through time, looking at how a city changed through the centuries. Then you could also extend this with the sounds of the city by area, or through time. Really beautiful idea. I hope someone does it! Read the full post here. Also lots of interesting comments.

*I named my blog before I found out about his, honest!

Welcome Canadians!

2006-01-31T15:27:00.000Z

I notice there's been nearly 70* of you visiting this blog today. Glad you are interested! Could anyone let me know how you found out about this blog?

*now over 170...
* 22.05 GMT: now over 250... sadly most of you are here in error... see the comments for an explanation. Welcome anyway!

Future Cities event

2006-01-12T20:37:00.000Z

This looks like it could be interesting-- impressive line up of speakers...
The Future of Community festival is a day long event on Saturday, March 4th, 2006 at the Central St Martins College of Art and Design, Holborn, London and the MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments. (Tickets £15- £35, depending on who's paying).

Of particular interest to readers of this blog is one session entitled 'Virtual Communities versus Physical Realities'. Description below. My thoughts after.

Cabinet Office's e-Envoy has suggested that 'the UK Villages initiative is a great example of how the internet can be used to make connections within and between communities.' In internet discourse, many people claim that by networking across the web they are freed from the intimidation of physical face-to-face constraints. Others suggest that the anonymity of web communities permits them to be more relaxed and honest about themselves with others. Others 'construct identities'.
But does internet access - often from the isolation of one's bedroom - really generate trust in a community relationship? Does it not reinforce one's isolation in society… to the point of representing a fear of real physical engagement?
Meanwhile, in the physical world, the World Health Organisation has stated that some communities become cut off by road infrastructure, or by high levels of traffic.' Nowadays, physical transport debate seeks to encourage more people away from the isolation of private cars.
But has 'public' transport really managed to create a sense of fellow-feeling?
After all, the Home Office advises us to 'sit near other people...move if someone makes you feel uncomfortable (and)... respect women's personal space.' In the first instance, we withdraw; in the second example, we are encouraged to mingle, but are not both of these scenarios reflective of a pervasive fear of real contact? This session will seek to examine the drivers behind the idea of virtual engagement and physical estrangement.
Speakers: Sandy Starr, technology editor, spiked-online
Dan Sturges, US consultant to GM and Segway,
Neil Cummings, reader in theory and practice, Chelsea College of Art & Design
Saskia Sassen, Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago
Chair: Mark Charmer, director, Movement Design Bureau

That phrase 'from the isolation of one's bedroom' strikes fear in my heart about this session. It sounds as if they may set this up to be people in their bedrooms online all day (ie freaks!) versus people out and about in the 'real world' (ie 'normal' people). I hope not, as it's pretty clear the truth is in between. We often dip in and out of the physical and the virtual worlds when we are communicating with someone and we tend not to make much distinction between them, what matters is the quality of the interaction we are having. Very good paper by Barry Wellman on this very topic, I will dig out the reference later.
Also most people these days don't use the Internet from their bedrooms. This conjures up an image of teenagers locked away (War Games style) in their bedrooms, in chatrooms when they should be doing their homework. I think things have moved on slightly...?

Cool Google Maps

2006-01-10T20:20:00.001Z

Just came across this site... a collection of google maps 'mash-ups'. There's plenty of them out there now. What an interesting experiment on the part of Google.
Another one I saw today-- every waypoint in County Cork (the largest county in Ireland, as they say) mapped.

Minihompies

2006-01-04T10:18:00.000Z

From the ever-interesting DOORS newsletter...

90 percent of Korean twenty-somethings (and one third of the population as a
whole) are cultivating their own "minihompy" (= mini home page) in Cyworld. A Cyworld minihompy differs from a regular blog by featuring an online "miniroom" which complements the owner’s real world home.

You can see what they look like here-- an artist called Emil Goh has an exhibition in Copenhagen comparing the minihompies with their physical equivalents.

Habitat JAM

2005-11-30T10:33:00.000Z

Interesting online event happening tomorrow through to Saturday... called Habitat JAM, it's a free online event that allows people across the world to discuss sustainability under various themes. It's sponsored by the Government of Canada and IBM, and organised under the auspices of UN-HABITAT. The outputs will provide “ideas to action” for the World Urban Forum 3 and they say, help make our cities more sustainable. 100,000 people are expected to participate.
Interesting for two reasons-- 1. the scale of the participation, 2. the actual content. I've registered (hopefully will get a chance to log in!).

Register now at: www.habitatjam.com.

Irish Community Spirit

2005-11-21T20:46:00.000Z

I see in the Irish Times that a task force is being set up to look at ways of fostering community spirit. Apparently rates of volunteerism and civic participation are falling and the Taoiseach wants to do something about it...

Reasons for the decline are given in the article as long commutes, dual income families (ie little time), growth in materialism (which I don't really buy). I guess it would be worth carrying out a proper survey to see what the barriers are to volunteering, and trying to probe a bit further when people say that they don't have time. The Special Olympics were held in Ireland in 2003 and there was a huge response from people in terms of the amount of time they were able to give to it. A feature of that event would be that it was an event, so was time-limited. People often have little bags of time that they can donate, what is needed is some way of brokering that. The Internet can be a good broker (cf. ebay) so perhaps something worth looking at would be how volunteer organisations could tap into a network of people with a bit of time to help. I'm not sure if anything exactly like this exists?

Worth looking at how the Internet can be harnessed to promote community spirit and volunteerism. A few examples from the UK:
Pledgebank allows people to attract support for various initiatives
Timebank publishes volunteering opportunities -- can be searched by postcode
WriteToThem allows people to get in touch with their elected representatives

The survey or consultations should also highlight if indeed people are so ground down by commuting and work that they have no time. It's important that those things are tackled as well-- implementing the spatial strategy and helping families to reap the benefits of flexible working (not just employers) might spill over into community life. There is a big debate about childcare at the moment-- why not also look at how carers can be helped to look after their kids and work in way that is feasible and rewarding for family and employers? A bit of a digression but it's important.

2005-11-21T20:11:00.000Z

An embarrassment of posts today by current standards. Two! (Although this one a trifle threadbare)

This is from Justin's blog- a post on how mobile phones are maintained in India. Interesting. Also good link to what seems like an excellent blog by Jan Chipchase about mobile phone culture in the developing world.

Virtual property market booming

2005-11-13T21:14:00.000Z

From the BBC News:

A gamer who spent £13,700 on an island that exists only in a computer game
has recouped his investment, according to the game developers.

The idea is that it's another channel to sell advertising and music... Clever...

Viability of Urban Social Technologies

2005-11-08T20:53:00.000Z

Interesting paper on the Viability of Urban Social Technologies from Jens Pedersen and Anna Vallgarda from the University of Copenhagen. Urban Social Technologies are defined as "information technologies applied in urban settings and with a social purpose". They make the point that urban designers and planners have not always been successful in designing spaces that serve a benign social purpose, that it is difficult to plan in the face of the huge number of variables that such spaces represent. This is undeniably true. However I think one of the opportunities presented by 'urban social technologies' is that people can potentially build their own spaces. it is easier to build virtual space than physical space (arguably). Applications like Foundcity, built on Google Maps allow people to annotate space, and in some sense interact with that space. Hybrid spaces formed through interactions between virtual space and physical place are also open to many people to 'design'.

There are of course many threats to this DIY Internet culture, not least big business ownership and control, government anti-privacy legislation, as well as the fact that it is not open to everyone yet-- knowledge and tech-skills are required.

Geocaching

2005-10-25T21:31:00.000+01:00

A bit like meetup.com or bookcrossing in that the website provides a means to link physical space and commentary in virtual space. The basic idea is that it's a treasure hunt. You download the GPS coordinates to 'caches' (=treasure) on geocaching.com , set out and find the treasure... It seems to turn into a country walk once you leave the carpark but a country walk with a purpose. It seems to be pretty huge-- there are 210,284 active caches in 217 countries... I read about it in the Guardian.
Like the other two examples, the activity in physical space wouldn't exist without the activity in 'virtual space', it's an integral part of it.

Googleopolis

2005-09-29T21:02:00.000+01:00

This blog is in danger of becoming moribund (or perhaps it already is?). I should crank up the output. Too busy at the moment I'm afraid.

Anyway, this is an interesting article in today's Guardian about Google. The author, John Battelle, posits that Google's ultimate mission is to make it possible to search the physical world like we can now search the digital world (from web, to desktop... to the city, to your home).

Let's break down Google's mission further. What is "information" anyway? In the end, it is data that describes something. Maybe it's a document on the web, but to think that is where it ends is to think small. Perhaps it is the location of your car, or the cost of a box of Pampers in a store in suburban Miami. It could be your wedding photos, or a video stream of a tsunami racing across the Indian Ocean. The first years of Google's rise have taught us that if something is of value, it needs to be in Google's index. What if the world becomes the index?

Thinking about the merger of the physical world with the world wide web might make your head hurt, but after you have reached for the aspirin, Google's mission starts to resonate with larger ambitions. Information is all around us, but how might the company make it accessible?

Now that so many things are digitally tagged in one way or another (mobile phones, RFID tags) it may well be that you will be able to search for them using Google or a tool like it.

In this context, the opening up of GoogleMaps makes sense as a stepping stone to this goal. GoogleMaps has already spawned lots of applications where people are mapping their cities in different ways. I've written about some already: the MySociety ones, and FoundCity. A new one I saw the other day on mackers.com is mapping the movements of local rail in Dublin (the DART!).

Ben Russell has written about overlaying the Internet onto real space and the possibilities that arise from that... "searching for sadness in New York" being one evocative phrase used. But the possibilities are more tangible, in that people* now have tools to organise space and thus shape it in some way. GoogleMaps makes that easier, although you would still need to be fairly technical to make it work. But you don't need vast resources. I like the DIY nature of these projects at the moment, the fact that they’re being developed by enthusiasts rather than corporations.

But to return to the Google vision of being able to make all our information, in whatever form, accessible… I find all this exciting but also slightly scary... I'm always concerned about the privacy implications. However I am cheered by the fact that these Grand Visions never work out quite as completely as they're predicted. Technology generally lets you down. And one can never underestimate human nature in subverting technology.

*not everyone but we should come back to that.

Best names for fish and chippers

2005-09-29T20:48:00.000+01:00

This is of very little relevance to the main subject matter of this blog, but I am including these because they are so good. One could imagine mapping them using a tool like FoundCity (tenuous link).
Spotted near Waterloo by me: Fishcotheque
Spotted on 2nd Avenue in New York by the Doctor: A Salt and Battery
I also like the Perki Chick in Dublin's Drumcondra although it is not strictly within the fish and chipper oeuvre. Think of it more as a Chicken and Chips specialist.

More new applications from MySociety

2005-09-19T19:37:00.000+01:00

Google Maps is inspiring plenty of applications... Here's two more from MySociety. They're calling them 'back of the envelope' apps because they're not big and polished applications like PledgeBank and WriteToThem.

www.Placeopedia.com. Connect Wikipedia articles with the places they represent, making a useful new way of exploring that amazing online resource.
www.YourHistoryHere.com
Share and discover local and geographichistory and trivia in an extremely
easy to use, user-authored fashion.People have already left some fascinating
stuff.

Back from Outer Space...

2005-09-10T20:01:00.000+01:00

A combination of holidays and work has kept me away from this blog... apologies to any regular readers Out There. A couple of interesting things to report...

New summary report from the ODPM Social Exclusion Unit on Inclusion Through Innovation. The aim of the project is to

assess how the innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) can be used to promote equality of opportunity and improve service
delivery and outcomes for society’s most disadvantaged groups as well as those
who live in deprived areas.

it's currently in the analysis stage-- the whole project is due to finish next year.
This report summarises the results of a questionnaire sent out to local and national service providers as well as charities. Most people agreed the digital divide was widening due to the cost of ICT equipment, lack of suitable applications, lack of training and lack of access to ICT. However there is an opportunity to increase access to services through mobile technology and the Internet. They will publish an action plan building on this later in the Autumn.

An article in the Economist about the digital home... they are skeptical to say the least. The vendors view of the digital home is of converged devices and networks... We have gone that route-- our PC houses all our music and is used to watch DVDs. All very well, until it broke. Now we have no music and no moving picture capability. We have to read books! And talk to each other! We plan to unbundle our entertainment system pronto.

And finally... a variant on the flashmob/ mobile clubbing phenomena... Mobile Movies (thanks Justin). It started in California (well it was hardly going to be the West of Ireland, weatherwise)and involves a car, some speakers and a projector, email and a random location. Here's their blog.

On holidays...

2005-08-08T22:20:00.000+01:00

Off on vacation for a couple of weeks... back at the end of August...

Tech start-ups in the UK and Ireland

2005-08-07T21:08:00.000+01:00

This is worth a read on the current state of start-ups in the UK and Ireland, in comparison with the US (thanks Justin!). The article is good, and the comments excellent. Having worked for several I can sympathise with many of the views expressed. I note a few ex-colleagues have joined the fray...

FoundCity

2005-08-03T21:19:00.000+01:00

I like this... FoundCity:

a social mapping tool for creating a personalized map of your life on-the-fly. Using your mobile phone, you "tag" or capture photos throughout the day, label them with any words you want, and send them to your map. At home, you access and customize your map, which you can share with friends, keep private, or publish openly.

So you can see what other people have noted about the city, and learn about new places or experiences. It's a great idea, and the tool could be used for other projects as well as the obvious one of labelling one's own trajectories and favourite restaurants. Similar idea to Social Tapestries, but less annotation.

For example, there's a project called the Chicago Sound Tapes-- the idea is that tapes are hidden around Chicago for other people to find. They've also been mapped using Foundcity. Could also be used for bookcrossing. Seems like there is a lot of potential. I guess you would discover other uses for it through using it.

I wonder what the possibilities are for aggregating information once they have more users... would they use the restaurant tags to publish lists of favourite restaurants (to use a very mundane example)? or do a 'people like you liked x' recommendations? Would this be useful or interesting? I suppose it depends on the kind of information and tags that people add.

Mobile Collaboration at the Tabletop

2005-07-31T18:16:00.000+01:00

I came across this interesting paper called Mobile Collaboration at the Tabletop in Public Spaces by Jacqueline Brodie and Mark Perry of Brunel University. It discusses some implications for furniture and devices -- what are the physical forms that are needed to support face to face meetings, both devices and furniture ("roomware"). They make the point that computers are designed for solo use and it's quite difficult to share them. This facilitates their use in quite a hierarchical way, where one person controls the device while others are onlookers.
Also it is not enough just to have the device, from their research (and from observation) you need a tabletop to use the computer. Although portable computers are called laptops, they are virtually never used on one's lap! There are interesting implications for better design of furniture, hardware and software to enable people to make use of computers while on the move.

I would extend that to implications for public and semi-public (e.g. coffee shops) spaces which host people on the move. Should they have specially designed furniture to go with the (inevitable) wi-fi? Should the space itself be shaped and designated for computer use? Again, the British Library exhibition of wi-fi furniture was very relevant.

Space is the Place

2005-07-30T12:25:00.000+01:00

Just trying to summarise and analyse stuff I have been reading...

At the moment, ICT provision for developments and public spaces is generally at the level of the infrastructure: cabling for the buildings and maybe some wireless access for public spaces. In the future there will be tools to help navigate the spaces and perhaps make them more 'livable' accessible via devices (e.g. phone, pda, ipod etc.). Ben Russell's Headspace talks about needing to provide interfaces to new developments. Examples of the kind of solutions that could be available would be: upmystreet (information about the area); social networking tools (to get in touch with people); podcasting (download tours of the area); local google (find services)... All will be available in the space via mobile devices. Some would also be available outside the space (the informational kinds), and some would only be available in the space via location aware devices (more interactive kinds).

Questions: who pays? All these things are currently free, and don't cover all areas. Might a local authority or developer decide at some point that these things are worth paying for? Might local people pay for them? Would advertising sustain them? Might volunteers build them?

Manifesto for a Digital Britain-- IPPR

2005-07-29T21:57:00.000+01:00

Haven't read this yet, but I will... From the Institue for Public Policy Research: Will Davies's latest report-- Modernising with purpose: Manifesto for a Digital Britain.

Urban Screens

2005-07-29T20:53:00.000+01:00

sounds like an interesting conference:

URBAN SCREENS 2005 DISCOVERING THE POTENTIAL OF OUTDOOR SCREENS FOR URBAN SOCIETY
URBAN SCREENS 2005 is an international conference ranging from critical theory to project experiences by researchers and practitioners in the field of Art, Architecture, Urban Studies and Digital Culture. It addresses the growing infrastructure of large digital moving displays, that increasingly influence the visual sphere of our public spaces. It will investigate how the currently dominating commercial use of these screens can be broadened and culturally curated. Can these screens become a tool to contribute to a lively urban society, involving its audience interactively?
Read more about the conference topic and its background in the introduction.

Strange times in that London

2005-07-26T20:46:00.000+01:00

All kinds of terrible things have happened here since my last post. Thankfully neither I nor any of my family or friends have been caught up in them (bar one friend who was on the tube train behind the bombed train in Edgware-- not injured though). Although the incident at Warren Street on Thursday was a little too close for comfort... I can see Warren Street tube station from my desk. I wasn't in the office (again, luckily), although my colleagues were marooned inside the building until they got the all clear from the police.

There has been a lot of comment about the use of mobile phone cameras to capture images of the bombings and their dissemination through print and television. There were hundreds of images on flickr within a short time of the first (sadly not the last) bombings on the 7th of July. Interestingly some were still images from the television (Sky News was a popular one) while at the same time the television networks were showing images taken from mobile phones. Somewhat circular.

This site is symbolic of some Londoners' defiance straight after the first bombings-- it was put up straight after the incidents (as the London Underground refers to them) on the 7th: http://www.werenotafraid.com/ It's got thousands of images with the strapline 'We are not afraid'. It's getting a lot of attention. Another small act of defiance happening sometime towards the end of August is the tubechallenge-- apparently groups of people race around the tube network on a regular basis trying to cover the entire system in the shortest possible time. This one is open to all though and will be in aid of the Relief Fund for bombing victims. Sounds great but I for one am avoiding the tube as much as possible... I don't think I'm alone given the huge upsurge of cycling around central London. A new game has sprung up among some of my friends: 'Spot the Novice Cyclist'. I approve of cycling (although I don't cycle myself) so I think they are all to be applauded for giving it a go.

The spirit of the blitz is being invoked often in the media, though less so these days among the populace at large. My grocery delivery is late because the police found one of the suspected bomber's cars in East Finchley today, causing huge traffic jams. Seems churlish to complain though. So I didn't.

Freecycle

2005-06-27T21:33:00.000+01:00

Found this a few weeks ago-- a good example of the Internet being put to one of its best uses: bringing together people who have something and people who want that something. Like ebay-- but free! It's called FreeCycle and its mission is to:

build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community.

It's a mailing list so you subscribe and then receive lots of messages from people offering stuff. Anything from a five foot stuffed killer whale to a galvanised steel bin and 5 sacks of bay leaves. And some useful stuff too (desks, old computers). There was an article in the Sunday Telegraph on it yesterday, so no doubt there are many more members from the Home Counties, offering old garden heaters and hoping to get new mahogany gearsticks for the Land Rover.
Perhaps a little unfair.

I think MySociety has a similar idea but the difference is that it would be an ebay-style application rather than a mailing list. Might be more scalable, but the mailing list seems to work ok for FreeCycle at the moment.

Anyway, an interesting example of what could be achieved towards reducing waste... and use of ICT in helping to address sustainability... (more on this another time).

Hanging around outside Tube stations

2005-06-23T20:32:00.000+01:00

Very interesting article from the ever-relevant telecoms-cities mailing list...
from the International Herald Tribune, an account of a research project to look at how users of mobile phones in Madrid, London and Paris use their phones in public spaces. The study was conducted by a Spanish sociologist, Amparo Lasén, for the Digital World Research Center at the University of Surrey. One particularly interesting finding was how mobile phone users in London cluster together in confined spaces when using mobile phones-- often opposite the entrance to an Underground station* or somewhere similar that people don't normally stand. The reason being that Londoners tend to walk away to speak on the phone. Of course now people don't use Underground stations as meeting places as much (unverified assumption!) because they use their phones as the colocation mechanism. I was going to write my MSc dissertation on something like this but never quite got it together! oh well.

It's a good illustration of how the use of public space is and will change due to use of phones (and other mobile devices)-- previously unused space becoming usable. Now if only architects would build in Lean Backs on the sides of buildings...

*I bet the researcher wasn't observing Camden Town tube.

Play! but is it Fun?

2005-06-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

Reading a lot about play at the moment... conferences and articles everywhere. This from the New Scientist: an account of various urban games including Uncle Roy is All Around You (I think this was played at the ICA a couple of years ago).

Uncle Roy All Around You is one such game, developed by interactive technology researcher Steve Benford at the University of Nottingham, UK, as part of a European effort called the Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming, or iPerG. Matt has just an hour to find the eponymous Uncle Roy by following instructions or clues fed to him via cellphone text messages. But every time he moves, the positioning technology on his phone transmits his exact location onto a virtual map of London, allowing other players in the game to track his movements and hunt him down. Meanwhile a small band of performance artists called Blast Theory shadow Matt like spies, interacting and manipulating him in his quest to find Uncle Roy.

Lots going on at the University of Nottingham, I came across them again today reading about Ubiquitous Computing, and of course they run the PLAN mailing list and events.

I also like the sound of Pac-Manhattan, in which New Yorkers dress up as Pac-Man and flee other gamers dressed up as ghosts (showing my age). Interesting intersections of the physical city and location based technology. And it gets you fit. Which is more than can be said for most ICT related activity.

A couple of conferences... one which has already happened at the Banff centre called Bodies in Play: Shaping and Mapping Mobile Applications. They were to consider the use of the location based and experiential technologies not just for gaming but also for tourism, recreation, and learning. Tourism again.

Another conference to happen at the ICA called Playtime! The Cultures of Play, Gaming and Sport, organised by the London Consortium. There's to be a treasure hunt through London using mobile phones...

And finally (for the moment- this seems to be a hot topic) from the Guardian, a mention of Human PacMan (again! nostalgia). In this one you wear augmented reality headsets so you actually see cookies and sugar pills... I think I prefer the Manhattan version.

Anarchitecture Week

2005-06-14T21:55:00.000+01:00

It's Anarchist Architecture Week in the UK: 17th-26th of June. I particularly like the sound of this event:

The A-Z of Retail Trickery
2.00pm Friday 18th June
Meet outside Centre Point London

A tour along the UK’s most famous high street, stopping to look at all of the tricks that shops use to get people to spend more. Shops are designed to maximise profit and shop designers have developed dozens of tricks to ensure you spend the maximum amount of time and money in their store. Ever wondered why there are escalators up but only stairs down? Ever wondered why supermarkets smell of freshly cooked bread when they only bake in the mornings?
All this and more…

Not sure when it's on though, as the 18th of June is Saturday not Friday. All part of the mystery I guess... Lots of other good stuff too, including a tunnel walk, the Lambeth Ladies Open and the Tube Train Trapeze.

It's also Official Architecture Week (the website is remarkably similar), again lots on but really doesn't sound quite as inventive. Full programme is here.

Mixed bag: jargon, planning micro-management, NYC broadband

2005-06-14T21:42:00.000+01:00

A couple of interesting articles from Planning Resource...
A lexicon of regeneration to explain the language/ jargon used by Built Environment Professionals (a piece of jargon in itself).

John Gummer on planning-- advising a move away from micro-management. His approach is not a million miles away from Jo Walsh's ideas in this field-- the idea of having isolatable subsystems with rules on how the edges interact.

And finally...

Web based tourism

2005-06-14T21:39:00.000+01:00

what a terrible vision of the future... using google to go on holidays on the Internet. dear oh dear. Would it be like the holideck of Star Trek fame? Read all about it in the New Scientist here.

Growth and decline of cities and regions

2005-06-09T13:46:00.000+01:00

A new piece of research by Ruth Lupton and Anne Power of the LSE: larger cities and metropolitan conurbations in Britain (except London) are almost all declining. The strongest growers according to the 2001 census were more rural and mixed rural and urban areas, as well as London. Smaller cities also tended to gain population.

I guess this could be a problem for the delivery of services (health, telecommunications, utilities etc. etc.) as it tends to be more cost-effective to provide services in areas which are more densely populated. I was reading a paper by Anthony Townsend yesterday on broadband usage in South Korea. South Korea has the highest broadband take-up in the world at the moment. One of the factors for this is the fact that most cities are very densely populated and so it was possible to serve many people with the same infrastructure. I wonder what are the implications for the UK if the trend is towards decentralisation?

Music blogger... and sharing

2005-06-05T11:15:00.000+01:00

Just read about this new application-- Mercora-- described by Matt Maier in Om Malik's blog as 'blogger for radio'. I'm becoming more and more interested in collaborative applications online-- it seems that content is no longer (or was it ever?) the 'killer app' for driving people to particular sites... now it's the promise of interaction and finding out what other people are doing/saying/listening to etc.

Audioscrobbler is a good example of a site that aggregates data about what people are interested in (in this instance, listening to) and serves it back as packaged information. Amazon was a pioneer with its 'people who bought what you bought also bought... X'.

Blogs, online photo sharing (e.g. Flickr), bookmark sharing through del.ic.ious, allow people to share their own content. Social networking sites (e.g. Friendster, LinkedIn) allow people to share information about themselves in order to connect with others. (I do wonder how many people use them to connect to people they don't know already though. There is a numbers game of collecting connections at play.) Google is also a social networking site-- probably the most used-- now that 'to google someone' is a common pastime.

What is the spatial dimension? How might one map these networks? Or to come at it from another angle, what will people use wireless networks for in the Future? (near future). So what kind of applications might be built for local spaces and local communities?
It looks like people will be using the web in a more dynamic way to find out about other people-- what they're thinking, where they are as well as ideas. But the model will likely not be sitting down to read loads and loads of content-- not a newspaper model.

Some projects seem to point the way to locating blogging and social networking in physical space. Social Tapestries allows mobile annotation of spaces-- kind of mobile blogging-- so there is a clear spatial dimension there. There are various attempts to introduce mobile social networking applications using mobile phones-- I linked to one in MIT a while ago.

pledgebank open

2005-06-02T11:31:00.000+01:00

well nearly... Quite a few pledges up there already. I like the community type ones-- I will start a walking train if 4 other people do too sort of thing... but this one is my favourite-- this woman has started a campaign to get 400 people (or more) to give 1% of salary to charity. Her blog describing her campaign is here.

Economist e-readiness rankings

2005-05-17T20:27:00.000+01:00

New Economist e-readiness rankings out. The report ranks countries according to how amenable they are to the conduct of e-business. For example they include factors such a the citizens' ability to utilise technology skillfully, the transparency of its business and legal systems, and the extent to which governments encourage the use of digital technologies. Infrastructural considerations are important too-- availability of broadband and (a new one) penetration of hotspots. Ireland is 15th on the list (up one place from last year) and the UK is 5th (down three places). Denmark is top of the list, with the US second.

Writing the place-- Social Tapestries

2005-05-16T22:39:00.000+01:00

New website for Social Tapestries (son of Urban Tapestries by Proboscis). This impressively sponsored project is working on public place authoring using mobile technologies. So sharing local knowledge through mobile devices (PDAs, laptops, phones).
Interesting projects exploring community engagement and liveability.

Technolocalism and community renewal

2005-05-11T12:57:00.000+01:00

This is an excellent article in Renewal by Will Davies and James Crabtree from 2004. Entitled 'Invisible villages: Technolocalism and community renewal', it explores how 'localism' and geographic devolution might be served by the Internet.

The premise of the article is that place is yielding to networks as a mechanism for how people connect. Rather than be bound to a physical place as the source and locality of social interaction, people may have more ties outside the area in which they live and work. Physical responses to the desire to create local social networks and reconnect the local to the non-local include mixed tenure housing and 'place-making' through iconic buildings. There are obvious limitations to these approaches. Placing people in proximity to each other doesn't necessarily make them know each other. There can be only so many iconic buildings before places start looking the same.

However locality can still bring people together through the need for action to tackle local problems. The Internet can help as a structure to enable communication and organisation. As more people use the Internet more regularly it becomes a mechanism to communicate with people locally as well as further afield (several studies are cited to support this). Furthermore at the application level, many new collaboration tools are developing to enable richer communication including the emergence of so called 'social software'.

The web enables a middle ground between public and private interaction which the authors liken to the mechanisms of a village-- in a village people can collaborate without very formal mechanisms based on trust. This harks back to my post on situated software based on Clay Shirkey's work-- how software can be created without the need for excessive overhead (scalability, security) within communities. Of course the negative connotations of the village metaphor (to an urban-dweller!) include the idea of the peeping neighbour twitching at the net curtains (and there are plenty of opportunities to do that electronically).

Finally I like their characterisation of the Internet as a 'vast network of inter-linking public spaces' rather than as one undifferentiated global public space. This also links to another site I'm exploring-- http://www.headmap.org/. More on that another time.

Will Davies is the author of two equally excellent iSociety reports covering related ground.
You Don't Know Me, but... Social Capital & Social Software
Proxicommunication:ICT and the Local Public Realm

ICT and rural areas-- new report

2005-05-09T20:32:00.000+01:00

A new report published by the the Commission for Rural Communities on ICT and rural areas. The report was put together by John Craig and Briony Greenhill of Demos. Some interesting points around defining the rural economy and how it is linked to urban economies, how they are interdependent and how the rural economy is becoming more 'urban' as people migrate from the city to the countryside to work. Broadband enables some exciting possibilities for some places to become more viable as people are able to work and live in the same place. But place is becoming more important, not less as people choose to live in areas which can service their needs. I suppose a wishlist might include the traditional attributes of the countryside (nice scenery, tranquillity, healthy environment) but also good schools, decent shopping, the odd good restaurant... As the report makes clear, there is a role for government in making sure that existing communities are not marginalised, while taking advantage of the inward investment made possible by improved communication links.

BeyondVoting

2005-05-08T12:58:00.000+01:00

This is an interesting exploration of how ICT might be used in governing and increasing participation in the government of a city.

"The BeyondVoting Wiki provides a place where people can gather to speculate on ways we might =use the internet to improve our city. It takes a bottom-up perspective, looking primarily to empower individuals, community organizations, and sorts, where people can gather, ponder, research, discuss, and propose a new governance structure for New York City".

Located here: http://beyondvoting.wikicities.com.

Community Informatics Journal

2005-05-07T10:55:00.000+01:00

A journal dealing with issues of ICT in communities... the second issue is here.

Another conference on regeneration and ICT

2005-05-03T22:29:00.000+01:00

This one is in London... Overview is below:

"The deployment of new technologies by public service and community bodies can help boost economic development; help with regeneration of inner cities and deprived rural areas; and combat poverty and crime.
Our seminar will look at how e-services and new technology networks can help boost local economies; improve employment prospects; how IT can help Local Strategic Partnerships work effectively; how to boost skills in run-down areas; public information systems for empowerment; how to obtain grants, European funding and other support; and how the public sector can work with the private sector and community and voluntary sectors to wire up areas for regeneration. "

Friendster for the physical world?

2005-05-03T22:23:00.000+01:00

A slight hiatus in posts due to moving house and returning to work from maternity leave...

Anyway, this is based on research ongoing in MIT-- by looking at location, communication and proximity patterns the phone can figure out where you go, who you speak to and who you hang round with. based on this information, the phone can configure itself to enable certain functionality (e.g. make alarm clock available through one-button click). Another use of the information would be to work out where you go regularly and link with other people who also go there regularly-- analogous to something like Friendster except acting in the physical world. this would need to be mediated in some way to allay privacy concerns. and ward off nutters.

DOORS East report out

2005-04-05T14:25:00.000+01:00

The latest DOORS of Perception report is all about DOORS East... sounds like a fascinating event. Much food for thought around platforms for social innovation-- the need to build architectures that can serve local leaderships and help them to retain control over their own resources. Would this be within existing local democracies I wonder? or might it facilitate new systems of 'government'?
Also some interesting stuff about informal street economies.

Mobile interaction workshop at LSE

2005-04-04T22:07:00.000+01:00

Just found out about this... (too late again)
The LSE Department of Information Systems hosts the fifth annual Social Study of IT (SSIT5) workshop on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 April at LSE. The workshop will explore some of the opportunities and challenges of the mobile society and features a panel discussion on Monday 4 April with speakers from academia and industry.

Programme here.

Mobile phones and the digital divide

2005-03-19T10:19:00.000Z

From the Economist... availability of mobile phones has more impact on economic development in developing countries than access to the Internet. You don't have to be able to read to use a mobile phone... plus you don't need electricity. Another article reports how people on the ground see use of ICT as a development tool, unsurprisingly any benefits are mainly seen by those who are literate and in reasonable health.
One of the problems of realising benefits (where they exist) is that it's very difficult to quantify the benefits economically. Some work in this area was described by Professor Nicholas Crafts at the London School of Economics on Tuesday. He compares the economic benefits of ICT vs the Steam Engine.

Irish architecture website

2005-03-12T10:12:00.000Z

this is a great site... http://www.irish-architecture.com/
with an excellent discussion forum
http://www.archiseek.com/

Howard Dean's Software Spawn

2005-03-10T21:45:00.000Z

From Scott McMullan's blog, I read about a new platform called CivicSpace that "empowers collective action inside communities and cohesively connects remote groups of supporters." It's built by some people from Howard Dean's campaign so it's the Son of software from the campaign.
So what does it do? From the website, it allows communities (define how you wish) to organise themselves online-- by publishing blogs, photo galleries, running mailing lists and forums, send targeted mail, collaboratively edit and publish documents, organise events... lots of collaboration functionality. There are currently 103 websites using the software-- mostly for political purposes right now, but there are some other types of users (poets and foxhunters).
Sounds like a very useful tool... I wonder how easy it is to use.

New Century Cities- MIT

2005-03-09T10:05:00.000Z

Very interesting joint research initiative at MIT called New Century Cities 'focusing on a new generation of development projects... at the intersection of social policy, technology, urban design, and real estate development'. Bill Mitchell (author of ME++ and eTopia) is on the faculty. Their recent symposium looks interesting-- particularly the session on SENSEable City Technology.

How many cities have wireless broadband networks?

2005-03-09T09:44:00.000Z

The answer is in this new report from Muniwireless on municipal wireless broadband deployment- available here. Very useful round-up of city projects-- the author, Esme Vos counts 110 city and regional wireless broadband networks and a further 12 in the works.

New book: Remote

2005-03-04T17:56:00.000Z

well, new to me: a collection of essays on creativity, technology and remoteness entitled Remote, edited by Emma Posey. The essays 'consider the new geographies that information proximity and material distance have produced'. It stems from a conference entitled Remote I held in September 2000, programmed by B10c (the creative technology agency for Wales) and hosted at the University of Wales. I haven't read it yet, but a couple of essays leap to my attention-- one entitled Cellular Flanerie: relationships between mobile networks and the built environment by Lucy Kimbell, and another called Out of Office, Out of Mind: the social role of telework for people and companies by Britt Jorgensen and James Goodman. Hopefully will have a chance to read and review soon.

4dspace: Interactive Architecture

2005-03-02T17:20:00.000Z

I attended a launch event for the latest edition of Architectural Design entitled 4dspace: Interactive Architecture at the Architectural Association in London last Thursday. The guest speakers were Vicente Guallart, Ole Bouman, Michael Weinstock, Lucy Bullivant, Jason Bruges and Tobi Schneidler.

Interactive Architecture is an emerging form of architecture that deals with responsive environments, whether they be workplaces, homes or cultural environments. The 4th dimension refers to time-based digital technologies. Ole Boumann explained this as a shift from place to time based environments. I guess this means that place is no longer the only means of bringing people together-- once a time is set, they can 'meet' in 'cyberspace'*. Boumann felt that the function of architects was to establish social relations spatially, and now temporally. I wonder if friend of the Architect, Prince Charles, would agree... I'm not sure I understand the rationale for architects being the best people to do this either. Is an ability to design places in real space necessary or relevant to designing 'places' in virtual space? What are the commonalities?

Anyway, Lucy Bullivant, the guest editor of this issue of Architectural Design, told us that commissioned works in this field tend to be in museums or other cultural spaces. She cited the Churchill Museum in London and the upcoming Battersea Power Station development. Other interesting realised projects were presented by Jason Bruges including an LED light sculpture on the A13 commissioned by the borough of Havering.

*I hate the word cyberspace. I'm not entirely sure why.

New applications from MySociety

2005-03-01T20:36:00.000Z

Upcoming projects from MySociety.org-- the people who brought us FaxYourMP.com and TheyWorkForYou.com. I like this one in particular-- PledgeBank. The idea is that people would like to influence good causes but don't like to act alone. PledgeBank will let people pledge that they will do something if so many other people pledge to do it too. Interesting to see how it might be used by charities or even privately.
I also like GiveItAway which will help people to donate their stuff to charities. Might it be an ebay for donations? This could be really useful.
Interesting contrast between their approach (bottom-up low cost solutions built by a non-profit) to the more top-down approach of the National E-Markets (market run by corporate private entity).

Links

2005-02-21T19:14:00.000Z

Some links from the latest DOORS newsletter-- always loads of interesting links and thoughts from them...
- A report on 'free zones' as sites for creativity-- areas left unplanned...
http://www.urbanunlimited.nl/uu/urbanltd.nsf/12/addressing%20brussels

- A blog on squatters by the author of a book on the subject called Shadow City
http://squattercity.blogspot.com/

- Online markets for time... sell 'slivers of time' online... very interesting. Must read in more detail.
http://www.nationalmarkets.com/index1.html

From the telecoms-cities mailing list:
- Locative media blog from a member of Mobile MUSE (see below)
http://arago.cprost.sfu.ca/~smith/muse.html
and
Good report here on the PLAN event mentioned last month and report on Urban Tapestries

- Mobile MUSE (Media-rich Urban Shared Experience) website -- a Canadian project 'exploring new technologies in combination with social demands, to discover ways wireless applications can create personalized, effective, interactive services'.
They define Mobile Urban Culture as:

A look at the social habits of mobile consumers…They are:
On the go: don’t spend all their time in a single place
Meet new people: have opportunities & incentive to expand their social circle
Stay connected: maintain relationships through regular shallow contact
Everyone has one: Mobile phones are ubiquitous in their social circles
Program me in: Mobile phonebook is main contact list
(Amy Jo Kim, Expert, Stanford University)

Wireless London: The Semantic City

2005-02-16T15:17:00.001Z

The second Wireless London event was on last night at the AA. Entitled 'The Semantic City', the speakers were John Bell of the AA and Jo Walsh , a 'free software hacker, author and gonzo cartographer'.
Lots of material to think about from these two with some interesting linkages between the talks.
I liked Jo Walsh's talk a great deal, particularly as she has thought through a number of ideas about the parallels between the software design process and architecture. I was struck by this a number of years ago (when I had more involvement in software-making)-- programmers tend to use architectural metaphors to describe software features-- usually to illustrate the infeasibility of some proposed change (e.g. now you're asking me to build in five extra windows and a balcony as opposed to the windowless shack you specified originally). She offers some ideas to return to architecture: defining isolatable subsystems- black boxes that publish an interface or contract defining what can be done at their edges.

I think this is an interesting idea for planning-- current planning is generally centralised with comprehensive plans being issued every few years. These are generally out of date as soon as they're published so interim plans and addendums are published. If individual units of space (sites, buildings, parks, squares) could be treated as independent so long as they upheld the conditions imposed by their neighbours, it could lead to more interesting as well as more heterogeneous city spaces. In a way this is what happened with Georgian streets for example-- heights of buildings, line of windows, size of plots were specified, but what was built within the site envelope was up to the developer. Could also make for a more streamlined, less bureaucratic planning system too. It would be interesting to model this, e.g. a city street- using certain inputs and outputs (e.g. heights, widths, number of people using the building, typology). Literally architecture by numbers!

There were many other thoughts about mapping and cartography from both talks which I will have to digest before I can discuss with any coherence.

John Bell addressed himself to the question of how technologies can be architectural. He read the first part of his talk, and discussed projects in the second part. I confess I always find it hard to follow lectures that are read aloud (as opposed to spoken from notes) as they are often written as papers rather than as speeches. When reading to oneself one can re-read difficult passages and ideas whereas when listening you need the speaker to repeat and headline key ideas to counter lapses in concentration. Perhaps I am insufficiently immersed in academia and haven't picked up this skill! Anyway, I digress. He defined architecture as 'mediated inhabitation' and discussed how architecture needs boundaries. However technologies form different types of boundaries and make different kinds of spaces, e.g. a wireless network works across building and development edges to make a new space of production and consumption. Form is thus no longer the issue --in London in particular there is a 'formalistic cacophony' but buildings are contstantly being updated and adapted for new uses. There is a role for embedded technologies -- more flexible building management systems, animated facades and so on.

WiFi public space

2005-02-09T13:54:00.000Z

This is great! an exhibition of 'WiFi Furniture' in the British Library: furniture specifically designed for use when using wireless equipment. I particularly like the Lean Back-- it's very comfortable. I could imagine something like this being incorporated into the design of a public space. Wouldn't it be great if there were elements designed to work with your body-- e.g. something to lean against when making a mobile phone call? or rest your bag on while taking down a phone number? It would be fascinating to do an urban design project to allow people to more easily use these kinds of technology while in public space. What would the space look like? would it be all ledges and walls for leaning against? alternatives to benches and chairs? public desks? with power sockets?
One of the key criteria would have to be ergonomics and how the body moves and responds to the space and the architecture. Often overlooked in urban space design. And architecture.

Technology-led urban renaissance?

2005-02-02T11:54:00.000Z

Interesting article in the Guardian on Monday on how the cities of Northern England have been revived in the last few years. The research paper, called How Fare Our Cities? by Professor Brian Robson discusses how there are still significant differences measured by GVA between the North and the South, and between the prosperous and poor neighbourhoods within the cities. Furthermore, although the big cities are prospering, there are still big challenges facing smaller industrial towns such as Stoke-on-Trent, Burnley, Barnsley as well as seaside resorts-- places where the economic rationale that once propelled the town has now disappeared.
As Professor Robson says, "the most realistic strategy for such places may be tied to their becoming dormitories for the cities but local pride and politics make that a difficult strategy to pursue. We know little about how to downsize old settlements without creating painful tensions and increasing polarisation; yet this is a prospect faced by an increasing number of one-industry, medium sized towns".
I wonder what the role of technology might be here in helping these places to remain viable. The problem for them is that their main source of employment is dying, but they are not big enough to effectively diversify. So how to attract new sources of employment? Or at least allow people to work, while living there?
Much has been written about the death of geographies thanks to the Internet, but this is now recognised as being overstated. The dream of teleworking from a tropical island paradise has not come true for most of us. The Internet does allow people to communicate from diverse places, however existing work cultures still largely require people to be attached to a particular place (the office). This is changing for certain job types and sectors-- including (but not limited to) sales, consultants, knowledge workers.
There are perhaps interesting avenues to be explored in persuading large employers from neighbouring cities to site satellite offices in the smaller towns, perhaps shared with other companies. The idea would be that people could commute easily to these satellites, work there (possibily hotdesking) and travel into the main office just a couple of times a week. The satellites would offer shared facilities for work-- almost a halfway house between working from home and commuting to the main office. The problem with working from home is that it can be distracting, but more often it's lonely. This would offer some social interaction, and opportunities for knowledge sharing. This idea is explored a bit further in a recent EU-funded research project called Sustainable Accommodation for the New Economy (SANE)
For development agencies, there are perhaps also interesting possibilities for funding certain collaboration technologies to help companies and individuals communicate across geographical boundaries. More likely these technologies would be used over short distances (research shows that most companies deal with suppliers and partners who are local to them-- the power of place to form and cement relationships). But they might aid in strengthening relationships and thus aid in the formation of virtual clusters.
Also possibilities to use communication technologies to strengthen community and 'sense of place'? Through participation-- social software? locational blogging? This post is getting too long... will have to explore this further another time...

Technology and the labour market

2005-01-31T11:44:00.000Z

Two interesting pieces of research from the LSE...

The first paper We Can Work It Out: the impact of technological change on the demand for low skilled workers by Alan Manning of LSE's Research Laboratory looks at how technology has shaped our working lives. Consensus view is that technical changes leads to an increase in demand for skilled relative to unskilled labour-- most Regional Development Agency policies are based on this (for example). This predicts a bleak future for unskilled workers. However this paper argues that the demand for the least skilled jobs may be growing since employment of the least skilled is increasingly dependent on physical proximity to the more skilled-- this is particularly true in cities (cf Saskia Sassen and globalisation).

The other piece of research by Tim Leung looks at the Yellow Pages to analyse which businesses are in decline and which are growing. Traditional high street businesses are in decline while aromatherapy, cosmetic surgery and dieting and weight control are the UK's most booming business sectors. Well you only have to look at the TV schedules to surmise that these are primary areas of interest. Along with property speculation (although I think that plastic surgery and makeovers seem to be crowding out DIY). Greengrocers, butchers, hardware retailers and farmers all lost out, while therapists (psycho- and hypno- among others) more than doubled. These trends are certainly very visible in London... it's easier to buy scented candles than meat! More details of this research at www.yellgroup.com.

Measuring the impacts of the built environment

2005-01-29T15:24:00.000Z

I came across a couple of pieces of research on measuring impacts of the built environment on two different areas. The first was a research article (quoted in Regeneration and Renewal magazine) on the impact of the built environment on mental health. The research demonstrated the relationship between various environmental features and the prevalence of depression. The result was that higher levels of depression were associated with the incidence of graffiti, badly maintained communal public spaces, deck access (basically tower blocks since the 1960s). The article appears in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2002-- it's called 'Mental Health and the Built Environment: A cross-sectional survey of individual and contextual risk factors for depression'.

The other initiative, involving Yorkshire Forward, CABE and the ODPM, seeks to measure the impact of physical regeneration on economic development. Just did a very quick search and couldn't find anything about it on the web (but didn't look very hard)-- I read about it in Regeneration and Renewal. The project is being led by Barra MacRuairi, head of Yorkshire Forward Renaissance Towns and Cities.

Both very interesting projects... the results of which could be used to justify investment in the public realm. Inputs and outputs are very important when seeking funding!

DOORS East

2005-01-28T11:44:00.000Z

I keep finding conferences... although I've known about this one for a while. DOORS East (brought to you by the energetic DOORS of Perception people) is an event "devoted to social innovation in a network society using ICTs as support". Sounds great. Lots of interesting speakers including Usman Haque, who gave an interesting overview of his work at the Wireless London event and will be presenting at PLAN next week. He does get around.
I particularly like the sound of the following:
- Chris Downs and Lavrans Lovlie from LiveWork-- service designers who will be speaking about systems and infrastructures for car sharing.
- Natalie Jeremijenko. I like the sound of her project Stump– a software programme which rewards users with tree rings each time a tree’s worth of paper is used... nice linkage of the virtual and the physical.
- François Jégou co-producer with Ezio Manzini of the exhibition Sustainable Everyday. The picture that emerged, says Jegou, was that of a ‘multi-local city…a city in the shape of a network of places endowed with totally new characteristics”.
- Younghee Jung-- fostering social interaction in online places
- Stefan Magdalinski founder of FaxYourMP (a great site)... looking at how new applications evolve when communities get Internet access. His blog is here http://www.whitelabel.org/. Must read when I get the chance!
- Alex Steffen from http://www.worldchanging.com
- Esme Vos from Muniwireless.com
- Jimmy Wales, creator of the Wikipedia
- Suzi Winstanley & Harriet Harriss-- their design practice was set up 'to explore the interaction between people, buildings and technology, especially in the workplace'. http://www.designheroine.co.uk/

PLAN conference at the ICA

2005-01-26T18:10:00.000Z

This topic must be getting fashionable... A conference on locative media and art on at the ICA next week run by the Pervasive and Locative Arts Network. The purpose of the event is to launch the Network "bringing together artists, activists, hardware hackers, bloggers, game programmers, free network builders, semantic web philosophers, cartographers, economists, architects, and university and industry researchers. " Lots and lots of speakers covering a broad range of expertise and projects... Looks like there's some overlap with the Wireless London initiative-- some familiar names.
Unfortunately all the tickets have been sold out! Very disappointing-- looks directly relevant to my interests...

Network applications

2005-01-26T13:24:00.000Z

Here's an interesting article from Muniwireless by Greg Richardson about local government networks (mostly in the US). He makes the point that
"The real opportunity for both the profit-motivated private sector and the community-motivated public sector is not getting people on the Internet, but providing additional network services, applications, e-commerce solutions and other value-added services once they get there".

It's true-- networks are becoming commoditised-- the value is the application facing the consumer. But what kind of applications? Perhaps the market will come up with applications linked to place? hopefully not just boring advertisements...

Wireless London event

2005-01-19T15:17:00.000Z

I went along to the Wireless London event at the AA yesterday evening. The event comprised a short introduction by Julian Priest, author of the report on Wireless London published last year; a 30 minute talk from Armin Medosch and a further 30 minute talk by Usman Haque. The stated aim was to explore the relationship between wireless technology and architecture. Not sure that this first event managed this as the speakers (though excellent) didn't really engage with each other directly. However this just shows how difficult it is to get a handle on such a nebulous notion...
Armin gave a good overview of wireless technology and sketched out its potential as a technology to allow people to become producers rather than just consumers of content, through building their own free networks. However he was at pains to stress his opposition to the idea of technological determinism-- just because a technology exists doesn't mean that it will be used in a particular way. I agree with this-- too often technology is feted or slated on the basis that it can bring about a particular utopia (or dystopia). This notion disempowers people. Technology is only a tool-- it's what people do with it that matters...
Usman Haque described some very interesting projects building on the idea of fields (electromagnetic and Hertzian). My friend pointed out that he was very much an architect in his desire to make beautiful things (which they were, particularly Sky Ear).
Both speakers gave very interesting talks so it was a little disappointing that they didn't speak more to the intersection between architecture and wireless (even defining that is not easy!). Usman was just coming on to some interesting stuff on RFID and Ubiquitous Computing from an architectural standpoint, but ran out of time.
I think this was reflected in the questions afterwards in that they covered a wide range of topics from the dangers of mobile phones to possible software applications and projects that might run on free networks. (I suggested looking at the Bryant Park project as an example of work in the field). An excellent networking session in the AA restaurant followed with plenty of opportunities to engage with the speakers and fellow audience members. All in all, an interesting evening.
--------------------
Just came across this-- a summit on Reciprocity, Design and Social Networks at the Banff Centre in Canada last year. Can't find any published material on it. A pity since it seems to address some of the stuff I wrote about last June.

'Wireless London' at the AA

2005-01-17T13:23:00.000Z

An interesting talk on at the AA tomorrow:

6.30 Lecture Hall
Wireless London and the AA:
Future Urban Infrastrustures
Usman Haque and Armin Medosch
Civic Communcations
Tuesday 18 January
Usage and development of wireless free networks, worldwide and in the UK, especially in London, has grown enormously in the last five years. This modular system will profoundly affect usage of the city, and it is growing into a new area of architectural concern. As the technology becomes more mainstream, the potential scale of these networks will expand into a component of urban infrastructure.

The linkages between wireless technology and the city seem to be gaining currency... a separate event tackling the economic development potential is being organised by BURA for the 2nd February in Huddersfield.

Planning tools, technology plan resources and a new book

2005-01-12T13:50:00.000Z

Four days after the last post I had a baby... hence no new posts since then!
Anyway, I'm going to use this blog to keep track of interesting stuff I come across on the general topics of ICT and regeneration/ planning/ urban design.

In that vein, this is a potentially useful way of using the Internet to allow people to access and use planning information about their localities. Neighborhood Knowledge California is a web-based mapping tool which provides demographic, housing and lending data at the census tract level throughout the state of California. The idea is that smaller actors can have access to similar tools as the professionals.

Here's more from the American Planning Organisation about collaborative planning tools and a write up of one intranet designed for planners. Interesting to compare this with how other industries are already using collaboration tools-- quite a lot of experience already in other fields (e.g. product design where large information intensive documents have to be exchanged and worked on by diverse groups in different locations).

Another one on e-permits-- sounds like similar processes to e-procurement?

List of good technology plan resources here courtesy of Strategic Technology Collaborative.

New book called Digital Infrastructures -- 'Digital Infrastructures addresses how information technologies can be used to manage water, power, transport, and telecommunication systems. '

wi-fi and regeneration

2004-08-24T13:32:00.000+01:00

I have been rather remiss about updating this blog... but here's something I've done in the meantime... It's an article published in Regeneration & Renewal (a UK publication for regeneration professionals) about how wireless broadband schemes are being used for regeneration purposes in urban and rural areas across the UK. The precis of the article is below (unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to see the full article on their website).

The aims of these wireless broadband schemes fall into three main categories: providing broadband access to people who have little or no access currently, whether for rural or digital divide reasons (e.g. Kingsclere, Hampshire, Newham); attracting people and investment to particular areas (e.g. Cardiff); and as a corporate network to improve council services (e.g. Portsmouth, Westminster). These networks are implemented by different groups or partnerships depending on their purpose: community activist groups, local authorities or groups of local businesses.

The potential of public wireless broadband schemes lies in allowing users to access the Internet, wherever they may be located. This offers the opportunity of overcoming locational barriers for rural businesses. In the city it opens up huge possibilities for new types of mobile applications and services. An example is transportation information systems, helping users to navigate the city and organise their time, as is happening in Portsmouth.

Obstacles to running a successful network and meeting development objectives include: sustainability; getting the target audience to use the network once it has been implemented; and technical implementation issues including choosing the right implementation partner. The mitigation of these obstacles will depend on the objectives for the network. Selecting the right business model will be key in keeping the network running beyond the initial period of investment. The regeneration agency should be realistic about the objectives for the network and the whole package of services that are required to deliver on those objectives. However there’s no doubt that this is an exciting tool for communities and government.

Using the Interweb to connect communities

2004-06-20T12:05:00.000+01:00

I was reading an article by Simon Willis of Cisco on connecting cities and municipal involvement in broadband from the recent New Statesman supplement on broadband ... (can be got from Anthony Townsend's excellent site. At the end of the article he bemoans the lack of good community applications. This is something I've been thinking about in the context of social software. There are interesting possibilities for the 'virtual' world to restore the idea of neighbours and community in a locality, or certainly to augment it. In a study done by (will update with names) of a new neighbourhood in Canada, they found that having broadband and community fora strengthened weak social connections between neighbours-- so people would know each other well enough to say hello. These kind of connections are very important in helping people to feel secure in a place and strengthening their sense of well-being.

The challenge is to determine what kind of applications would be useful in a context and then work out how they should be built. Taking the second point first, I think a centralised model of building applications, where a developer or council builds applications for the customer does have a place, but might ultimately be less successful than applications built by people living in the place. Centralised development would work for centralised services, e.g. transport, and lots of good applications exist to help people work out how to get places (e.g. Transport for London's Journeyplanner) and locate timetables.

But the exciting possibilities are for more informal even temporary applications built by people in a neighbourhood to be used by people in that neighbourhood. How those apps might be built, cheaply, is pointed to by Clay Shirkey's article on situated software. He talks about making applications without having to build in lots of security, authentication, scaling (which all cost) because the applications are designed to be used by a small user community who know each other (which gets over the problem of trust), or at least can be shamed in front of their peers if they misbehave...

There are lots of interesting questions arising from this... What would these applications look like? how would wireless change things-- allowing people to interact and get information about a space in that space engender new types of application and communication? what would be the role of the planner in this?
Applications like LinkedIn and Orkut promote social networks, but without much explicit reference to place-- how might you leverage them?

Many questions...

Introduction

2004-06-17T21:02:00.000+01:00

This blog is intended to be a repository for articles, links and other material I come across dealing with the general idea of the city and the technologies that enable people to use the city more easily (or not)... This might sound vague! that's because it is... I'm hoping that recording items of interest around these general topics will help me to crystalise my thoughts. So this is a work in progress.

Generally speaking the themes will include (but not be limited to):
Technologies used in public spaces: wireless, mobile phones
Public space
Urban design
The changing nature of work
Digital divide
Social software
Regeneration and ICT
Digital clusters
Community wireless
Municipal wireless projects
Internet and society
...

That'll do for starters.