Mobile voting - coming our way?

Another San Francisco experiment (they are an innovative bunch!):

Mobile Voter announces the launch of its SFVote drive in association with the Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC). This campaign aims to register voters in San Francisco using Mobile Voter's text messaging service. By texting keyword "vote" to 80837, participants will receive registration forms and instructions about how to register to vote.

See MobileVoter homepage

Mobile narrative

Imagine a world where everywhere you went your PDA would tell you its history, its sounds, the local culture. This could be a situation in the near future. A recent experiment in San Francisco tested this scenario:


Scape the Hood debuted this past weekend, a collaboration between HP Labs and KQED where prerecorded sounds, music and narrative were cued by your GPS location as you walked along 3 blocks in San Francisco. It is part of the Digitial Storytelling Festival which has been running for 10 years. KQED's 3 year old Digital Storytelling Initiative was a sponsor of the festival.

The experiment, called Scape the Hood, will transform a few seemingly drab city blocks into a landscape rich with sound, sights and stories. Using GPS-enabled HP iPAQ Pocket PCs and a location-based software platform developed by HP Labs, participants will be able to walk around the neighborhood and learn about its history and culture -- and about impending changes to its character.

Read HP pioneers digital storytelling IPaq Pocket PC to be used for neighborhood history project

iPods, mobile phones and community

Barry Wellman NetLab Director of the Centre for Urban & Community Studies of the University of Toronto was interviewed for a thoughtful long feature of Kenneth Kidd in Sunday's Toronto Star about how iPods and mobile phones are affecting public/private boundaries of community.


"By appropriating public space in this way, people are also discounting its value, especially the cellphone users — who actively disturb the peace with their own words, as if those physically around them either don't exist or are beneath noticing."

Since the full article is registration only, read a lengthy extract via Smartmobs

Yahoo puts blogs at head of news

Blogging is again coming to be increasingly recognised as a medium for today's information flows/messages:

Bloggers are gaining a higher profile alongside traditional news sources with Yahoo including blogs in its expanding news search system.

Pete Clifton, editor of the BBC News website, thinks blogs have a valuable role to play.

"Embracing the value of what people know, and what they are saying, should be central to the proposition of any news site these days," he said.

"Giving readers easy access to what is being said by bloggers is another way of doing this.

"I don't believe blogs will eclipse trusted sources of news journalism like the BBC, but the two things can live very happily together, as long as readers are clear which is which," he added.

Full article at BBC

Italy Now Tracks Internet Cafe Use

If Italy has come to these draconian measures, are other EU countries to follow?

Under antiterrorism legislation passed in July, the cyber cafes must now make copies of passport information for everyone who uses a computer, telephone or fax machine, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

Via Newsfactor

Korea's high-tech utopia

A ubiquitous city is where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, governmental and the like) share data, and computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings. New Songdo, located on a man-made island of nearly 1,500 acres off the Incheon coast about 40 miles from Seoul, is rising from the ground up as a U-city.
New Songdo, a free-enterprise zone where English will be the lingua franca, is often called the largest private real-estate development in the world. When completed in 2014, it is estimated that this $25 billion project will be home to 65,000 people and that 300,000 will work there.

Via CNet

SMS against truancy

How's this for scaring would be truants??

Students in Rome are becoming guinea pigs in an experiment that uses cellphones to deter truancy. Starting on Monday for about six months, when students fail to show up for class and the school has not been previously notified, a text message will be automatically sent to their parents' mobile phones.

Read at International Herald Tribune

More car revolutions

New silicon is available for automakers to make drive-by-wire electronic steering, braking and engine control a reality. Plus: Ford joins new nanotech research consortium.

Check out the Wired News blog Autopia.

Better Directions

The virtual world has never been more connected to the real one. Satellite imagery and geography markup language are all over the Web, and GPS receivers come built into cell phones and other everyday gadgets. All the overlords of Internet search - Google, MSN, Yahoo!, even Amazon's A9.com - provide cartographic results embedded with information. Augmented reality is the latest benchmark of the digital age.

Full article at Wired

Bible more mobile than ever??

Sorry - I couldn't resist this post...

The Bible Society in Australia has taken the bold step of translating the entire Bible into txt-talk which mobile-savvy believers can disseminate via SMS in 31,173 bite-sized verses.

4 God so luvd da world

You can download your 7.7Mb txt Bible here and thereafter spread the word of the Lord in 150-character snippets.

via The Register


What's next? 'Let thre B Lite?' (Ed).

Plugged In, but Tuned Out:

A recent, and interesting, article on The Wall Street Journal Online, looks at the connectedness of today's 'uber-teenagers' - states:

"Children today have been labeled "the connected generation," with iPods in their ears, text messages at their fingertips and laptop screens at eye level. But their technology-focused lifestyle can also leave them disconnected from the wider world, especially from their parents.

Many teens won't give friends their home numbers, says Samantha Landau, 15, of West Hills, Calif. "They don't want friends to talk to their parents, because they don't want their parents to know about their lives."

It's easy to assume that these are just perennial generational tensions in new high-tech boxes. After all, baby boomers and their parents have endured an infamous culture gap. But technology has exacerbated the gulf between today's parents and kids in ways we need to notice. It's easier now for kids to function in their own closed societies, leaving them oblivious to adult culture.

People over age 40 grew up with just a few TV channels. We watched TV news -- at 6 p.m. it was the only thing on -- and soaked up the adult worlds of information and entertainment because that's all that was available. Now kids have their own worlds, their own channels."

More RFID tracking...

RFID kids tracking in Yokohama City:

RFID in Japan reports that "NTT Data, Tokyu Security, and Its Communications presented the results of their pilot tests of the active RFID-based system for tracking school kids. The pilot test, which is called "I Safety", took place from April 5 till the end of July in Aoba-ku of Yokohama City. The companies claim that the system was well received by parents (even though there were some issues.)27 active RFID readers were installed in a 1km square area called "Watch Spot" to track kids' whereabouts in the area. Parents can view their kids' locations using a PC or a cellphone. Also, notifications can be sent to parents' mobile phones when their kids are detected by a specified RFID reader. What's unique about this pilot is the human network system for handling emergency situations: if a child presses an emergency button on the "tag", adults will come running to help him/her, these adults not only includes professional security guards but also volunteers who are living near RFID readers. (The volunteers are selected from the kids' parents) 188 kids participated.One of the major problem was false alarms. There were 53 cases of emergency alarms, however, all of them were false alarms. Because of frequent false alarms, the volunteers eventually got less serious about running out there to help".

From RFID in Japan

The preference engine

This L.A Times article looks at "preference engines track consumers choices online and suggest other things to try. But do they broaden tastes or narrow them?"Further,"We're just being flooded with content," said Erik Brynjolfsson, professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. "And people are increasingly relying on recommenders to help them sort through it all."Preference engines emerged in the earliest days of e-commerce to boost sales — the Internet equivalent of "Would you like a belt to go with that?" — but they have improved with technology and incorporated human feedback to more precisely predict what someone might like.Their spread worries some who fear that preference engines can extract a social price. As consumers are exposed only to the types of things they're interested in, there's a danger that their tastes can narrow and that society may balkanize into groups with obscure interests."As these things get better and better, nobody has to encounter ideas they don't already agree with," said Barry Schwartz, professor of sociology at Swarthmore College and author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less." "We lose that sense of community we had when there were shared cultural experiences, even though we may not have liked them. Now we can create our own cocoon and keep all that unpleasant stuff out......"


[Telling You What You Like]

Spying RFID?

Should we be cautious over the rise of RFID in commercial and consumer movements? Some analysts think so. Spychips sees an RFID Conspiracy:

"A new book by privacy advocates makes the case that corporations and government agencies are in collusion to put tiny radio transmitters on nearly everything we buy. Companies say it's about providing thought leadership, not the Mark of the Beast.

Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre hope to become the twin Erin Brockoviches of RFID, by revealing the threat posed by the radio tag replacements for barcode labels.

They may get their wish, if readers believe the conclusions of the privacy advocates' new book, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID."

Read at Wired

Mobility or Tracking?

NSA granted Net location-tracking patent:

'The National Security Agency has obtained a patent on a method of figuring out an Internet user's geographic location.

Patent 6,947,978 describes a way to discover someone's physical location by comparing it to a "map" of Internet addresses with known locations.

The NSA's patent relies on measuring the latency, meaning the time lag between computers exchanging data, of "numerous" locations on the Internet and building a "network latency topology map." Then, at least in theory, the Internet address to be identified can be looked up on the map by measuring how long it takes known computers to connect to the unknown one.'

Read more at C.Net

PC's a thing of the past? Mobile devices the future...

Sun president: PCs are so yesterday:

So asserted Jonathan Schwartz, president of server and software maker Sun Microsystems. Instead, what has become important are Web services on the Internet and the mobile phones most will use to access them, he argued at a Friday speech here at a meeting of the American India Foundation.

"The majority of the applications that will drive the next wave of innovation will be services, not applications that run on the desktop. The real innovation is occurring in the network and the network services," Schwartz said.

Read full article at ZDNet

Wi-Fi for Free?

Google Inc. has offered to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet access. The proposal raises speculation that Google intends to create a free national Wi-Fi network....

Full article at SFGate.com

Zoo mobility

Another use of RFID:

RFID in Japan reports that the "Ubiquitous ID Center will test an RFID-based system for supporting sightseeers at a park and a zoo in Ueno, Tokyo. The test wil start on the 13th October and lasts till the end of November and will be carried out in collaboration with Jiritsu Project by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.RFID tags (ucode tags) and "radio markers" will be embedded at key locations in a park and a zoo. Mobile devices (Ubiquitous Communicator) read these tags and show directions, recommend possible routes and provide users (e.g., international travellers) with information about historical spots and animals".

See RFID in Japan

Happy campers?

"Today's campers come equipped not just with bug spray and burgers, but cell phones, computers, televisions and video games. As electronic gadgets have become more portable, Americans have begun toting them everywhere -- even into the great outdoors. So private campgrounds and state parks are busily adding electronic amenities to keep campers happy.Recently, company officials at Kampgrounds of America polled campers about amenities they'd like to see. High on the list were cable and phone lines and wireless Internet access.To appease its customers -- whose average age is over 50 -- KOA is installing Wi-Fi wireless Internet access at all its campgrounds."
Via smartmobs
[Campers want electronic creature comforts]

Topic:what people carry why and how

From the Future perfect blog:"A while back I was discussing the differences between Japanese, English and Finnish cultures. One superficial difference is the degree to which Japanese people care for and maintain their physical appearance in public. Look at the mobile essentials carried by male or female Tokyo commuter you will find a relatively high proportion of items related tomaintain appearance compared to the equivalent contents from a London or Helsinki commuter - combs, make-up, mirror, deodorants, tissues etc *. Of course the opposite is equally true - the relative lack of appearance maintenance objects in the UK & Finland. I often leave Tokyo feeling like a slob and arrive in Helsinki feeling relatively smartly dressed (feel free not to comment).There are many ways to explain the differences in volume of appearance-related-objects in terms of what people carry. Relatively long commuting times into Tokyo could mean that people have to carry more of the items they need for later in the day. Alternatively, more socializing takes place outside the home so there are fewer opportunities to use the home space as a status signifier, putting more emphasis on projecting status via dress and accessories. Retail is geared up to support getting the look just-right - in Tokyo you can take it for granted that even if you buy a pair of trousers in a mass-market retailer they will measure, cut and sew to your requirements pretty much within an hour of purchase, whereas in Europe to a large extent people accept what is available off the shelf - and walk around in (badly) fitting clothes.
Carrying the tools for maintaining ones appearance implies the need for ongoing efforts over the course of the day - combing hair or applying make-up on the subway, using the mobile phone display as a mirror or, taking out a compact. Gazing at a mirror for 'too long' in a public space in a city like Berlin and you'll be considered vain. But vanity is a relative thing and as was pointed out - in a city the size of Seoul (10 million) the opinions of people you will never meet again matter less - they might as well be part of the furniture.
During my visit to Ji Lin earlier this year I managed to spend about 5 minutes in the security office of the hotel we were staying at and, looking at the security screens got a sense of where all the close circuit TV cameras were placed around the building. There was a fairly innocuous camera in each of the elevators. You know how when the elevator doors close you look in the mirror and when they re-open you pretend that you were doing something else like fiddling with your watch? Well, that personal moment was not so personal - the security guard and his mates enjoyed your private moment too. Hmm, anyone know of user studies of what people do in elevators?
A ubiquitous manifestation of vanity with Seoul's younger residents is selca = self camera = the taking of photos of oneself typically for placement on a Cyworld homepage. No visit to a cafe or restaurant appears complete without digital cameras and camera phones being taken out to document oneself at the beginning of the event. This is not one or two quickly taken snaps - the camera angles are carefully thought out, results are reviewed, re-taken, hair is re-arranged, again and again and again easily for up to 10 minutes. It's interesting enough when it's just one person. The effect is magnified when all the people sitting around the same table are engaged in this same self-focused activity sometimes with minimal interaction amongst themselves. Camera phones are even marketed as having features that enable good selca - easy to hold and see self portraits whilst taking, and filters to change the photo appearance on the phone. The process is so removed from my reality I feel like I belong to another species. Do the experiences we have not exist if not recorded and displayed in some way? Do we not exist if we are not present in the photos of the event?
Thanks Kim and Younghee for the cultural guidance this past week.*If you are interested in the whole what-people-carry-why-and-how topic Scott Mainwaring of Intel's People & Practices Group presented a paper at Ubicomp 2005, and I have a paper on a similar topic coming up at DUX 2005."

[Vanity,reflected