Monday, January 30, 2006

Transport vision of the Future

In a recent government sponsered report from the research think-tank Foresight, it looked at how the UK's transport infrastructure will be radically changed over the next 50 years by RFID tracking tags, embedded sensors and an artificial intelligence network that will reduce congestion and pollution. The Foresight report (which included contribution from John Urry, Director of CeMoRe at Lancaster University)looked at four possible transport scenarios for 2056 ranging from a return to an almost tribal agrarian existence, dominated by local communities and little travelling, to 'Minority Report-style' high-tech cities with driverless cars.

The report was discussed in a recent article in The Guardian.

See also the Intelligent Infrastructure Systems at Foresight

iWalks Rolling Out in Dublin

The Official Online Tourist Office for Dublin has begun publishing free podcast audio guides that tell the story of Dublin. The guides are written and narrated by Irish historian-author Pat Liddy. Each talk will have a downloadable brochure. Talks and brochures can be downloaded from the tourism website. If you subscribe to the podcasts the new ones will automatically download to your computer as they roll out. Georgian Dublin is now available. It will be followed by The Historic Northside, Viking and Medieaval Dublin, and eight more titles. The podcasts and brochures are offered so that “You can download the guides and use them as free walking tour guides to the city, or you can just listen to them to discover the fascinating story of Dublin.”

Via Smartmobs

Friday, January 27, 2006

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

A new free book from 'Wireless Networking in the Developing World' instructs how to assemble and maintain wireless networks in rural towns in developing countries. The books was written by some pretty top notch authors in the field many of whom have built and deployed networks in the developing world already. The book is released under creative commons and comes with its own great wiki page.

Via Mopocket

This week's 'Carnival of the Moblists'

For the best of this week's mobile writing, with some great contributions - check out the most recent 'Carnival of the Mobilists'

Future Matters - Futures Known, Created and Minded

Perhaps not strictly a mobility item, yet I find the concept of 'futures' to be a part of where mobility is fitting in, hence this post about the upcoming gig in Cardiff:

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

Future Matters - Futures Known, Created and Minded

An International Conference

Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building

September 4 – 6, 2006

The conference brings together academics, artists, entrepreneurs and policy makers to consider questions of the future that address three overarching themes:

* Knowing futures - relates to our ability to anticipate futures through art, science and imagination.
* Creating futures - relates to industrial societies capacity to produce long-term futures. We produce such futures everyday through work and play, politics and technology.
* Minding futures - Relates to sustainability and the need to know, care and take responsibility for long term futures of our making that are already underway.

This be a lively, multi-disciplinary event and presents a unique opportunity for speakers to address an audience beyond their usual field of expertise. Contributions should look to engage people from different backgrounds - critical thinkers, artists and social entrepreneurs.

Keynote Speakers

Wendell Bell, Futurist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University

Jérôme Bindé, Director of Foresight, Philosophy & Human Sciences, UNESCO

Josephine Green, Director of Trends & Strategy at Philips

Wolfgang Sachs, Author, Director of Globalisation & Sustainability Project, Wuppertal Institute

David Ambrose, Storyteller, Wales

Gwyneth Lewis, National Poet of Wales 2005

More information (including a booking form and suggested accommodation options) is available on the web at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/futures/conference/ .

Call for Abstracts: please send abstracts of papers or descriptions of pieces to be exhibited/performances (max length 200 words) by email as either Word or PDF files to: futures_conference_2006@Cardiff.ac.uk. Deadline for submission is 31 March 2006.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Add Mobile to the "M" in MTV

The "M" in MTV now also stands for mobile according to this report at CNET. Apparently the network is splitting itself into two divisions.

"One of the new divisions will be focused on short-form video, music and news programming that will be shown both on TV and across their growing number of other platforms, such as the broadband Web and mobile phones. The other division will focus on creating longer shows for television."

The other will just be coming out with the same old regular TV stuff.


"The change is sign that MTV has recognized their audience's relationship with the TV is changing rapidly."

In their press release, MTV entertainment President Brian Graden speaks of creating a "21st Century matrix" of "highly intertwined universes" that will let them "extend (their) world class content-development machine across all screens."

Via Mopocket

The Strength of Internet Ties -- new tools for creating social capital?

Some interesting and credible evidence just arrived to lend some actual data to the ancient armchair theorists debate about whether online media enable the creation of social capital or suck the life out of face to face communities. The Pew Internet and American Life Project just released a report on "The Strength of Internet Ties," (PDF) that "highlights how email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network." The researchers are well known experts in social network analysis of cybersocializing -- John Horrigan, Jeffrey Boase, Lee Rainey, and Barry Wellman.

"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."

Via Smartmobs

Internet game used to predict spread of epidemics

Using a popular Internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country.

In the game, participants can register a dollar bill, of any denomination, and monitor its geographic circulation. Using the game data, physicists developed a powerful mathematical theory that describes the observed movements of travelers amazingly well over distances from just a few kilometers to a few thousand. The study represents a major breakthrough for the mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.

References:

Nature news release

"The scaling laws of human travel," Nature, Jan. 26, 2006, p462, D. Brockmann, L. Hufnagel and T. Geisel, doi:10.1038/nature04292.

International Association of Transport History

The 4th annual conference of the International Association of Transport History (T2m) :

The conference topic is Transport Sustainability and Safety. Deadline for papers is March 15.

Here you find the CfP: www.t2m.org

Cosmobilities - latest

* First cosmobilities book at Ashgate: Tracing Mobilities

In early January Weert Canzler, Vincent Kaufmann and Sven Kesselring signed a contract with Ashgate Publishers for a book with the title "Tracing mobilities. The cosmopolitan perspective in mobility research". This book will be published at Ashgate, Transport and Society series. It is based on the first cosmobilities workshop in Munich in 2004 and contains contributions from Ulrich Beck, Wolfgang Bonß, Weert Canzler, Beate Collet, Michael Flamm,Vincent Kaufmann, Sven Kesselring, Ruth Limmer, Norbert Schneider, John Urry, and Gerlinde Vogl.
Deadline for the complete book is November 2006, it will be published in early 2007.

* Ph.D. course on critical mobility research in Roskilde, Denmark

In May 2-5 in 2006 there is an open Ph.D. course on "critical mobilities" given by the FLUX group at Roskilde University, Denmark. The course team consists of Lise Drews-Nielsen (Roskilde, FLUX), Tim Richardson (Sheffield), Ole B. Jensen (Aalborg), Sven Kesselring (Munich) and Anne Jensen (FLUX, Roskilde).
Ph.D. students from everywhere are welcomed to apply for participation. Please, download a flyer with more details - here

For details, check the cosmobilities website or contact directly Anne Jensen from Roskilde University: anjensen@ruc.dk.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Go Digital January 23 2006

How computer users around the world can help Nasa find the origins of everything. Television over the internet, and using computing power to do something really useful - cool beer.

Download here

Monday, January 23, 2006

The Cosmobilities Network

Mention should be made of the Cosmobilities Network: The cosmobilities network connects European scientists working in the field of mobility research. It is a lively context of intellectual and academic exchange. As an interdisciplinary network it represents state of the art research on different aspects of social, physical, cultural and virtual mobilities.

It fosters mobility research as a key discipline for the modernization of European societies under the conditions of globalization and global complexity.

Also - In 2006 the next cosmobilities network meeting will take place at Lancaster University. The conference is entitled as "Air Time-Spaces. Thinking through Mobility Research" and fixed for September 29 and 30. For details, please contact Pennie Drinkall at Lancaster University: p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk.

Unraveling the Taste Fabric of Social Networks

Here is an interesting contribution to the realm of social networks - a report (PDF) from the authors Hugo Liu, Pattie Maes, and Glorianna Davenport titled "Unraveling the Taste Fabric of Social Networks" (PDF).

Abstract:

Popular online social networks such as Friendster and MySpace do more than simply reveal the superficial structure of social connectedness—the rich meanings bottled within social network profiles themselves imply deeper patterns of culture and taste. If these latent semantic fabrics of taste could be harvested formally, the resultant resource would afford completely novel ways for representing and reasoning about web users and people in general. This paper narrates the theory and technique of such a feat—the natural language text of 100,000 social network profiles were captured, mapped into a diverse ontology of music, books, films, foods, etc., and machine learning was applied to infer a semantic fabric of taste. Taste fabrics bring us closer to improvisational manipulations of meaning, and afford us at least three semantic functions— the creation of semantically flexible user representations, cross-domain taste-based recommendation, and the computation of taste-similarity between people—whose use cases are demonstrated within the context of three applications—the InterestMap, Ambient Semantics, and IdentityMirror. Finally, we evaluate the quality of the taste fabrics, and distill from this research reusable methodologies and techniques of consequence to the semantic mining and Semantic Web communities."

Thanks to Smartmobs

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Cars saving pedestrians' lives?

It's well known that many pedestrians and cyclists are victims of road accidents. This is why the EU-funded SAVE-U project was launched. This system combines sensors such as radar, vision and infrared camera, as well as sensor fusion and actuators to increase safety for pedestrians.

More at ZDNet

The New Carnival of the Mobilists

The New Carnival of the Mobilists features the very best writing about all things mobile from the previous week.

This week, the Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted at Golden Swamp. So give it a look!

Friday, January 20, 2006

2006 Aspects of Tourism Conference

Imagine There's No Countries:
INEQUALITY AND GROWTH IN THE AGE OF TOURISM
University of Brighton @ Eastbourne
22nd-23rd June 2006

Professor Peter Burns is pleased to announce that Marcel Leijzer, Tourism
Policy Advisor to the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) has agreed
to give a keynote address about SNV's activities in sustainable tourism at
grassroots level.

His recent address to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
special assembly in Senegal last December emphasised the shift SNV has made
from project organisation to a clear focus on capacity building. Marcel says
(among other things) that interventions should be defined and 'owned' by the
South...

We urge you to join us in Eastbourne in June to discuss these compelling and
important issues.

The conference aims to bring together colleagues to discuss theoretical and
practical issues around tourism's role in development and poverty
alleviation.

Among the specific themes included are:

* Global and Local Conflicts in Tourism
* Tourism Corporations and Corporate Social Responsibility.
* South-South Solutions to Global Problems
* Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals
* Anthropology in Action
* Economic Exploitation of the Exotic
* New Waves in Tourism Development and Planning
* Tourism and Development Methodologies
* Gender Equality and Participation
* Paradoxes and critiques of ecotourism
* Fieldwork Methodologies

A new publication on mobility and aesthetics

"Aesthetics and Mobility" is the topic of this first special volume of the on-line journal Contemporary Aesthetics:

As its title reveals, the volume deals with questions of aesthetics in the context of mobility, i.e. in connection with traffic, mobile information technology, tourism, sports,arts involving or thematizing movement and other mobile phenomena.

The volume can be found here

Time Innovation and Mobilities

This new book might be of interest:

Time Innovation and Mobilities - Peter Frank Peters, Routledge, 2005

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Mobile devices for epidemic alerts

More info coming in on mobile devices being used for alerts - here's the latest:

Technology Review reports on efforts by public health authorities, epidemiologists, and mobile device software developers to make available software and services that could use mobile messaging and location-aware devices to quickly disseminate information about epidemic outbreaks:

"During an outbreak or emergency, getting good info to the public rapidly about what they need to do protect themselves is vital and can save lives," says CDC spokeswoman Jennifer Morcone.
"Avoiding certain foods, avoiding certain areas, wearing a mask...all those messages are delivered through a number of channels by the CDC during outbreaks and emergencies and we know that getting information to people when they need it is vital."

At the Center for the Advancement of Distance Education (CADE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, researchers are helping the CDC to develop an emergency alert system that would rely on the Global Positioning System (GPS) features built into many of today's mobile handsets. In areas hit with an outbreak, people who carry GPS-enabled mobile phones and are subscribed to the alert service would receive an emergency alert text message with instructions about where to go or what to do during specific emergencies, such as an outbreak of anthrax or bird flu.

One version of these instructions has already been developed in the form of small applications written in the Java programming language that show emergency procedures step by step and can be downloaded to and stored on mobile devices that support Java.

Via Smartmobs

Beyond Locative Media

Networked Publics explores Beyond Locative Media by Marc Tuters and Kazys Varnelis, a richly referenced and linked essay about the geoweb, location-aware media, art, and critical thinking about the uses and effects of technology:

Locative media has been attacked for being too eager to appeal to commercial interests as well as for its reliance on Cartesian mapping systems, yet if these critiques are well-founded, they are also nostalgic, invoking a notion of art as autonomous from the circuits of mass communication technologies, which we argue no longer holds. This essay begins with a survey of the development of locative media, how it has distanced itself from net art, and how it has been critically received before going on to address these critiques and ponder how the field might develop.

Via Smartmobs

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

More on emergency mobile alerts

I've posted recently about mobile phones being used as mobile alert beacons. Here's the latest:

'New Scientist reports that "a camera cellphone for anyone who fears being abducted has been devised by Nokia.It pretends to be off while actually sending an emergency alert,complete with pictures,sound and GPS location.A recessed panic button triggers a pre-recorded emergency message when pressed.The phone camera then takes and sends a series of time-stamped snapshots or video clips to a service centre or trusted friend,along with any sound picked up by the microphone.If the phone has a GPS receiver it also stamps the message with location.If reception is lost, for instance if an abductor drives into an underground car park,the phone stores images and audio in memory and automatically transmits them as soon a signal is regained".'

Invention:Cellphone distress beacon

Via Smartmobs

The Hikikomori - the truly immobile ones?

I thought this post, although perhaps not totally about mobility, was nevertheless intriguing...and says some things about a modern mobile world!

'Hikikomori is a term used to describe a growing group of young people in Japan who lock themselves in their bedrooms for months if not years, reports the NY Times. Experts can't agree on the number of hikikomori in Japan (figures rangefrom 100,000 to a 1,000,000) but the hikikomori tend to be young males, living with their parents.'

Via Smartmobs

Go Digital 16th Jan 2006

This week will Intel chips affect the individuality of Macs? Solutions for bridging the digital divide and distributive computing to protect the Great Barrier Reef. With Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson.

Download here

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Mobile system devised to show routes to safety in case of disaster

Mitsubishi Electric Corp, NTT DoCoMo Inc and Pasco Corp said Monday they have jointly developed a technology to provide cellphones and other mobile terminals with three-dimensional, real-time information on routes for escape to safety in the case of natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The new technology is based on an advanced data-compression technology, which has made it possible to distribute 3D information via mobile terminal , and utilizes Pasco's aerial photographic surveying technology.

Read at textually.org

Monday, January 16, 2006

Upcoming concepts for 2006

Driver-Monitoring System

Instead of just watching for hazards on the road, Toyota's latest precrash safety system is turning its attention to the most likely cause of an accident: you. This spring, Lexus models in Japan will be available with a camera mounted on the steering column that uses facial-recognition software to determine whether you're watching the road. If not, and the front-mounted radar sees you're getting too close to something, it will flash a light, then beep and tap the brakes if you persist in rubbernecking.

BLIND-SPOT DETECTION

To prevent drivers from smashing into what they can't see, two as-yet-unnamed automakers will include Valeo Raytheon's blind-spot detection in 2007 models. The system's 2.4-GHz radar sensors will be mounted in the rear bumper and won't be affected by the elements. When a vehicle is in a driver's blind spot, an LED in the sideview mirror will light up. If the driver turns the steering wheel anyway, a beep will warn him of the hidden danger.

Pedestrian Protection System (PPS)

Radar sensors and computer-controlled braking will keep drivers safer than ever, but what about pedestrians? In case your adaptive cruise control fails to spot someone darting into the road, TRW Automotive is introducing the PPS system: if you smack a pedestrian, the hood is automatically raised to cushion his landing on the engine block. The system is already being tested, part of a drive to meet new European and Japanese regulations on pedestrian safety which are being phased in, starting with 2006 models.

Via 15 Tech Concepts You'll Need To Know In 2006

The Week in Sustainable Transportation

This article covers the continuing evolution of personal transportation at Green Car Congress.

'The market is beginning a major change. (GCC) On the green side, new hybrids, hybrid prototypes and lithium-ion battery systems definitely dominated.

Concurrently, and on the other side of the planet, Indian vehicle manufacturers introduced their own hydrogen and hybrid vehicles and concepts at the New Delhi Auto Expo. (GCC)'

Read at Worldchanging

Comparing Geographic Exploration Systems

Google Earth has caused quite a "buzz." But [it] wasn't the first, and isn't the only, geographic exploration system. Several competitors exist in the market, and more will be released soon. This feature looks at some of the competing systems.

Via Smartmobs

Telemedicine slashes hospital stays

A British telemedicine project has halved the time patients spend in the hospital by enabling doctors to monitor their condition remotely.

'The project involves giving telemedicine monitors to patients, thus allowing them to measure their own temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, electrocardiogram and blood pressure. These results are sent via a phone line to a secure server, where they are saved as an electronic patient record, which can then be accessed by doctors or nurses.'

Article at C/Net

Friday, January 13, 2006

BBC: How mobiles changed the face of news

The BBC have a produced a pretty good 22 minute video from the BBC looking at how user-generated content and mobile phone footage on stories like the London bombings has changed the way broadcasters report the news. The BBC has been looking back at how user generated content has become part of everyday news throughout 2005. Input from news editors from around the world, including Dan Gilmore.

This really is a 'must watch' vid.

See here

Thursday, January 12, 2006

The 3rd conference on FUTURE URBAN TRANSPORT

FUTURE URBAN TRANSPORT
"Dynamics of urban transport development - what is generic and what is specific?"

April 2 - 5, 2006, Göteborg, Sweden
(Academic Workshop on April 2)

International conference for politicians, city planners, engineers, physicians and scientists to discuss and understand how we have learnt to cope with complexity as it is today, and what we can learn from this for the future development of urban transport. The conference is being organised by the Volvo Research Foundations.

Upon receiving registration and payment for the conference - we will send you a copy of the anthology "Urban Transport Development - A Complex Issue". The anthology is a condensation of the 2nd conference on Future Urban Transport, held in 2003. The total number of participants is limited to 200.

The conference web-site is now open for registration:
http://www.fut.se/"


Volvo Research Foundation

Go Digital 9/1/06

This week's programme is a special edition from the consumer electronics show, CES in Las Vegas.

Dowdload here

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Intelligent Transportation Systems Research Program

This article on Wired Blog talks of how various US states are attempting to use technology to track and unclog traffic congestion:

"We're already tracking all the buses all the time," said Daniel Dailey, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Washington who leads the arterial traffic project. "What's left is to differentiate when traffic is slowing the buses down."

The university's Intelligent Transportation Systems Research Program began collecting bus data close to seven years ago. The data feeds MyBus, a web and text-messaging service that notifies commuters about delays. Seattle-area bus commuters use the service about 5 million times a month, Dailey said"

Read full article here

Texas airport adds text messaging service

Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport has become the first airport in Texas to offer text-messaging notification of flight status changes. Travelers and those interested in flight arrivals and departures enter pager, cell phone or Blackberry contact information on the airport Web site.

See textually.org

Mobile & Wireless Predictions 2006

M-trends site does its personal best of round-up of collegue mobile bloggers predictions and must read articles on mobile and wireless predictions for 2006, including moblogging and various tech-platforms and applications.

Tech-savvy people have RFID implants

A recent article from Boston.com - 'Computer chips get under skin of enthusiasts' - writes of a group of tech-savvy young people who are implanting chips under their skin in order to have remote control over such devices as their computer and other household appliances:

"With a wave of his hand, Amal Graafstra, a 29-year-old entrepreneur based in Vancouver, Canada, opens his front door. With another, he logs onto his computer.

Tiny radio frequency identification (RFID) computer chips inserted into Graafstra's hands make it all possible."

RFID tagging and implants have been under discussion for some time, and the implications are becoming more widespread:

"In the future, technological advances will allow people to store, transmit and access encrypted personal information in an increasing number of wireless ways"

The globe is becoming increasingly unwired - yet mapping technologies and strategies are also becoming increasingly more ubiquitous...

The future may be a struggle between being unwired and being unwatched...

Via Between Both Worlds

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Journeys of Expressions V: Tourism and the Roots/Routes of Religious Festivity

Journeys of Expressions V: Tourism and the Roots/Routes of Religious Festivity

Belfast, Northern-Ireland, 13-15 March 2006

This is a call for papers for JOURNEYS OF EXPRESSIONS V: TOURISM AND THE ROOTS/ROUTES OF RELIGIOUS FESTIVITY which will take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 13th to 15th March 2006. Regularly updated information and a registration form can be found at our website www.tourism-culture.com .



In this, the fifth of our continuing conference series exploring the multi-faceted relationships between tourism and festivals, Journeys of Expression aims to discuss touristic practices in relation to forms of traditional and contemporary religious festivity. The conference seeks to examine the meanings and roots of religious festivity within the context of tourism and related studies, the ways by which tourists arrive at, and consume religious festivity, and the ways in which touristic practice encounters, and in some instances shapes, the religious. In a world apparently struggling with the boundaries of 'the religious', we are interested in the social practice of tourism, as a spatial displacement of the human body creating, a priori, a liminal space for mental and physical recreation. Situating this approach within the field of tourism, we hope, permits to analyse important shifts and transformations of traditional liturgical practices, manifested in particular by the veneration of new, now touristic forms of 'sacred' objects, spaces and elements ('nature', 'culture', 'art', 'sun', 'water', etc.). Within the contemporary transnationalised world how do we make sense of the religious - its symbolic expression, its politicisation etc. - through both festivity and tourism? How do festivals mobilise religious symbols to tell stories and make visible particular representations of the self? What are the festive roles attributed to, or taken by tourists and how are these integrated with forms of festive exchange and ritual? And, how can a better understanding of tourism-festival relationships shape agendas for 'intercultural dialogue' and peace as articulated by international organisations such as UNESCO.

Indicative themes of the conference include:

- Defining Religious Festivity: Genesis, Genealogy and Displacement
- Tourism, Pilgrimage and Travel Liturgies: Variations and Continuity of the 'Sacred Journey' in the Contemporary World
- Tourism and Transnational Festival Spaces: Festive Ostentation, Sacrifice, Transgression and Exchange in the Contemporary World
- Festive Economics / Politics of Making Visible: Religious Symbols, Discourse and the Formulation of Social Spaces / Boundaries in the Contemporary World
- Material Diasporas: Tourism Souvenirs and Meanings
- Tourism, Intersubjective Encounters and Power Relations in Religious Festivals
- The Continuity / End of War and Conflict: From Paradigms of Clash to Paradigms of Peace?

The conference is designed to be a discussion led small scale event hosting approximately 50 international delegates. In the tradition of the Journeys of Expression series, we wish to animate an interdisciplinary debate on the suggested themes and welcome paper proposals from academics from various disciplinary backgrounds including: tourism studies, anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, religious studies, theology, philosophy, performance studies, cultural economics, politics, etc. If you wish to submit a paper proposal, please send a 300-word abstract with full address and institutional affiliation details as an electronic file to Daniela Carl (d.carl@shu.ac.uk). We will start reviewing abstracts on 10th January 2006 and accept late abstract till the end of January. Please find regularly updated information regarding this conference, registration procedures and (at a later stage) a programme at our website www.tourism-culture.com .

User innovation in mobile media -- 2006 is the year

In a recent Smartmobs post:

Thought-provoking and knowledgeable post on Communities Dominate Brands about smartmobby user innovation in mobile media:

When we combine the trends of podcasting, user-participation (voting in Big Brother/Pop Idol etc) to citizen journalism (Oh My News, 7/7 London bombings) and the over 100 million cameraphones already in use, very soon we will see radical new innovations in user-created content to develop video content alongside the traditional TV broadcasters. Italy's Three/Hutchison has already started along this road where video bloggers get paid a revenue share of the fee charged to those who view their video blogs.
Mobile TV is only four years old, as two innovations were launched simultaneously in 2001. In Finland SMS-to-TV chat went live, while MTV launched Videoclash - the programme where viewers could decide what videos to see next, and vote via mobile phones. Since then in 2002, 2003, 2004 and even 2005 when I met with thinkers in this TV-Mobile space, most were always only thinking of putting football highlights, news clips etc onto mobile phones. Boring boring boring.

Now in 2005 we've seen first signs of real innovations - you have to see MTV's Head and Shoulders to really "get it" - what we can do and what can really sell - on mobile TV. When Robbie Williams promoted his new CD, he had his concert simulcast to 3G phones. At the MTV Europe Awards the mobile MTV channel went back stage and shot exclusive footage that was only seen on mobile phones. At Big Brother houses around Europe it is now commonplace to have exclusive cameras - and latest innovation from Finland this Autumn, exclusive microphones - that viewers of the show can get more through their 3G phones.

Monday, January 09, 2006

The Week in Sustainable Transportation

The post 'The Week in Sustainable Transportation (01/08/06)' by Mike Millikin provides a comprehensive summary on sustainable transport looking at hybrids, biofuels, batteries, hydrogen transport, etc.

Worth a peek.

Via Worldchanging

Go Digital 2nd January 2006

Take a journey into an alternate reality with this special edition of Go Digital looking at the rise of virtual worlds and 'massively multiplayer online games'.

Download here

New breed GPS vehicle tracking system

GPS vehicle tracking has been around for as long as GPS, but a new and very interesting variant debuts at the CES later today which enables parents and commercial fleet owners to track when, where, how far, how fast and how aggressively a vehicle is being driven. This information is tracked passively via GPS satellites and recorded on an in- vehicle DriveSync receiver and USB data key. Because the information is tracked off-line, DriveSync eliminates the high monthly service fees associated with other GPS vehicle tracking systems. Results can be viewed by detaching the data key from the receiver unit and inserting it into a computer USB port. The vehicle tracking results are uploaded to a DriveSync server where the data is interpreted and consolidated into customized reports. These reports, including trip logs, route maps and usage alerts, are viewed via a secure, password-protected website.

Read article - 'CES 2006: new breed GPS vehicle tracking system provides detailed analysis of driving behaviour'

Via Gizmag

Ushering in 2006

Its a welcome return to 2006 - this surely will be a year of increased exposure to mobile technologies. What will be the buzzwords of this year? Will it remain the notion of convergence?

With ever more sites coming online dealing with mobility related topics it will make my job to filter stories ever more demanding - and I'm sure to miss so many good ones too! SO - please let me know of any stories that New Mobilities would be interested in.

At first - I wanted to point some attention to a few points raised in Lifeblog about the hopes and fears on the future of the mobile.

Also - a BBC Online article titled 'City-wide wi-fi rolls out in UK' that looks at plans to provide blankey wi-fi coverage for some major UK cities.

More blogs to be posted again on New Mobilities - hoping 2006 will be a good year!