SpacePlace

[Space and Place] Trolleys as Mobile Devices: transitory occupation of the social city space !

in

Nice study in spanish about Trolley and infra-housing: mobile devices and transitory occupation of the social city space:

This contribution, fundamentallly based on the working developed by the authors in Quilmes University (Argentina) present an approch to urban mobility, infra-housing, social space. It also draws the attention over the particular effects of this phenomenon in the social space transitory occupation and think about problems and opportunities it´s offering, as a matter that must affect to advance a epistemology discussion and a mobile devices classification Key words: urban mobility, infra-housing, social space.

[MyResearch] Proof of alien abduction thanks to wifi triangulation

in

It seems that I was abducted by some sort of alien (perhaps elohims) while testing our new location awareness tool on the EPFL campus. I was quiet, testing my new app on my ipaq while drifting through the architect library, wondering about the power of my signal strength (I admit I was also amazed by russian design monography) and suddenly... the unbelievable thing happened between 3:35 pm and 3:37 pm:

Let's check the logfile:

February 19, 2004, 3:35:49 pm : icon - 000785927e36 : 56 - CM.202
February 19, 2004, 3:36:50 pm : icon - 000d29acdd4a : 52 - AI.2.206.COUL
February 19, 2004, 3:36:50 pm : icon - 004096460b06 : 44 - BP.2.94.8
February 19, 2004, 3:36:50 pm : icon - 000785b35861 : 60 - BM.5.202
February 19, 2004, 3:36:50 pm : icon - 00409645f9ce : 76 - BP.1.94.4
February 19, 2004, 3:37:43 pm : icon - 000785b3d259 : 24 - SG.0.HALL
February 19, 2004, 3:37:43 pm : icon - 000750d5dfb8 : 40 - SG.2.211
February 19, 2004, 3:37:43 pm : icon - 0009b7562e86 : 76 - SG.1
February 19, 2004, 3:38:55 pm : icon - 000750d5dfb8 : 24 - SG.2.211
February 19, 2004, 3:38:55 pm : icon - 000785b3d259 : 60 - SG.0.HALL
February 19, 2004, 3:39:46 pm : icon - 000750d5dfb8 : 24 - SG.2.211
February 19, 2004, 3:39:46 pm : icon - 0009b7562e86 : 76 - SG.1
February 19, 2004, 3:39:46 pm : icon - 000785b3d259 : 24 - SG.0.HALL
February 19, 2004, 3:40:37 pm : icon - 000750d5dfb8 : 64 - SG.2.211
February 19, 2004, 3:40:37 pm : icon - 000785b3d259 : 40 - SG.0.HALL
February 19, 2004, 3:41:37 pm : icon - 000785b3d259 : 24 - SG.0.HALL
February 19, 2004, 3:41:37 pm : icon - 0009b7562e86 : 68 - SG.1
February 19, 2004, 3:42:31 pm : icon - 004096460b06 : 44 - BP.2.94.8
February 19, 2004, 3:42:31 pm : icon - 000750d5a85c : 76 - BP.3.94.4
February 19, 2004, 3:44:16 pm : icon - 000785b39060 : 24 - CM.1.364

[Space and Place] Software for Skyscrapers

in

Excerpts from notes from the William Davies & James Crabtree presentation at ETCON: Software for Skyscrapers !

"A new building with lots of people provides an interesting test for social software" - people who aren't like each other
- who don't know they have shared interests
- don't care about social software
-cope with specific software contexts
- not all action is emergent

Forseen dilemma of the architect: will probably never be a single community
but should be a neighborhood
transient residents make the standing wave of a neighborhood difficult

social software could help, as long as shared interests can be idenitfied in a diverse community.

the architects want to turn the building into a 'small world' a la network theory

When they asked potential residents about whether they would be into the community of the building, responses were mostly negative.
(not homely, classes don't mix...)
- Too little social capital
- The wrong sort of social capital

Software in skyscrapers: - what types of cooperation might be required?
- even if you are not friends you have some things in common due to location
- what will you want people around you to do for the community

[Space and Place] Familial Strangers Everywhere

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The Familiar Stranger: Anxiety, Comfort, and Play in Public Places from Eric Paulos and Elizabeth Goodman (Intel Research):

The Familiar Stranger is a social phenomenon first addressed by the psychologist Stanley Milgram in his 1972 essay on the subject [1]. Familiar Strangers are individuals that we regularly observe but do not interact with. By definition a Familiar Stranger (1) must be observed, (2) repeatedly, and (3) without any interaction. The claim is that the relationship we have with these Familiar Strangers is indeed a real relationship in which both parties agree to mutually ignore each other, without any implications of hostility. A good example is a person that one sees on the subway every morning. If that person fails to appear, we notice. (...) There is a special class of Familiar Strangers called the “socio-metric stars.” These are individuals who stand out in a community or group and are readily recognized by an extremely high percentage of people.

mobilecommunitydesign.com wrote a nice summary of the paper:

The neat thing about this study is that it shows how we move, and how relationships exist between us and other people that we don't consciously recognize. We are part of groups we don't know about, and those groups have the potential to become communities. Although some of the scenarios are a bit doubtful, it's a great example of personalizing a place to your own needs and learning more about your environment and those around you via technologies you control.

[TheWorld] Critics toward Richard Florida

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Very critical paper coming from City Journal:

But cities rushing to embrace Florida’s ideas have based their strategies more on wishful thinking than clear-eyed analysis. Neither the professor nor his most ardent adherents seem worried that the Internet generation formed its eccentric capitalist culture during a speculative bubble, when billions of dollars of free-flowing investment capital gave workers and their bosses the freedom to ignore basic economic concerns, and that now, with that money vanished and many companies defunct, a focus on such old-economy ideas as profits and tax rates has re-emerged.

Moreover, as Florida’s ideas reach beyond urban-planning types and New Age liberal politicians, they are at some point likely to find resistance from the hard-core urban Left, composed increasingly of social-services activists and representatives of public-employee and service-industry unions, who demand ever more government spending for social programs, not art and culture. Indeed, the professor’s relentless argument that governments should help furnish bobo-friendly amenities ultimately comes to sound like a new form of class warfare: old-economy workers have no place in his utopian dreams.

But a far more serious—indeed, fatal—objection to Florida’s theories is that the economics behind them don’t work. Although Florida’s book bristles with charts and statistics showing how he constructed his various indexes and where cities rank on them, the professor, incredibly, doesn’t provide any data demonstrating that his creative cities actually have vibrant economies that perform well over time. A look at even the most simple economic indicators, in fact, shows that, far from being economic powerhouses, many of Florida’s favored cities are chronic underperformers.

[The World] decline decline decline

in

As a matter of fact, after reading Richard Florida's book and few papers aside like Florida's take about War and the US or Nature (Immigration controls introduced under the 'war on terror' are restricting the flow of foreign researchers into the United States), it appears that EVERY COUNTRY believes in its decline (I know about France and Italy, and Europe as a whole; it seems that the US are on the same path): is decline the trend? I don't think all those countries are declining, it's just a matter of change. And people feel change as decline, but it's not so true. The point is that shifting from the service economy to the creative economy is hard (even harder than the previous shift from indutrial economiy to services).

For instance, in France there is this decline-thing in themedia since few months. Everybody, especially in the righ wing feels that France is falling. Of course there are problems in differents fields (public research funded by State for example). But when I am there, I don't feel it, I find regions dynamic, with projects (like clustering, local research, intellectual life is booming in cities). 20 years ago in France, people just waited projects from the State and it's no longer the case. And the EU supports regions, not states, that's the chance. I believe there is a shift from state to regions. Hence I admit that in Europe States decline, but not regions. Here is one of the shift that IN THIS SPECIFIC EXAMPLE, decline is just a matter of scale.

[Space and Place]

in

Tuneable Cities (via space and culture). All of this is about "Invisible Topographies" as explained in receiver #9:

Mobile phones are not only communication tools, but also sensors of the invisible electromagnetic environment that surrounds us, making us aware of what has been called "hertzian" space. (Usman Haque)

Whereas 'cyberspace' is a metaphor that spatialises what happens in computers distributed around the world, hertzian space is actual and physical even though our senses detect only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Images of footprint's of satellite TV transmissions in relation to the surface of the earth, and computer models showing cellular phone propagation in relation to urban environments, reveal that hertzian space is not isotropic but has an 'electroclimate' defined by wavelength, frequency and field strength. Interaction with the natural and artificial landscape creates a hybrid landscape of shadows, reflections, and hot points.

[Prospective] Urban Infomatics Breakout

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Howard Rheingold's paper in thefeature about how technologies like location based services could modify urban design or architecture is full of interesting comments and ideas:

- "As a modern-day nomadic hunter-gatherer, I would want to find locations of edible plants and good fishing spots."
- "I like to find free wifi locations; the services I know of for locating those are all but useless, so I warbus and warwalk to find them."
- "A “call a bike” service in Berlin allows to activate public bikes by a call/sms (one can leave them later anywhere in the city)."
- "a “location aware, smart car sharing system” (www.wapyourcar.com). When petrol becomes expensive, perhaps effective reputation systems will lead to a spread of network-augmented car-sharing/hitchhiking?"

My contribution is more geotagging plus social networking: a kind of social virtual landmark: you receive a sms or a pile of message related to a specific location that only comes from your social network (and you can rate the reputation of the participants in order to get only the most well-rated messages).

[Space and Place] Sms and whereabouts

in

Via textually.org:

A nationwide survey commissioned by mobile messaging expert, Freever, shows many Brits prefer texting their way out of difficult situations and 45% of respondents have lied about their whereabouts by text message

The survey was conducted by Freever which is a specialist in mobile SMS and MMS community management.