tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75398504364448706302024-03-13T11:04:42.405-07:00The Politics of LocationA blog about locative technologies and how they are being used in efforts to remake cities and their citizens.<br>
Your hosts: Kurt Iveson and Sophia MaalsenUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-62706467026766110342016-08-17T22:30:00.001-07:002016-08-17T22:30:49.702-07:00Pokémon GO and Public Space<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://s.yimg.com/dh/ap/default/160712/art_poke6.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Pokémon GO players gather at Peg Patterson Park in Rhodes, Sydney. Source: ABC</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In an <a href="http://citiesandcitizenship.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/pokemon-go-geospatial-data-and-digital.html" target="_blank">earlier post here</a>, I argued that Pokémon GO involves players in a form of 'playbour', because playing the game involves the production of geospatial data that is owned and can be traded by the game's creator, Niantic.<br />
<br />
In this post, I want to take a look at a related set of issues that have arisen with the rapid and massive popularity of this game. If Pokémon GO has figured out a way to encourage and then profit from our explorations of public space, what else does the game have to teach us about public space in our digitally 'augmented' urban playgrounds?<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
Pokémon GO is an 'augmented reality' app, and is by far the most popular application of this technology that we've seen. 'Augmented reality' (AR) makes use of internet connectivity, location awareness and cameras on smartphones to allow people to view digital images and information that have been layered onto the 'real' physical environment.<br />
<br />
A few years ago, AR was going to be the next big thing in digital tech. But things didn't quite go as predicted, and more recently, we started seeing more and more commentary on the failure of AR to live up to that hype. Now, with the massive popularity of Pokémon GO, it seems to be back with a bullet.<br />
<br />
At least three fascinating issues concerning Pokémon GO and public space have arisen in the past few weeks, and I think they illustrate some broader issues that are pertinent for discussions of augmented reality in urban environments.<br />
<b><br /></b><b>1. Where are the Pokémon? On the uneven distribution of digital 'augmentation' across public spaces</b><br />
<br />
So, are there Pokémon in your neighbourhood? Of course, as the game is rolled out across different markets at different times, this will depend in the first instance on whether or not the game has come to your country! (Africa, you're still waiting! You too, India and China. CNET are keeping an updated list of countries where you can (officially) play the game <a href="http://www.cnet.com/how-to/pokemon-go-where-its-available-now-and-coming-soon/" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
<br />
But even if the game is available in your city, we are seeing that some neighbourhoods are full of Pokémon and PokéStops, while in other places there are less to find.<br />
<br />
This <a href="http://www.bnd.com/news/nation-world/national/article89562297.html" target="_blank">interesting article from the US</a> by Christopher Huffaker makes some very interesting observations about the locations of key sites or 'portals' in an augmented reality game called <a href="http://politicsoflocation.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/ingress.html" target="_blank">Ingress</a>. This matters for our discussion because Ingress is a predecessor to Pokémon GO, was developed by the same operator (Niantic), and its geospatial data has been used to set locations for key sites in Pokemon GO like PokéStops and Gyms. Huffaker argues there are fewer portals in predominantly African-American neighbourhoods of large US cities like Detroit, New York and Chicago. <a href="http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/pokemon-go-changing-how-cities-use-public-space-could-it-be-more-inclusive" target="_blank">Researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington DC have done their own maps</a>, and have come to similar conclusions.<br />
<br />
Now, no-one is suggesting that a group of nasty people working for Niantic sat down and plotted out an uneven, racialised distribution of Pokémon GO sites to make it harder to play in predominantly African-American neighbourhoods. But that's the whole point. When crowds are used to source data, the data is only as inclusive as the crowd. And because Ingress tends to be played by a quite specific kinds of people, Pokémon data reflects those demographics.<br />
<br />
More broadly, we might also observe that when algorithms are used to turn such data in geospatial information, the data is only as inclusive as the parameters that have been coded for the algorithms. The algorithmic nature of the game information is also most likely the explanation for the various stories appearing about 'inappropriate' game locations, like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/07/12/holocaust-museum-to-visitors-please-stop-catching-pokemon-here/" target="_blank">memorials</a> and some secure sites -- not to mention <a href="http://www.domain.com.au/news/fedup-council-seek-to-take-down-pokmon-go-stops-20160722-gqbinm/" target="_blank">suburban parks</a> that might not have the infrastructure to cope with hoards of people trying to hang out there (more on that one below).<br />
<br />
For most of us, it's very difficult to get a grip on the way such algorithms work. Even if we could get corporations or governments to share their code, those lines of code only make sense to those with the specialist skills to understand how they work. There's a growing literature on the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S10708-013-9516-8" target="_blank">role of algorithms in the governance of cities and populations</a>. That literature suggests that as algorithms become ever more important in informing and even automating decision-making and resource allocation, we might want to know a little more about how they work, and how their injustices can be made visible and contested. The discussion about the location of key sites in Pokémon GO certainly illustrates the kinds of things that are at stake.<br />
<br />
There are two more points to note about the location of important sites in the game. First, the geography of the game is likely to change as more sponsorship deals are done between Niantic and those seeking to lure players to their location. As has been widely reported, the first of these major deals was done <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/21/pokemon-go-is-finally-available-in-japan/" target="_blank">with McDonalds in Japan</a>, and many more are set to follow - Niantic's John Hanke says that <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/07/28/pokemon-go-creator-john-hanke-answers-all-your-burning-questions/#1f76317f23ac" target="_blank">this is his preferred means of raising revenue</a>. Shops and advertisers can also spend money to buy and then <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-11/pok-mon-go-brings-real-money-to-random-bars-and-pizzerias" target="_blank">set lures for players</a>. So, for all the hype about the way that this game is encouraging people to explore their urban environment, we might want to ask some questions about how those explorations are being guided as the digital geography of the game is further commercialised.<br />
<br />
Second, a conflict has emerged between Niantic and a numbers of fan websites that had been providing real-time maps of Pokémon locations, by scraping data from the game. As <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/pokemon-go-pokevision-crack-down-players-furious/" target="_blank">reported by CNET</a> and others, it appears that Niantic have found a way to prevent tracking sites like Pokevision accessing their locational data, and made a few legal threats to those sites while they are at it. The operators of Pokevision wrote <a href="https://medium.com/@yangcliu/an-open-letter-to-john-hanke-niantic-6a32325b67a8#.d9tjnv50w" target="_blank">an open letter to Hanke and Niantic</a> about the shut down. Hanke and Niantic <a href="https://www.nianticlabs.com/blog/update-080416/" target="_blank">responded with a blog post</a> claiming that they'd taken the action to reduce pressure on their servers, which have been <a href="http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138271-pokemon-go-server-problems-why-does-the-game-keep-stopping" target="_blank">melting down frequently</a>. This conflict over the openness of the game's location data is an interesting one. This is a game operated by a commercial gaming company, so to what extent do the usual arguments about 'open data' apply? Interestingly, those running the tracking sites are arguing that their access should be maintained because it will enhance the playability of the game, especially while the tracking feature continues to have problems. This interesting conflict is to be continued, I'm sure...<br />
<br />
<b>2. Who can access the </b><b>Pokémon? On uneven access to public space in cities of inequality</b><br />
<br />
Not everyone who walks around a city staring at their phone searching for Pokémon will have the same experience of this 'play'. To play this game is to walk around an urban environment in search of Pokémon, PokéStops and Gyms. Indeed, the game also rewards you for the steps you take while playing it, with those steps helping you to hatch eggs. (A brilliant way to ensure that your geographical data can be captured, by the way ... but that's another story.)<br />
<br />
Niantic and the game's supporters are talking up the social and the health benefits of this kind of play -- if millions of people are now out and about in their public spaces, exploring places they have never been, meeting other players and getting exercise at the same time, then everyone wins, right?<br />
<br />
Well, sort of. Here's where Pokémon GO interacts with the broader politics of public space. As we know from decades of research on this topic, public spaces in our cities are not equally accessible to everyone.<br />
<br />
Again in the United States, there has been some critical discussion about the experience of 'Pokémoning While Black'. In Iowa City, Faith Joseph Ekakite <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/faith-joseph-ekakitie/pokemon-go/10154336693784210" target="_blank">shared this account of being stopped and searched at gunpoint by police</a> while playing the game in a park. Omari Akil wrote this widely-reported account of his unease while playing the game, fearing that <a href="https://medium.com/mobile-lifestyle/warning-pokemon-go-is-a-death-sentence-if-you-are-a-black-man-acacb4bdae7f#.7x3k6bg3f" target="_blank">Pokémon GO could be a death sentence for black men</a>, given the on-going problem of police shootings in the US.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, there has also been some discussion of the potential vulnerability of children playing the game, and the potential for them to be 'lured' to locations where they might be targeted for their smartphone or something else. Here,<br />
<br />
There seems to have been less discussion of the gendered politics of playing Pokémon in public space. A recent report suggests that <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/07/26/more-women-than-men-are-playing-pokemon-go-by-a-lot/#1ced58ea4f16" target="_blank">female players outnumber male players by a ratio of almost 2 to 1</a>. If that's true, I'll admit that it challenges my own assumptions about the gendered nature of both gaming and public space.<br />
<br />
In fact, this finding raises the question of whether Pokémon GO game play might actually help to address, rather than reinforce, some of the exclusionary aspects of public space that I've mentioned above. Anecdotally, some people playing the game tell me that it has given them and their friends a kind of 'license' to be in various places that they would not normally go, like parks and residential streets late at night. They say they can do so because they know there will be other people around also playing, and so places will be less scary than they might otherwise have been. Are the eyes on the screen are also 'eyes on the street', in a Jane Jacobs kinda way? Will this actually help to make public spaces more accessible, by being more used?<br />
<br />
<b>3. Whose infrastructure supports the game? On the public-private relationship in augmented urban spaces</b><br />
<br />
Niantic provides the digital data and server infrastructure that enables people to play the game as they move around their environment. But as Pokémon GO turns the streets and parks and malls of the city into a playground, who provides the playground? The game takes-for-granted the existence of 'physical' public spaces and their infrastructures, and makes no particular contribution to their provision or maintenance.<br />
<br />
On the surface, this doesn't seem unreasonable -- after all, public space is notionally meant to be accessible to all, right? So why shouldn't it be available for play (or playbour)?<br />
<br />
However, it's clear that in some instances, the popularity of the game has actually put some public spaces under considerable pressure. Here in Sydney, an everyday park in suburban Rhodes that most people had never visited or even heard of <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/bradesposito/pokemon-go-rhodes?utm_term=.dry8293G8#.nfmrQRDXr" target="_blank">was inundated with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Pokémon GO players</a> in search of rare Pokémon that were concentrated in the area. Word of the bounty on offer in the park spread quickly through social media, so this was a classic example of a nimble, digitally-connected crowd in formation and action.<br />
<br />
Residents complained of noise and litter. At one point, they took to throwing water bombs from their balconies late at night to try to clear the park. Police were called, and they issued parking infringements to try to move people on.<br />
<br />
As several players pointed out, there were no fights, no violence, no crime, and this is meant to be public space ... so what's the problem?<br />
<br />
But it's also true that the crowds had some impacts on the park. The picture below accompanied an <a href="http://www.domain.com.au/news/fedup-council-seek-to-take-down-pokmon-go-stops-20160722-gqbinm/" target="_blank">article on one local website</a> about the issue -- the park does seem kinda messed up.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UdCBOpRNChU/V7UxwVsfk9I/AAAAAAAAAbs/9AG64DSps104T--XS9urJ8VzmN2MIHRGwCK4B/s1600/Image.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UdCBOpRNChU/V7UxwVsfk9I/AAAAAAAAAbs/9AG64DSps104T--XS9urJ8VzmN2MIHRGwCK4B/s640/Image.png" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
While maintaining local parks is one of the responsibilities of public authorities, and while those parks are there to be used by 'the public', this little episode demonstrates some of the complex geographical dimensions of urban publicness<br />
<br />
I think we do need to resist the idea that this park somehow 'belongs' to the 'local' public, and the associated logic that people coming from 'elsewhere' is a problem in itself. Nor would I want to see any kind of 'users pays' logic be introduced to park use in Sydney, or elsewhere.<br />
<br />
But what of the private commercial entities who are making lots of money, but who are not actually making any contribution to support the urban environment that supports their game? Yes, there is socialisation going on here, but there is also commercialisation (something can be two things at once!). And where there's commercialisation, it's not necessarily unreasonable for the public authorities to seek some kind of contribution or compensation. Money for growing trees doesn't grow on trees, if you know what I mean.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year, Evgeny Morozov made the case in<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/31/cheap-cab-ride-uber-true-cost-google-wealth-taxation" target="_blank"> a piece for the Guardian</a> that the tax-dodging and tax-minimising practices of huge digital corporates like Uber and Google was actually contributing to the hollowing out of state capacity to fund public services like transport. It's a question worth asking: while Pokémon GO might be enhancing some people's experience of public space, but should we expect some financial contribution from the game's owners to sustaining the playground for their very profitable game?<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
So, there you go. Across these three sets of issues, we can see that the game's popularity throws up some new questions about public space in networked cities, but also draws us into some very old questions about the city's streets and their accessibility. It's only a game, I know. But as our experience of public space is increasingly mediated through digital connectivity, it's a game that does have something to teach us about how the urban experience is being transformed through collisions of the digital and the urban.<br />
<br />
In finally finishing this piece, I've also come across a few other interesting articles specifically on the issue of Pokémon GO and public space that are worth checking out:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>This one from <a href="https://overland.org.au/2016/07/pokemon-go-and-the-politics-of-digital-gaming-in-public/" target="_blank">Brendan Keogh in Overland</a>;</li>
<li>This one from <a href="http://architectureau.com/articles/public-space-versus-pokemon-go/" target="_blank">Rana Abboud at ArchitectureAU</a>;</li>
<li>This one from <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/791694/21st-century-nolli-how-pokemon-go-and-augmented-reality-could-shape-our-cities" target="_blank">Patrick Lynch in ArchDaily</a>.</li>
</ul>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-22651486477945721312016-08-07T22:35:00.000-07:002016-08-07T22:38:08.936-07:00Pokémon GO and 'digital labour' in the augmented citySo ... Pokémon GO has been a thing, right?!<br />
<br />
The article below was published as an opinion piece in the <i><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-pokemon-go-will-make-money-from-you-20160802-gqj457.html" target="_blank">Sydney Morning Herald</a></i> last week. It's included here with active links for anyone who's interested. It's about the way the game turns play into a kind of 'digital labour', through the collection and monetisation of data about our movements through the urban environment.<br />
<br />
I've got a bit more to say about the game ... I really do think it has plenty to teach us about the on-going digitalisation of everyday urban life. More to follow soon.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SWtDeeXtMZM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SWtDeeXtMZM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As Pokémon GO maintains its place at the top of the app charts, and as our streets and parks are increasingly populated by screen-illuminated trainers trying to find and evolve their digital critters, it’s time to ask a few questions about the kind of ‘play’ that is going on here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">For many, this this game is great fun. And it is free to download. But Niantic (the game’s creator, a spin-off company from Google), Google, Nintendo and others have invested cold hard cash in developing the game and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/16/pokemon-go-server-crash-niantic-europe-us">trying to maintain the infrastructure that supports it</a>. A closer look at how the app might provide some return on that investment tells us something important about the nature of ‘free play’ in our digitally-augmented urban playground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">How does Pokémon GO make money for its creator and investors? Of course, as with many free apps, there are ‘in-app purchases’ that will be attractive to some (if not all) players. Some analysts estimate earnings of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/google-apple-nintendo-who-s-really-making-money-out-of-pokemon-go-a7136906.html">over $1 million per day</a> from such purchases. These in-app purchases are the most visible form of revenue from the game, but they are by no means the only or even the most lucrative revenue source.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">At present, the real-world location of most important places for players like PokéStops and Gyms have been set by Niantic – based on spatial data acquired from another of their augmented reality games, <i>Ingress</i>. In that game, retailers and others can pay Niantic to have portals located in or near their premises. This has now occurred with Pokémon GO in Japan, where <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/21/pokemon-go-is-finally-available-in-japan/">McDonalds has become the first company to do a deal with Niantic to sponsor Gym locations</a>. Such deals are expected to occur elsewhere very soon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But the revenue potential does not stop there. As the saying goes, “surveillance is the business model of the internet”. Augmented reality games like Ingress and Pokémon GO have the potential open up a very lucrative new revenue stream based on the acquisition and sale of data – not just personal data, but aggregated spatial data about urban activity patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">There has already been some <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-all-the-data-pokemon-go-is-collecting-from-your-phone">controversy about the terms of service for players</a>, which give Niantic access to all manner of data on their phones – including email contacts and social media profiles. This data could potentially be sold to third parties with an interest in targeted advertising. Concerns about this arrangement resulted in a modification of those initial terms of service – but this modification has not satisfied the likes of <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/07/12/franken-probes-pokemon-go-data-privacy/">Senator Al Franken in the United States</a> or <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/07/20/pokemon-go-germany-privacy/">consumer advocates in Germany</a>, both of whom have raised on-going concerns with Niantic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">But it is not only individually-identifiable personal data that interests Niantic. They are also interested in the spatial data that is generated by Pokémon GO players. As has been widely observed, playing the game rapidly drains phone batteries, because when the game is open your phone is constantly in touch with Niantic servers and providing detailed spatial information about your movements. The <a href="http://www.pokemon.com/us/privacy-policy/">Privacy Policy</a> notifies players that locational data will be collected during game play, and that “We may share aggregated information and non-identifying information with third parties for research and analysis, demographic profiling, and other similar purposes”. It goes on to note that “Information that we collect from our users is considered to be a business asset”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This not only has the potential for surveillance of an individual gamer’s movements through the city (a potential which is of course inherent in smartphones anyway). Aggregated data about players’ movements through the city also has the potential to be incredibly lucrative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Niantic is now harvesting geospatial data about millions of people’s routes from one place to another, about how far they are prepared to travel as part of game play, about the kinds of places they stop during game play, about the groups they travel with and the connections they make during game play, and much more besides.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The commercial potential of such information is huge. These markets for personal and geospatial data are closely guarded, and notoriously difficult to track by interested observers. While Niantic CEO John Hanke has remained tight-lipped in response to questions about the game’s revenue model, the collection and ‘sharing’ of such data is undoubtedly a core part of the business model of the app.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">So, even gamers who never spend a cent on in-app purchases or promotions are effectively producing information that becomes a commodity owned by Niantic. The free distribution of Pokémon GO can be likened to the free distribution of a tool that lets us make stuff that then belongs to someone else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Of course, this tool happens to be pretty fun to use. But this should not distract us completely from what’s at stake here. Work might be fun. But that doesn’t make it any less a form of labour. And as our everyday urban lives are increasingly commodified in this way, it’s time to start seeking answers to serious questions about how the spoils of our labour (or ‘playbour’) are collected and distributed.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-85217995260693782892015-03-19T23:31:00.002-07:002015-03-19T23:31:26.067-07:00Just because you've got nothing to hide, doesn't mean you've got nothing to lose...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://resources1.news.com.au/images/2014/08/08/1227018/049549-23c0a89a-1eb1-11e4-b56d-3a1fe581cea9.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trust us, we're the good guys ... and there are bad guys, so we need your metadata. ASIO Chief David Irvine and Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner at a press conference supporting metadata retention laws. Source: News Corp </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This week, the Australian House of Representatives passed
new laws which extend the Government’s surveillance powers, by requiring telecommunications
companies to store our metadata for two years, and to make this metadata
available to government security agencies without a warrant. (Unless you’re a journalist, in which case an amendment has
been proposed to require a warrant.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While much of the political debate has focused on the
important question of whether journalists will be in a position to protect
their sources if the legislation passes, there are broader issues at stake.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In defending the legislation, people like the AFP
Commissioner and Attorney-General have frequently invoked the ‘nothing to hide’
argument. Any argument against the Bill is met with the assertion that if
you’ve got nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear from governance
agencies having access to your metadata. By extension, advocates of the Bill
suggest that the only people who have something to fear from increased
government access to their metadata are the anti-social, the criminal, and the
terrorist.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The forced storage and sharing of metadata is but the latest
incidence of surveillance creep in Australian society. Just as our movements
and connections in cyberspace are tracked, so too are our movements through
physical space – by CCTV cameras, licence plate recognition systems, commercial
wi-fi providers, transport smart card systems, and many more technologies besides.
As with the metadata laws, the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is frequently invoked
to sure up support for all of these technologies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ‘nothing to hide’ argument is mobilised so often by
surveillance advocates because it does have traction in the wider community.
When I discuss this issue with university students, for instance, the ‘nothing
to hide’ argument is frequently used as a way of rationalising everything from
participation in social media to support for (or at least indifference towards)
increased surveillance by both corporations and state authorities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the issue of privacy is put this way, it is probably no
surprise that many people choose to identify with the ‘nothing to hide’
argument. After all, if your choice is between having ‘nothing to hide’ and
being a criminal or a terrorist, that’s not much of a choice at all for most
people. And besides (so the argument goes), any loss of individual privacy is a
small price to pay for the convenience and security provided by new
communications and surveillance technologies. Indeed, as Prime Minister Abbott
has put it, the good citizen may have to give up some personal privacy for the
collective good of national security in these ‘troubled times’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If pushed, many who support the ‘nothing to hide’ argument will
likely concede that they are not prepared to share every nook and cranny of
their bodies and their lives with others. But the ‘nothing to hide’ argument is
rarely made in such extreme form. We are not being asked to strip naked before
our peers, or to reveal the intimate content of our phone conversations and
email. In the legislation before Parliament, we are being asked to share the
phone numbers we dial and the places and websites we visit with law
enforcements agencies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But even if you’re someone who thinks you’ve got ‘nothing to
hide’ in relation to the measures before Parliament, this doesn’t mean you’ve
got nothing to lose if the legislation is eventually passed into law by the Senate.
As privacy thinker Daniel Solove argues, certain forms of privacy have a <i>social</i> value, not just a value to
individuals. In other words, making good assessments of legislative changes
such as the one before the Parliament should not be viewed as simply a matter
of weighing up ‘individual privacy’ against the ‘national interest’, as though
there is a simple trade-off between the two. As he puts it, “privacy issues
involve balancing social interests on both sides of the scale.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The point is that each proposal to collect, store and share
any data about us should be debated on its social implications – what
collective goods are secured by reduced privacy in a given domain, and what
collective goods might be undermined? Here, just as knee-jerk defence of a
vaguely-defined and inalienable individual privacy should not carry much
weight, neither should the ‘nothing to hide’ argument be accepted without
scrutiny. We all have something to hide. Not everything that we want to hide is
wrong or evil, and it is good that we are able to hide some things in our
society. So, what things should remain ‘private things’? Who should they be private from, and what kinds of
protections should be put in place when some ‘private things’ become ‘public
things’?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only a serious political debate can answer these questions
democratically. And democratic debate is stymied when any opposition is equated
with criminality and evil intentions. Far from ‘turning a blind eye’ to crime
and terror, most critics are simply trying to make space for clear assessment
and serious debated on the benefits and harms of the particular legislation
before us. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The potential harms are real. Not only journalism, but
activism, scholarship, pluralism and more collective goods besides depend on
our ability to keep some things to ourselves in some circumstances. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And as Solove notes, data collection and sharing are not
only potentially harmful because they reveal individual secrets. They are also
potentially harmful when the citizens who are surveilled have no means to
identify and correct indifference, errors, and abuses that are bound to occur
from time to time when large volumes of data are collected and analysed by
large state agencies. He is as worried about Kafka’s bureaucrats as he is about
Orwell’s Big Brother. From this perspective, the lack of oversight, and lack of
citizen access to our own data and how it is used, is deeply problematic. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Law enforcement agencies reply that imposing burdens such as
warrants and disclosure on their use of data would be time-consuming and
costly. But they provide no evidence that it would put their investigations at
risk. And just as we citizens are urged to accept the notion that the
curtailment of some of our freedoms is necessary for the collective good,
surely the same argument applies to the law enforcement agencies? Some
curtailment of their freedom to access and use our data as they see fit, without
adequate oversight, is most certainly a matter of public good in a democratic
society.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Commenting on the data retention debates in the US, Solove
observes that “Far too often, the balancing of privacy interests against
security interests takes place in a manner that severely shortchanges the
privacy interest while inflating the security interests. Such is the logic of
the nothing to hide argument.” The same will happen here if we let it.<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-55471138313200457582014-09-15T23:13:00.000-07:002014-09-15T23:13:41.600-07:00Facial Recognition (and the scrambling thereof...)Effective facial recognition detection software and systems have beeen in development in various parts of the world for several years. While the ability to recognise faces of real people moving through crowded urban environments in real-time is not yet a reliable prospect and/or an affordable reality in most cities (at least according to CCTV operators I've spoken to), the ability to scan static faces and two dimensional images has been getting more sophisticated for a while. Recently, for instance, the US Federal Bureau of Investigations announced that it would be <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announces-full-operational-capability-of-the-next-generation-identification-system">adding facial recognition software and databases to its 'Next Generation Identification System'</a>, thus enhancing their biometric capabilities.<br />
<br />
So, not surprisingly, facial recognition has become the target of activists concerned with issues of surveillance and privacy. Check out <a href="http://www.urmesurveillance.com/">URME Surveillance</a>, which offers a range of products designed to help people beat the recognition systems (and to raise awareness of the issues associated with new facial recognition technologies). Among the ideas here is the URME Surveillance Personal Suveillance Identity Prosthetic, which is a 3D printed mask letting you wear the artist's face instead of your own. There's a novel use of 3D printing ... go Leo!<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/90828804?portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/90828804">URME SURVEILLANCE: Indiegogo Campaign</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/leoselvaggio">Leo Selvaggio</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<br />
There's an interesting article <a href="http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/10247/anti-facial-recognition-movement/">here</a> interviewing Leo about his project (thanks to Derek for the link!).<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-29582521126335481842014-06-03T06:52:00.001-07:002014-06-03T06:52:37.329-07:00And now for some light relief: John Oliver on the right to be forgotten...Comedian John Oliver's response to the recent EU court decision that backed the '<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/right-to-be-forgotten-eu-court-google-search-results">right to be forgotten</a>', by ruling that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant" data from its searches when a user requests it...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/r-ERajkMXw0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-3251588113274308362014-06-03T06:45:00.000-07:002014-06-03T06:45:01.895-07:00GeoNext : Location Matters<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dyOpvgbowNM/UxUiAaM9m3I/AAAAAAAAAKg/xK7g9q3CrV0/s1600/Geonext.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dyOpvgbowNM/UxUiAaM9m3I/AAAAAAAAAKg/xK7g9q3CrV0/s1600/Geonext.jpg" height="208" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image source: GeoNext</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Wednesday the 26th of February saw 2014's installation of the annual <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/">Geonext Conferenc</a>e held at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, with this year's theme, "Location Matters", emphasising the increasing awareness of the importance of place. To quote GeoNext,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The concept of “place” permeates everything. Whether you are in technology or business; knowing where things happen, where you, your customers or your assets are, is of critical importance. </blockquote>
It was also mentioned that geography was cool and the presenters certainly showed what was cool about geography and geographer's themselves.<br />
<br />
Reflecting the pervasiveness of place, the conference speakers came from diverse industries and represented a range of views on the possibilities of geolocation technologies and their applications. While the diversity of speakers perspectives was evident, there was a notable lack of gender diversity in the presenters and hackers. In fact there was no gender diversity with not one female presenting a paper. Noting the presence of females in the audience however, it would be nice to see this rectified in next year's conference, because location and technology certainly matters to women as much as it does to men. Despite this, the day saw a range of papers on geolocation including presentations which addressed its practical application, its future possibilities, and those which occasionally delved deeper into the moral complexities and issues of privacy which accompany such technologies and the "power of location".<br />
<br />
First up, was <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/nic-lowe/">Nic Lowe</a> of popular car share company, <a href="https://www.goget.com.au/">GoGet</a>, discussing the building of a fine-grain transport network from scratch. This included Lowe's and his business partner's efforts in mapping customers to cars and demand to supply, and the implementation and refinement of a suite of tools and systems to manage their current network of more than 1250 vehicles in close to 1000 locations. For Lowe, it was important to prioritise people, noting that with technology, it is easy to focus on the asset rather than the people who use it. This refining of what Lowe refers to as the human-machine mix is plausibly responsible for GoGet's growth and success. The increased popularity of such share services could be a reflection of what Lowe sees as the future of transport which he believes will be individualised, customised car share transport designed for people.<br />
<br />
Next up we have The Politics of Location's own <span id="goog_1034922660"></span><a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/dr-kurt-iveson/">Kurt Iveson</a><span id="goog_1034922661"></span> and his paper "On the bus in the network city: the politics of real-time public transport". Kurt discussed Sydney's introduction of real-time transport apps for its buses and trains. While there is much enthusiasm surrounding the introduction of smart transport technologies, Iveson looked at the politics accompanying its implementation and its impacts on accessibility, asking despite all the hype, whether smart transport in Sydney is necessarily a good thing. As you may have guessed, answering this question is complex. The genealogy of the apps was outlined, including successful apps created well before the current range of Transport NSW sanctioned apps yet which were taken down due to issues of access to data. Transport legacy systems, ownership of data and access to data feature prominently here. In fact Iveson suggests that the openness of data is a key political battleground with the Government controlling who has access. Access to raw data is not the only access issue with smart transport. As Iveson notes, there is an accessibility issue with the apps themselves. Realtime transport apps are only available to people with smart phones, which excludes those who don't or can't use them. The installation of GPS on transport was also touched upon in relation to the increased surveillance on workers that such technology enabled and an associated pressure on worker's performance. As such it was suggested that smart transport prioritises some actors while marginalizing others.<br />
<br />
Returning to the theme of the sharing economy evident in the GoGet presentation, <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/james-moody/">James Moody</a> of <a href="https://www.tushare.com/">TuShare</a> discussed the importance of share schemes in an increasingly resource scarce world. Focusing on the "hidden inefficiencies and idle assets" Moody outlined how both individuals and companies are beginning to take advantage of such hidden value through collaborative consumption. The increasing popularity of the sharing economy was demonstrated by a rise in sharing services over the past two years.<br />
<br />
Attending to the actual development of geolocation technology, <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/chris-rizos-2/">Professor Chris Rizos</a>, discussed the problems with GNSS systems and the need for accurate and highly available indoor positioning systems. Specifically, Rizos discusses the development of <a href="http://www.locata.com/">Locata</a>, a ground-based GNSS-like navigation system which can transmit ranging signals at several frequencies in the 2.4GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands. The technology has successfully been used in open cut mines and airborne tests to augment GNSS and with the development of a beam-forming antenna technology which delivers multipath-mitigated measurements for both positioning and orientation, Locata has developed into a useful tool for highly accurate and reliable indoor navigation. Rizos cautions however, that the success of Locata, and similar research is often constrained by limited funding and the short term thinking that pervades government approaches to funding innovation. If progress in such areas is to be made, this attitude must be addressed, to avoid technologies being thwarted and not realising their full potential.<br />
<br />
Next up was a panel discussion centering on wearable technologies. The panel was comprised of Peter Koch of Explore Engage, Eliot Duff of CISRO, and Rob Manson of buildAR.com. Unsurprisingly this included a discussion of Google Glass. Asked whether they thought Glass and similar products would be successful, it was suggested that like most new technologies, their initial adoption would be niche before growing a broader market appeal. Popular initial industries for use included the construction, engineering and mining industries, where augmented reality could play a big role in planning, construction, maintenance and repair. This lead to a broader discussion on the Internet of Things and its possibilities and constraints, the obvious constraining factor being reliable broadband networks. Importantly the panel seemed to see the future of wearable technology and augmented reality, not as technology, machine, or robotics dominant, but as a mix between machine and human relations. Speakers talked of the need to have an awareness of automated objects' intentions, and also the ability to communicate with them. It was thought that wearable technology should be an intention based service in that the intent of the user directs the service - in one panel members words, "I want a service based on where I'm looking at".<br />
<br />
Location intelligence and its relevance to marketing is discussed by <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/kolt-luty/">Kolt Luty</a> of Pitney Bowes Software, in his paper "New Location Perspectives in Retail - in the Zone". Location intelligence has become mainstream and Luty describes its usefulness for retailers in targeting the right locations, and target audiences for their product. Particularly interesting were the possibilities of geofencing. Geofencing creates a virtual boundary on a real-world geographic area. This means that targeted offers tailored to a customers likes and essentials based on their spending habits can be sent to customers who opt in to such services. As these customers enter the geofenced area they can receive the offer via sms, ad or coupon, enticing them to enter the store and spend. Geofencing marketing can both aim to retain their normal spending but also increase cross departmental spending by alerting the customer to offers in other departments while they're in store. The big value for such marketing and retail techniques resides in knowing the individual's consumption data.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/hamish-roberston/">Hamish Robertson</a> demonstrated how spatial science can support community-based ageing by linking and visualising varied components of the spectrum of organisations and services that engage with older people. Roberston developed a 'virtual earth' model of population ageing, dementia projections and health and social support infrastructure. He noted that despite the value of such models, spatial science is under-utilised in designing and implementing better aged care and health strategies, particularly when you consider that although the majority of older people don't want to move, the typical response to ageing is to relocate the individual. Keeping this in mind, Robertson built his model to link population data, epidemiological data and health and social support information to create a virtual environment for inquiring on the current and future implications of population ageing.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/billy-haworth/">Billy Haworth</a> presented on the use of social media and information communication during disaster events. Using two recent events, the 2010/2011 Queensland floods, and the 2013 Tasmania bushfires, Haworth discussed how individuals have utilised a range of social media and location technologies to share images of disaster impacts, coordinate relief efforts, send alerts for help, and express support for those effected by the disasters. Billy gets extra points for managing to include a reference to One Direction in his paper but questioned whether Harry Styles really could help or would care about the fires, despite one tweeters hope he would. You can find more information about <a href="http://exploringplacesandpeople.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/vgi-and-bushfire-preparation-in.html">Billy's research on Volunteered Geographic Information</a> in the context of bushfire preparation in Tasmania at the "<a href="http://exploringplacesandpeople.blogspot.co.uk/">Exploring places and people</a>" blog.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/rohan-fernando/">Rohan Fernando</a> of HERE brought our attention to the "Race for the Geospatial Overworld" and the billions of dollars invested into building a spatially precise virtual representation of our real world in complete 3D and which can be updated in real-time. More commonly known as Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), the geospatial overworld, produces advanced interactive digital maps and map-related functionality as a holistic service. Fernando discusses the uses of SDIs and their potential to change our lives. According to Fernando, SDI's include updated data collected by global teams of professional geographic analysts as well as anonymous data collected automatically from many dynamically interactive systems around the world, including each of us. Important to this type of analysis, are the larger group patterns that are shown through big data, rather than the emphasis on the patterns of the individual which are important to the marketing analytics discussed by Luty.<br />
<br />
The final paper presentation of the day was delivered by <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/speaker/simon-hope-2/">Simon Hope</a> of Geoplex, on "The Geekification of GIS". There was less about geeks but a lot about GIS which seemed appropriate for a GeoNext conference. Hope talked about how the rate of change in technology is having an impact on the GIS space and forcing a rethink of approaches to GIS delivery. Techniques and software innovations from the wider technology space are seen as filtering into GIS territory and having an impact in the spatial world. Cloud solutions were discussed as being more nimble and agile approaches than traditional monolithic spatial data infrastructures and Hope discussed software delivery techniques they've used to allow organisations to scale and manage large spatial applications. Software applications were considered as significantly influencing the spatial world.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/hack-contest/">Hackfest</a> presentations concluded the presentation part of the day. App developers were given a chance to design an app for GoGet with a multitude of prizes in the offering. Winners were chosen by GoGet and Here based on their favourite entries. The apps and the winners can be found <a href="http://www.geonext.com.au/hack-contest/">here</a>. The winning app was Treffyn Koreshoff who cleverly worked on blurring the line between machine and person, creating a personality for the GoGet vehicles which could be viewed on the app and included their favourite journeys, and emphasised the relationship between GoGet users and the vehicles.<br />
<br />
Georabble drinks were held at the end of the day. The conference had provided an insight into the multiple directions geolocational technology is heading in, the variety of potential applications, and the social and ethical implications of such technology. There was much enthusiasm for the benefits that these technologies can bring however perhaps more emphasis needs to be put on an awareness of the politics behind the technologies. Issues of access, privacy and surveillance need to be taken seriously rather than just given lip service or suggesting that it is the culture that needs to change to be more accepting of lesser degrees of privacy brought by the use of such technologies.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_QyIYHx8ysI/UxUovZY_U3I/AAAAAAAAAK0/EmMFOQSRs8w/s1600/Geonext+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_QyIYHx8ysI/UxUovZY_U3I/AAAAAAAAAK0/EmMFOQSRs8w/s1600/Geonext+map.jpg" height="208" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image source: GeoNext</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3f4950; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #3f4950; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-65961124813864157412014-04-08T20:26:00.000-07:002014-04-08T20:26:10.121-07:00People, Place and Space Reader: Reading List on People, Place and MediaThe <i>People, Place and Space Reader</i> has a great website, with open access versions of its section introductions and links to further reading.<br />
<br />
Gregory Donovan's introduction to the section on People, Place and Media in the Contemporary City, and his suggested list of readings, can be found <a href="http://peopleplacespace.org/frr/people-place-and-media/">here</a>. He notes that in compiling the readings, he was:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
particularly interested in
scholarship that challenged ahistorical and flattening discourses of <em>new</em> media, <em>cloud</em> computing, and <em>big</em> data.</blockquote>
It's a good list ... check it!<br />
<br />
<img alt="" id="main-image" rel="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z2K4mz-WL._SY300_.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: inline;" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-16480326302794208372013-11-12T15:07:00.000-08:002013-11-12T15:07:53.898-08:00Proximity-based social networking<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zYRlZCNNs0s/UfcNjjg2kJI/AAAAAAAAAFc/VyH73LAU8SM/s1600/Claim-Google-Places-Listing1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zYRlZCNNs0s/UfcNjjg2kJI/AAAAAAAAAFc/VyH73LAU8SM/s640/Claim-Google-Places-Listing1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source:<a href="http://thenextweb.com/">http://thenextweb.com</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Proximity-based social networks, such as Foursquare, the now-retired Google Latitude and Facebook Places, were a promising vision back in 2009. But it's now 2013 and things have changed. As mentioned, Google and Facebook, retired their own takes on the theme, although both retained the check-in features within Google+ and as a tagging option in Facebook's status updates. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So what has happened? Citing check-in fatigue and the obsolescence of the manual check-in because of ability to automatically obtain location data through a user's device, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/author/natasha-lomas/">Natasha Lomas</a> recently implored people to <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/23/location-vs-communication/">stop trying to make proximity-based social networking happen</a>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
According to Lomas </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Most people need to communicate at regular intervals — which is the driving force behind the rise and rise of mobile messaging apps. Far fewer people feel a similar imperative to regularly broadcast their location. Or tether their communications to a particular location. That’s got ‘niche use-case’ written all over it.<br />
... Of course there’s still a hardcore of check-in junkies who use Foursquare, but there’s still a hardcore of Google fans who use Google+ (oh, and, Robert Scoble), just as there’s a core group of people who continue visiting the local library. The wider point here is that you don’t need to require users to manually check-in when you can grab their location data automatically, based on where a user’s cell phone or tablet is accessing your service. For those (pesky) users who block location spiders, there are still embedded options and frequent nagging to share where they are. But for the average ‘click yes to anything’ app user the emphasis has shifted to an assumption that location will be taken at the point of sign up.</blockquote>
Lomas astutely notes, that just because the check-in services are declining, it does not mean location-based services are also on the decline, as increasing amounts of location-based data is being collected automatically through mobile computing.<br />
<br />
The proximity-based social network is rendered a niche product in the few circumstances where proximity rather than communication is the over-riding factor. Lomas cites <a href="http://grindr.com/">Grindr</a>, and, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/14/shpock-2/">shpock</a> - a local retail app, as examples of feasible proximity-based network products. She mentions Nokia's new <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLNSogBJlE">Job Lens</a> app, which in a combination of augmented reality and job hunting allows the user to find jobs relative to their location; and Apple's apps <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/11/why-apple-gave-up-on-genius-for-apps-and-whats-next-for-the-app-stores-long-tail/">"Near Me"</a> app implemented in iOS 7, as less useful products.<br />
<br />
The rise of the mobile messaging apps and the decline of the proximity-based social network, suggests that for friendship it is communication not location that is the influential component. As Lomas notes,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The long and short of it is the most interesting kind of proximity is the digital proximity that allows people to keep in touch virtually without having to be co-located most of the time. Location is a feature of friendship, communication is the focus.</blockquote>
<br />
The people at Cisco, however think that despite it's tendency for niche products, proximity-based social networks can do a lot of good. According to <a href="http://newsroom.cisco.com/authorbio-detail?articleId=768623">Melissa Jun Rowley</a>, the emerging proximity-based social networking market is expected to reach $1.9 billion in revenues by 2016. In her <a href="http://newsroom.cisco.com/feature-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1204130">article on proximity-based social change</a>, Jun Rowley, suggests that the opportunities for proximity services to spark social change are just beginning to unfold. Two examples are used to illustrate these potentials.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/ElectronicMonitoring/Home/ProductsServices/OurProducts/GPSTracking/">3M's Domestic Violence Proximity Notification System</a>: Uses GPS, RF and cellular communication. Security layers are created around the victims, and proximity notification layers around the aggressors. The system tracks aggressors sends alerts to victims and law enforcers.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://pos-rep.com/">POS REP</a>: A social network which facilitates reconnection and reintegration of military veterans. Founder, Anthony Allman, claims it was developed to respond to issues faced by veterans after the suicide of Purple Heart recipient and veteran advocate Clay Hunt. The service connects veterans to peers and services in their communities.<br />
<br />
Jun Rowley sees these examples as evidence that proximity-based social networking can be used for social good and considers whether it could become a trend, claiming that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As devices or "things" start to communicate with one another and develop their own intelligence more, what they'll be able to accomplish through proximity and beyond is going to change daily human behavior, as well as our notions about benefitting humanity through technology.</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HR4Vlezkyo0/UfcOD4ZJ-BI/AAAAAAAAAFk/qP-3klyXYMc/s1600/cisco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="171" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HR4Vlezkyo0/UfcOD4ZJ-BI/AAAAAAAAAFk/qP-3klyXYMc/s400/cisco.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: <a href="http://newsroom.cisco.com/">http://newsroom.cisco.com</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-55871223401853071972013-10-21T20:01:00.000-07:002013-10-21T20:01:58.624-07:00Wi-Fi access<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OXs-nuZ5M-E/Ukonr179jkI/AAAAAAAAAHM/PjKkt3UmgX0/s1600/WIFI-autumn-statement-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="384" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OXs-nuZ5M-E/Ukonr179jkI/AAAAAAAAAHM/PjKkt3UmgX0/s640/WIFI-autumn-statement-007.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Public Wi-Fi and its issues. Image source: The Guardian/Sipa Press/Rex Features</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
One of the problems that arises with issues such as wi-fi and the easier facilitation of internet access it affords is the disparity in access to such services and by extension, the content they provide. For low income earners, the cost of broadband internet is beyond their budget. However, a progressive initiative in Bury, Manchester, has attempted to address this issue by providing what is thought to be the UK's first free community wi-fi.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The partnership between Broad Oaks sports college, Bury council and Pennine Telecom, offers free wi-fi to low income families, and the network has now been extended to one square mile, providing the East Bury community with free internet. The scheme was originally initiated to help disadvantaged students at the school. <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the-northerner/2013/jul/18/free-wi-fi-lampposts-bury-broad-oak">The Guardian</a></i> cites that in 2008, 40% of the schools population did not have broadband internet at home, and quotes the school deputy head, Chris Owen, as noting that these students were at a disadvantage, "They couldn't access the same learning resources that other students they were in competition with were accessing."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
According to <i>The Guardian</i>: </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The network, simply named "Internet", requires no login, has no time limit and can support 400 users at a time. It is currently receiving 200 users daily, and can be accessed from mobile devices and tablets as well as desktop computers and laptops.</blockquote>
The community has welcomed the free internet, noting the cost saving benefits, its speed, and its multiple uses from studying and education, to job hunting, planning travel routes, and social media.<br />
<br />
Also in the UK however, recent research has indicated that more than half of free public Wi-Fi provide no filters to block adult content, allowing access to pornography, and websites that contain adult, weapons and drug related material. According to a recent article published in <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/25/porn-knives-and-drugs-websites-accessible-on-most-public-wi-fi">The Guardian</a></i>, <br />
<blockquote>
The research examined 179 locations across Birmingham, Manchester and London, including cafes, restaurants, shops, hotels and public spaces, and found that 51% of free Wi-Fi hotspots allowed unfiltered access to adult content. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
One in three UK cafes and restaurants, for instance, have no filtering in place to protect children and prevent their access to pornography, while a further 20% failed to restrict customer access to online sex dating sites, such as AdultFriendFinder.com.</blockquote>
According to the vice-president of product strategy and business development at AdaptiveMobile, Graeme Coffey, the past years have seen two trends which has inadvertently enabled greater access to content that is inappropriate for minors, these being the increase in public Wi-Fi and increased access to Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the last two years there have been two convergent trends: a big increase in public wifi or ‘hospitality Wi-Fi’, and greater access to smartphones, gaming consoles and tablets with a wifi capability, the kind of device a child could have. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whilst hotels are predominantly private places, where a ‘no filtering’ policy may be appropriate, hotel lobbies, cafés and restaurants are more public and the content policy should reflect this. It is certainly neither a simple nor a ‘one size fits all’ matter.</blockquote>
<i>The Guardian</i> cites Andy Phippen, professor of social responsibility in IT at the Plymouth Business School, as noting the importance of the need for filters in public space, “Having filters in public spaces is just as important as other restrictions such as the smoking ban and modesty covers on adult magazines...But simply having a filter doesn't necessarily mean everything is protected." <br />
<br />
Of all the Wi-Fi spots in public spaces which were reviewed, it was public places such as train stations, and Government owned spaces, that had the highest amount of filters that blocked adult content.<br />
<br />
Both these stories demonstrate the issues surrounding access to Wi-Fi and the complexities of its availibility in public spaces. On the one hand, we have an entire community provided with free Wi-Fi in an effort to bridge the inequality, and socio-economic divide that characterises the area. It benefits the community by allowing members greater access to educational resources and online services which were previously unavailable or at least very limited.<br />
<br />
The other story reminds us that there are other issues that must be considered when discussing public Wi-Fi. The increasing number of Wi-Fi hotspots, paired with the rising numbers of Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices, combined with no consistent approach to filtering and content blockers, creates a situation where inappropriate content can be accessed by children and youth. Being in public space, this raises question about which publics are being considered, and suggests that the complexities of Wi-Fi and mobile device access, both good and bad need more attention.<br />
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-14766293629253984832013-10-17T16:40:00.000-07:002013-10-17T16:40:06.982-07:00IngressGoogle has created a global near real-time augmented reality game, <span id="goog_921204910"></span><a href="http://www.ingress.com/">Ingress</a><span id="goog_921204911"></span>, which is played on Android devices.It is a great example of mobile gaming immersed in the player's surrounding environment and the outside world.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vESfkP4_Pxc/UglaQnmbEFI/AAAAAAAAAGY/fMKo5FiN0R0/s1600/ingress_by_nayshou-d5mprty-590x331.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vESfkP4_Pxc/UglaQnmbEFI/AAAAAAAAAGY/fMKo5FiN0R0/s320/ingress_by_nayshou-d5mprty-590x331.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image source: geek.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In November 2012, a viral game, the <a href="http://www.nianticproject.com/">Niantic Project</a>, appeared. The project was touted as an Investigation Board filled with cryptic clues and secret codes. The story continues to evolve everyday with clues, secrets and game tech waiting to be found and unlocked. Players are encouraged to form alliances across neighbourhoods, cities and countries.The Niantic Project was revealed to be part of a larger Google project called Ingress, a real-time location-based mobile game which according to <a href="http://www.geek.com/games/googles-ingress-game-is-an-invite-only-cyber-adventure-1528685/">Geek.com</a> seems:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
to be taking the cues from augmented reality games, puzzle games, geocaching, and team-based online gameplay to make a futuristic game where your phone is the center of everything. Teams of players use live maps to hunt for portals, which show up on the game map to be hacked and captured. Outside of the localized mobile view, there’s a global view on desktops that show the whole team in action across the globe.</blockquote>
<div>
<br />
The game is invite-only and you can request to play at the games site <a href="http://www.ingress.com/">http://www.ingress.com</a>. The app plays out in the real world and according to <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nianticproject.ingress">Google</a>:</div>
<div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ingress transforms the real world into the landscape for a global game of mystery, intrigue, and competition.<br />
Our future is at stake. And you must choose a side.<br />
A mysterious energy has been unearthed by a team of scientists in Europe. The origin and purpose of this force is unknown, but some researchers believe it is influencing the way we think. We must control it or it will control us.<br />
“The Enlightened” seek to embrace the power that this energy may bestow upon us.<br />
“The Resistance” struggle to defend, and protect what’s left of our humanity.<br />
Install Ingress and transform your world.<br />
The World is the Game<br />
Move through the real world using your Android device and the Ingress app to discover and tap sources of this mysterious energy. Acquire objects to aid in your quest, deploy tech to capture territory, and ally with other players to advance the cause of the Enlightened or the Resistance.<br />
Strategy<br />
The struggle is being played out globally. Track the progress of players around the world, plan your next steps, and communicate with others using an Intelligence map. </blockquote>
<br />
Earlier this year, Google teamed up with HINT water offering in-game codes invites under the bottle caps allowing the player to choose between the Enlightenment and the Resistance, the games two factions. This provides an alternative option to the current modes of obtaining codes, which is usually either the email reservation system which occasionally emails out invite codes, or by getting the attention of one of the community moderators. Once in the game you can take to the streets to complete the puzzles that offer additional in-game power-ups, or simply look under the caps of HINT water bottles. Then you can get back on the the streets and get playing! As long as you have both an Android phone and invite of course.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/92rYjlxqypM?feature=player_detailpage" width="640"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The following video summarizes the background to the Niantic Project and its progress through 2012:
<br />
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ysBqgLTHerE?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-38264354011929509692013-10-10T17:26:00.001-07:002014-02-24T16:00:20.272-08:00GPS JammingPeople wanting to stop GPS tracking of their movements are increasingly using devices that scramble tracking systems. "GPS jammers" can be plugged into car cigarette lighters to create a 500 meter zone around their car which interferes with the tracking systems.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lM8je5pp4_o/UgGoc2qxzfI/AAAAAAAAAGE/IqKm64Kahx4/s1600/GPS+Jammer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lM8je5pp4_o/UgGoc2qxzfI/AAAAAAAAAGE/IqKm64Kahx4/s320/GPS+Jammer.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GPS Jammer. Image source: www.foxnews.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
According to <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/13/gps-jammers-uk-roads-risks">The Guardian</a></i>, GPS tracking systems are used to detect stolen vehicles, monitor vehicle use and to stop drivers working overly long shifts. Using the jammers could also impact on plans to introduce pay as you drive insurance schemes or road toll systems. The Guardian cites Prof Charles Curry of Chronos Technology saying that,</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When people use these, it creates a bubble around their vehicle for about 500 metres that jams any GPS receiver or transmitter. ... It stops any tracking system the owner might have put on the car. Usually they will block GSM [mobile phone] signals too that might also be used to send back a location... It means that for anyone trying to track the vehicle, it just vanishes off the map – it's as though it were in an underground car park." </blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the UK, it is not illegal to purchase, sell or possess the jammers. It is currently only an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act to "knowingly use" such a device to block GPS signals – though according to <i>The Guardian</i> the communications regulator Ofcom is looking to close some of the loopholes. But some see a danger beyond fatigued drivers however, citing the possibility of the devices affecting aircraft navigation systems, and interfering with the GPS systems of drivers in the immediate vicinity, wiping out their signals also.<br />
<br />
The need to address the jamming of GPS devices, has also been reiterated by Brad Parkinson, the project leader of the team who originally created the global positioning system in the 1970s. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/17/gps-creator-brad-parkinson-penalties-satellite-blockers">Parkinson discusses</a> the need for higher penalties for GPS jamming offenders and cited Australia's penalties as an appropriate model for other countries to adopt. He cites an incident where during testing at Newark airport of GPS technology for the blind landing of planes, researchers found that the signal would periodically get jammed at the same time each day. The cause was pinpointed to a truck driver who was trying to jam the GPS on his truck, but the reach of the device to interrupt with the airport signals suggests the potential seriousness of jamming.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In May 2012, the North Koreans used much more powerful jammers to <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/north-korea-pumps-up-the-gps-jamming-in-week-long-attack/">scramble GPS signals</a> near two of South Korea's major airports. The Russian built devices are claimed to be able to affect systems as far as 100km away.<br />
<br />
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has intercepted and destroyed nearly 100 illegal signal jammers that interfere with GPS and mobile devices. According to the <i><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/illegal-mobile-phone-and-gps-jammer-crackdown-by-regulator-yields-results-20130717-2q2oo.html#ixzz2Zp7BSpWp">Sydney Morning Herald</a> </i>(SMH), the jammers were intercepted through the mail between November 2011 and June 2012.<br />
<br />
The jammers are illegal in Australia and the possession or supply of the devices can be met with heavy fines and possible imprisonment of two years. Body corporate's can receive up to $225 000 for the offence, while causing interference to radio communications used by emergency services can attract a fine of up to $850 000 or a five year prison sentence.<br />
<br />
The SMH states that the ACMA believes most jammers are typically used by those who want to stop mobile phone calls from being made or received in a certain vicinity.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Others just use them to cause a nuisance. In one example several years ago, the regulator found an imam at a Western Sydney mosque using one during prayers to ensure there was silence. In another, a company installed one in its boardroom after getting advice from a security expert."</blockquote>
<br />
There has been a decrease in the number of jammers seized by authorities. According to Mark Loney, executive manager, ACMA's operations and services branch,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My sense is that the rate of intercepts to the mail stream is falling," he said. "That could be a good sign and that there's less people buying them. Or it could mean that they are coming in and are not being picked up in the mail stream. We don't have perfect knowledge about this but the fact that we're seeing less is encouraging."</blockquote>
<br />
The NSW Department of Corrective Services is the only organisation approved within Australia to be granted an exemption. They are currently trialing the jammers at Lithgow jail after an inmate smuggled in a mobile phone with which to control drug operations on the outside.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Jamming GPS becomes problematic when the amount of infrastructure and systems that rely on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) for deriving position, navigation and timing data (PNT), of which GPS is the most widely used, are considered. The services to which the technology is applied ranges from car navigation, data networks, financial systems, shipping and air transport systems, agriculture, railways, emergency services, and safety of life applications. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering (<a href="http://www.raeng.org.uk/">RAE</a>), many of these systems have GPS as a shared dependency, so a loss of signal could cause the simultaneous failure of many services that are probably expected to be independent of each other.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, our reliance on GPS systems continues often without a non-GNSS back-up, or inadequate back-up if contingency plans have been put in place. Therefore, any disruption to the signal can result in a range of consequences dependent on the application. <a href="http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/RAoE_Global_Navigation_Systems_Report.pdf">The RAE notes that</a>,<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
disruptive interference can occur unintentionally and, worse still, deliberate interference is a real and growing possibility. As opportunities arise for criminals to make money, avoid costs or avoid detection, it is known that significant effort will be directed towards attacking GNSS based systems. The banking infrastructure has already seen such an increase in high-tech attacks and now devotes considerable time and expense to countermeasures. Potential and already known mechanisms for deliberate interference include: </blockquote>
<blockquote>
• Jamming GNSS based vehicle tracking devices to prevent a supervisor’s knowledge of a driver’s movements, or avoiding road user charging.<br />
• Rebroadcasting (‘meaconing’) a GNSS signal maliciously, accidentally or to improve reception but causing misreporting of a position.<br />
• Spoofing GNSS signals to create a controllable misreporting of position, for example to deceive tracking devices.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
As the use of GNSS for revenue raising purposes increases through road user charging or vehicle tracking, the prevalence of cheap jamming devices will increase. Because the signal received at ground level from the GNSS satellites is weak – it may be as low as -160dBW (1 x 10–16W) – jamming over a small area is easily achieved and it is known that dedicated kit is already readily available for purchase over the internet even though use of that equipment in the UK is illegal. In the United States, monitoring for GPS signal anomalies is routine and the occurrence of jamming incidents, both deliberate and accidental is growing. In the UK, the Technology Strategy Board is supporting a project to establish a service to verify the extent to which GNSS signals can be trusted by users.</blockquote>
Fox News also recently <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/07/26/exclusive-gps-flaw-could-let-terrorists-hijack-ships-planes/">reported on research at the University of Texas</a> which demonstrated the vulnerability of the GPS system. Using a laptop, a small antenna and an electronic GPS “spoofer” built for $3,000, GPS expert Todd Humphreys and his team were able to gain control of a sophisticated navigation system on board a super yacht involved in the research. The team were able to use counterfeit radio signals to steer the vessel and take it off course, while on board, the ship's GPS system indicated the ship was still on course. The research team suggested that such GPS "spoofing" could cause major havoc in maritime contexts and could be also used to interfere with the systems on commercial aircraft. This has obvious implications for security considering the system's vulnerability to be hacked.<br />
<br />
Responding to this requires both awareness and policy changes to increase resilience and robustness of GNSS systems. Australian company, <a href="http://locata.com/">Locata</a> has invented what they claim to be the World's first local GPS system, "Locatalite", which "plugs" holes in GPS and offers independent positions, navigation and time capability as well as local back-up for GPS. The RAE offers a series of recommendations to address the GNSS resilience issues and suggests,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The provision of a widely available PNT service as an alternative to GNSS is an essential part of the national infrastructure. It should be cost effective to incorporate in civil GNSS receivers and free to use. Ideally it should provide additional benefits, such as availability inside buildings and in GNSS blindspots.</blockquote>
These solutions address the infrastructure and technological side of GPS disruption, but perhaps responses should also be directed to understanding the reasons for why people use jammers. Criminal reason's aside, there are issues of increasing surveillance of worker's and the associated discomfort and mistrust encouraged by such tracking; also the need for engaging in activities without the interference of mobile phones, such as in cinemas, and as noted in the Sydney mosque example. Perhaps in these circumstances, focus should not be solely on technological solutions but on social solutions too, and working towards resolving the issues which entice people to use the jammers. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-21396578737582418232013-10-09T17:14:00.000-07:002013-10-09T17:14:16.296-07:00In Google We Trust<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I9W3S6Hshgg/UlN52BVtm4I/AAAAAAAAAHc/8J6jdr6hTDU/s1600/fourcorners.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I9W3S6Hshgg/UlN52BVtm4I/AAAAAAAAAHc/8J6jdr6hTDU/s640/fourcorners.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Technologically connected but where does our data go? Image source: ABC Four Corners</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
The ABC current affairs program, Four Corners, recently broadcast an episode that looked at life in the digital age, <i><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/09/09/3842009.htm">In Google We Trust</a></i>. The episode followed the a day in the life of your "average" Australian family, looking at how the everyday technologies they use, create a profile of their movements interests, likes, communications and the extent of the data networks that this information travels through. The program also discusses the opportunities for surveillance, tracking and the general erosion of privacy that these technologies enable, often without much public awareness of these intrusions. Many of these are known to us and our readers here at <i>The Politics of Location</i>, some which will be reiterated in today's post, along with a few examples which are new to us.<br />
<br />
The first member of the family to be the focus of the camera's attention is their teenage daughter, Christina. She likes to visit sites such as YouTube, tumblr and instagram to keep up to date with what people and celebrities are doing. She also likes Selena Gomez. Of course, the use of these sites raises the question of privacy agreements required for using such services and whether or not the majority of people read them, and if they do, whether they actually understand them. The answer is a resounding "No". No surprises there. According to <a href="http://www.canberra.edu.au/cis/aboutcis/people/">Alistair MacGibbon</a>, from the <a href="http://www.canberra.edu.au/cis/">Center for Internet Safety</a>, and former federal police officer:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Even if there are 156 pages of terms and conditions very conveniently though that checkbox is on page one, and I suspect that the majority of Australians have never read a privacy policy and if they had, they probably couldn't understand it.</blockquote>
Furthermore, he notes that people should not be lapsed into a false sense of security based on the familiarity of the environment from which they're accessing the net:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If we think that we're in our lounge room or bedroom engaging in the internet, that it's just us - there're an awful lot of people looking over your shoulder.</blockquote>
This means, that even before Christina starts her school day, her online activity and the data that generates is already travelling internationally and being tracked, providing advertisers with information to directly target marketing to her. This doesn't really bother Christina because she believes she there is no sensitive information that can be gathered from her internet use and she isn't using her accounts to do anything secret, although one might be doubtful if liking Selena Gomez is something you want shared. But that doesn't particularly seem to bother a twelve year old. The basic message here though is that privacy agreements are often unclear and convoluted, deterring users from perusing and comprehending them fully. Thus people sign up without being fully aware what data is being collected and how it will be used. The data creates a digital profile of the user and companies frequently use this data for targeted advertising. They know a lot about you.<br />
<br />
Next up is teenage son Alexi, who is the highest app user in the family. On the topic of apps, <a href="http://www.troyhunt.com/2013/09/web-security-dark-matter-developers-and.html">Troy Hunt</a>, Internet Security Officer, is quick to point out that apps essentially do what your internet browser does, and again makes your online activity trackable and able to be intercepted. Alexi's apps are scrutinised by Hunt and he finds that some of the apps that users would consider as trustworthy actually have some major security problems, the example here being the app of the NRL team, the Sydney Roosters. Their protocol wasn't encrypted which meant that personal information and credit card data entered into the site would be available to anybody observing the connection. The Sydney Roosters have since fixed this problem.<br />
<br />
The problem with apps, according to Hunt, is that they often operate on user trust:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
So that's a real problem with this app and it's unfortunate when you're sitting at a PC and you're doing your banking or you're doing your shopping, you get a little padlock icon and you can sort of look for that, and you get some sort of confidence in the security of the website. But you don't get that in an app, so all you know with an app is that these guys are saying, hey trust me with your credit card details - so that one basically has not even an attempt at securing your credentials.</blockquote>
<br />
Reporter, Geoff Thompson, next turns his attention to the father, Jim, a financial planner who travels to work by motorbike. Etags are mentioned in passing as a trade off between convenient automatic billing and the road authorities knowing when he uses the tolls. What is news to Jim, and also to us here at this blog, is that <a href="http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/">NSW Roads and Maritime Services</a> is downloading information on his mobile phone by scanning its Bluetooth signal as he passes particular streetlights. This obviously raises concerns about what data is being stored and whether it is de-identified, as Hunt notes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It's a question of what they're actually capturing and saving, I mean the concern that I would have is are they tracking identifiable information about individuals, because if they're tracking identifiable information and they're doing it at multiple points, then they're tracking everything from your personal movements, to the average speed that you could be carrying, that would be a bit of a concern to me, it's a question though of whether it's de-identified or not.</blockquote>
<br />
The Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) is collecting the Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of mobile phones at 16 sets of traffic lights in inner Sydney. MAC addresses are unique identifiers of mobile phones and similar devices (we talked about their use in so-called 'Spy Bins' in London <a href="http://politicsoflocation.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/spy-bins-and-passive-wi-fi-monitoring.html">here</a>). They are not considered as personal information by Australian privacy laws because the phone's owner is not easily identified by the address. This however doesn't mean its not invading privacy or doesn't have the potential to. As Hunt cautions,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
this might be one of those cases where you want to get a definition of personal information, is a unique device address personal information? You know, maybe it is not, but it does still track an individual's movements, ah so whether or not they admit to actually tracking it, the capability is there.</blockquote>
The RMS <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/documents/bigdata2013/RMS-Response.pdf">issued a statement</a> in response to the Four Corner's inquiries claiming that,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The devices receive the Bluetooth MAC address but no other identifying information is captured. MAC addresses are anonymous data.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The signals provide RMS with data to show the number of vehicles passing through intersections at particular times which then helps RMS monitor traffic flows. Unlike other devices with measure traffic volumes, this method allows RMS to measure traffic flow and provide information on trip and exit times to customers. </blockquote>
<br />
Despite this Four Corners uses examples of technologies which ended up having impacts beyond what was initially intended.San Francisco's toll tag, is one such example, for despite being introduced only with the intention for automatic billing, it eventually had impact on divorce proceedings. The movements of spouses became important information, and the courts acted to subpoena such information from the tags.<br />
<br />
The fact that Jim drives to work also brings up the issue of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (APNR) technology which takes photographs of number plates and identifies any "problem" vehicles. Introduced in late 2009, the technology is now installed on 280 police cars across NSW. The cameras take six photos a second and these photos are stored on a data base for approximately five years. But the scanners don't discriminate on which vehicles they photograph. All number plates in view are targeted whether they are doing something illegal or not. According to Four Corners, since 2009 the NSW police force has captured and stored more than 208,799,000 number plates. However, the police are reluctant to explain how exactly they use this data, noting that there are strict protocols for accessing and retrieving the stored information and that none of it is personal, while offering a general statement that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The information collected by the ANPR units - car photo, registration plate number ... and where and when the photo was taken - is stored in a separate data base for about five years."</blockquote>
However, as the episode notes, this is essentially a database of where you've been and when for the past for years. Hunt believes we have reason to question the innocuousness of the technology:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Without any confirmation to the contrary, and I can understand why they'd want to be cagey about something like this, that's really the only conclusion you can draw right? Because we know that the data's being collected, we know we have the technology to match a numberplate in one location to a numberplate in another location, I mean this is, this is very basic stuff. So you have to draw the conclusion that that yes they, you know, this is all getting put together at some point.</blockquote>
This clearly shows the potential for metadata to be stored and used to link people and events over a period of years. This potential is voiced by the Australian Privacy Commissioner, <a href="http://www.oaic.gov.au/about-us/who-we-are/our-executive/privacy-commissioner-timothy-pilgrim">Timothy Pilgrim</a>, who notes that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Metadata can tell quite a lot about a person's activity in terms of the times they're transmitting and who they're transmitting data to or having communications with, certainly it can provide quite a lot of information.</blockquote>
And there are more than 300 000 metadata requests made each year.<br />
<br />
However, it is not just internet data, apps, number plates, etags, and mobile phones that are surrendering our data. Thompson, now turns to the mother of the family, Helen, who is heading out to do the grocery shopping. This of course brings up Coles <a href="https://www.flybuys.com.au/">"Flybuys"</a> and Woolworths <a href="https://www.everydayrewards.com.au/">"Everyday Rewards"</a>.<br />
<br />
Rob Scott, Finance Director for Coles, claims that the FlyBuys system is an extension of what retailers have been doing for years, in getting to know the customer, what products they need and like, and then tailoriing their services and stock to the customer. As Alastair MacGibbon notes, "loyalty cards and rewards programs are about collecting information about you. Again, it's a perfectly legitimate thing to do, so long as you go into it with your eyes wide open."<br />
<br />
It is noted that Woolworth's has bought a 50% share in data analysis company, <i><a href="http://www.quantium.com.au/">Quantium</a></i>, giving Woolworth's access not only to the data of its own clients, but many of Quantium's other clients. This provides Woolworth's with a greater understanding of the buying habits of its own and other customers. Although the data that both companies share supposedly is de-identified, such data is still incredibly valuable in showing customer habits more broadly, which helps businesses to further tailor their products and services to the customer's wants.<br />
<br />
Back at home, Helen opens up her yahoo account. Doing so means that her data is re-routed through computer servers in the United States and which of course, as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/nsa">whistle blowing revelations on the National Security Agency</a> earlier this year showed, makes Helen's data subject to interception by foreign intelligence agencies, something she is not comfortable with. While some "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have to worry" rhetoric is rolled out, <a href="https://www.eff.org/about/staff/danny-obrien-0">Danny O'Brien</a> of the <i><a href="https://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation</a></i> notes that,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
US citizens have, at least in theory, some constitutional rights that protect their data from access by the US government. Those rights don't extend to non-US persons, which means that Australian's data, when it's kept in the United States, has no real legal protection from the government...It gets worse because, not only is there no good legal protections from the US government, 'cause the US government shares its intelligence and research with the rest of the world, including potentially the Australian government. So you have this incredible trade off where the Australian legal system has good protections to prevent data just ending up in the hands of the Australian law enforcement, without you know a good warrant or a judicial process. But that doesn't stop the US from handing data on Australian citizens straight over to those same parties without any of those legal safeguards.</blockquote>
<br />
With the potential surveillance and data gathering opportunities in the domestic sphere discussed, the episode moves onto the final member of the Pappas family yet to be addressed, eldest daughter, Katerina. Meeting a friend at Westfield, Bondi Junction, Katerina's movements are monitored by CCTV but also have the potential to be tracked by the shopping center using her mobile phone. Four Corners notes that Westfield's privacy policy claims that,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...where devices are able to connect to, or are identifiable by, in-centre infrastructure, we may collect data including usage, location and type of device"</blockquote>
Although Westfield states that they are currently not tracking customers via mobile phones despite having the technology installed in three Australian sites. The importance placed on such technologies is demonstrated by the creation of <a href="http://www.westfieldlabs.com/"><i>Westfield Labs</i></a>, a division of Westfield based in San Francisco, which is tasked with developing and perfecting ways to collect data on customers. Another company, <i><a href="http://www.retailnext.net/">RetailNext</a></i>, has already developed their own version of in-store tracking, something we discussed in a <a href="http://politicsoflocation.blogspot.com.au/">previous blog post</a>. Katerina, understandably is not comfortable with the idea of tracking her movements through the shopping center by wi-fi, suggesting for an opt in, opt out policy.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2-bWyL_F_ic/UlN7VCY-3DI/AAAAAAAAAHo/CPHG8R4XZxY/s1600/futureofretailv4_520x801.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2-bWyL_F_ic/UlN7VCY-3DI/AAAAAAAAAHo/CPHG8R4XZxY/s400/futureofretailv4_520x801.gif" width="258" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Future of Retail. Image Source: Westfield Labs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
But it is not quite safe to leave Westfield without another privacy hazard! According to Four Corners, Westfield parking station trialed technology to help shopper locate their cars. This required photographing and uploading the images of every parked car. Hunt, however, had found a security flaw which has now been addressed. It had been possible to obtain more information than the four possible car matches that the product had intended. According to Hunt, anybody with an internet connection could access information on which cars were in the shopping center and when:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And they would get a list of every vehicle that was currently in the car park and then they could repeat it every sixty seconds, every five minutes, whenever they wanted to, so you would get a profile of who's coming and going and how long they're staying.</blockquote>
The episode concludes back at the Pappas' s house, where the complexity of digital assets ownership, particularly after death and the idea of people's data outliving them, is discussed. The relative "newness" of this issue is noted, along with the need to find ways to deal with this, answers to which are far from complete.<br />
<br />
That distinguishing between our physical and digital identity is becoming increasingly difficult is remarked upon by Thompson, and the episode has reflected the increasing intertwining of the two through our everyday lives, often through processes of which we are not aware, or only partly so. Our data footprints reveal a considerable amount of detail about ourselves, even if the data is de-identified or not, and it is increasingly salient to develop ways to manage this data in a way that finds a balance with privacy, regardless of whether some commentators have already touted <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/06/big-data-predictive-analytics-privacy">the death of privacy</a>.<br />
<br />
It suggests the increasing blurring of the boundaries between public and private places and selves. Many see their mobile phone as a personal and private device, but clearly as this report has showed, the information contained on them can be obtained in public spaces, such as with the MAC address gathering, and without clear explanation of why, or what is used for. This also denotes a disparity between people's perceptions of what is private and what law or government define as personal information, based on ideas of de-identified information, which need to be re-assessed. Because the collection, storing and access to big data raises a multitude of issues concerning privacy, security, policing, government and power, as well as the potential to abuse that power. As O'Brien comments,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I don't think any social system, any government, can survive knowing everything about its citizens without ultimately that being corrupted. I mean I wouldn't be able to take that power. I don't think anyone would want or to take that power, um. But once you've got it, you're gonna find a use for it.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-47235506296367959112013-08-12T21:30:00.000-07:002013-08-13T17:23:35.071-07:00Spy bins and passive Wi-Fi monitoring <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QOs4mUn7sYQ/Ugl1LVq-mzI/AAAAAAAAAGk/ncLEmvTmpH4/s1600/People-walk-past-a-spy-bi-010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QOs4mUn7sYQ/Ugl1LVq-mzI/AAAAAAAAAGk/ncLEmvTmpH4/s400/People-walk-past-a-spy-bi-010.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">A spy bin in London. Image source: Mona Boshnaq/AFP/Getty Images</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The humble litter bin has now become a high tech device with the ability to track people's movements. The Renew ad firm has installed technology that is able to measure Wi-Fi signals in rubbish bins around London's Square Mile. According to <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/city-london-corporation-spy-bins">The Guardian</a></i> the advertising firm has suggested that it,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
would apply the concept of "cookies" – tracking files that follow internet users across the web – to the physical world.</blockquote>
Renew's chief executive Kaveh Memari, it quoted as saying, "We will cookie the street."<br />
<br />
The spy bin's ability to capture the serial numbers of smartphones and analyse signal strength in order to track people's movement's along the street, have not been without controversy and has resulted in the City of London Corporation demanding Renew to withdraw the program.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The data captured from these devices could have potential uses for advertising. For example, the <i><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/london-rubbish-bins-that-track-peoples-movements-raise-ire-of-officials-20130813-2rsxc.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a></i>, suggests that if it enabled companies to see how long people spent in particular locations each day, commercials could be targeted towards individuals:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But if a company could see that a certain smartphone user spent 20 minutes in a McDonald's every day, it could approach Burger King about airing an ad on the bin's video display whenever that user walks by at lunchtime. Or it could target its commercials in real time by distinguishing between people who work in the area and visiting tourists.</blockquote>
Such surveillance has drawn comparisons with the 2002 film <i>Minority Report</i> and raises important questions about privacy as well as public awareness of the extent to which their movements are being watched. The City of London Coporation, who according to <i>The Guardian</i>, only discovered the use of the spy bins via the press, released a statement noting that "Anything that happens like this on the streets needs to be done carefully, with the backing of an informed public". <br />
<br />
The spy bins are being investigated by Britain's data protection watchdog, while the privacy advocate group Big Brother Watch, is urging that questions should be asked "about how such a blatant attack on people's privacy was able to occur".<br />
<br />
Renew chief executive, Memari, released a statement in response to the media interest which he described as being a bit breathless, and commenting on the future potentials of the spy bins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"A lot of what had been extrapolated is capabilities that could be developed and none of which are workable right now."</blockquote>
<br />
But Wi-Fi tracking of smartphone users is not just restricted to rubbish bins. <i><a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-13">The Economist</a></i> reported that American fashion retailer, Nordstrom trialed a system that tracked smartphone users as they moved through its stores or walked nearby. The firm did post a public notice about the system, and withdrew the program when it was covered by a Dallas-based television channel. <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&">The New York Times</a></i> was next to take up the story prompting a privacy debate around passive monitoring.<br />
<br />
Nordstrom, and several other companies used a system provided by <a href="http://euclidanalytics.com/">Euclid Analytics</a>, which can track precise movements of phones without having to connect to Wi-Fi networks. According to <i><a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-13">The Economist</a></i>,<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The technique takes advantage of the fact that Wi-Fi wireless networking protocols are "promiscuous": the Wi-Fi adaptors in laptops, phones and base-stations reveal a lot of information about those devices as they attempt to negotiate connections with other devices nearby. Even before a device hooks onto a Wi-Fi a network, it continuously spews identifying information, including a unique, factory-set identifier, over the air. Most devices send "probe requests" akin to a town crier shouting out the names of networks which the device has previously connected to, so that a nearby base-station that matches any of these requests can respond. The requests run unremittingly across all available frequencies until a connection is made. Even devices that are seemingly turned off, such as sleeping laptops, send out such probes, though at a slower rate. Place several Wi-Fi base-stations in a shop, then, and you can pick up these probe requests, extract the device IDs, trilaterate the positions of the devices sending them, and thus track the movements of individual shoppers, seeing which racks or displays they stop at, and what paths they follow through the store.</blockquote>
<br />
<i>The Economist</i> notes that this is just the next step in the evolution of "retail science", which analyses the movements of shoppers and assists retailers in determining where to best place products and displays. While this used be done by video, Wi-Fi allows more accurate tracking. This concerns privacy advocates because despite, signs notifying them of the tracking, the increasing strength of Wi-Fi means that passers by can also be detected. They also note the possibility that <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/14/smartphone_tracking_research/">monitoring systems could collect the list of known networks</a> on an individual phone and use it to find out further details including place of work or residence about the phone user, from which individual identities can be plausibly be deducted.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After the <i>New York Times</i> article, Euclid and other firms announced they had <a href="http://www.futureofprivacy.org/2013/07/16/fpf-announces-new-group-to-develop-best-practices-for-retail-location-analytics-companies/">joined forces with the Future of Privacy Forum, to create a group focused on developing best practices for retail location analytic's companies</a>. Commenting on the new group, Euclid co-founder and CEO, Will Smith, noted, </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“New technologies are helping retailers better understand what customers want and make shopping more convenient for everyone ... Privacy has always been a priority as we’ve designed and built our services, and we are excited to work with FPF to develop best practices for the retail analytics industry.”</blockquote>
Monitoring smartphone user's location via Wi-Fi may help advertisers and retailers but issues of privacy invasion via these systems must be addressed. And this goes beyond purely location to the data that can be extrapolated from movement patterns. Bradley Voytek, a neuroscientist quoted in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&"><i>The New York Times</i> article</a> notes, “The creepy thing isn’t the privacy violation, it’s how much they can infer.”<br />
<br />
The following video explains why and how bricks and mortar shops are using Wi-Fi tracking to monitor customers activity in order to keep pace with online vendors.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<object class="BrightcoveExperience" data="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?&width=600&height=337&flashID=nytd_video_player_100000002206849&%40videoPlayer=ref%3A100000002206849&playerID=2368596073001&bgcolor=%23000000&publisherID=1749339200&isVid=true&isUI=true&wmode=transparent&dynamicStreaming=true&optimizedContentLoad=true&AllowScriptAccess=always&useExternalAdControls=true&autoStart=false&includeAPI=false&templateErrorHandler=nytd_video_player_100000002206849_template_error_handler&quality=high&%40videoList=&stillOverlay=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2013%2F05%2F05%2Fbusiness%2Fvideo-retailnext-surveillance%2Fvideo-retailnext-surveillance-articleLarge.jpg&templateLoadHandler=nytd_video_player_100000002206849_template_load_handler&debuggerID=&startTime=1376358057315" height="337" id="nytd_video_player_100000002206849" seamlesstabbing="undefined" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="600"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="seamlessTabbing" value="false"><param name="swliveconnect" value="true"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"></object><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Future of Privacy Forum director, Jules Polonetsky maintains that,<br />
<div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Companies need to ensure they have data protection standards in place to de-identify data, to provide consumers with effective choices to not be tracked and to explain to consumers the purposes for which data is being used ... By being transparent about what is going on, location companies and retailers can make sure shoppers understand the benefit of the bargain."</blockquote>
<br />
And considering the spy bin incident, this applies just as much to Wi-Fi monitoring on the street as it does inside retails stores. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-62417787088038076012013-08-08T17:48:00.000-07:002014-02-24T13:53:35.527-08:00Wearable computing beyond Google Glass...While Google Glass is receiving lots of attention at the moment, they're not the only ones in on the wearable computing gig.<br />
<br />
Italian company GlassUp has just listed their own wearable computing project on a <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/glassup-augmented-reality-glasses-that-display-messages-from-your-smartphone">crowdfunding site</a> in order to raise the $150 000 necessary to complete the project.<br />
<br />
Maker, Gianluigi Tregnaghi claims it was already working on the GlassUp project two years ago, well before Google announced its own glass. There are differences between the two Augmented Reality glasses. GlassUp is considerably cheaper, at $US399 ($A432) compared to Google Glass' $US1500 ($A1625) price, and does not have as many features. It is described as a "receive only" device which means that unlike Google Glass, customers are not able to respond to email, text or take photos. The display screen is also directly in front of the eye rather than up to the side on Google's version.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
According to an article in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/glassup-takes-on-google-glass-at-a-fraction-of-the-price-20130718-2q5fg.html"><i>Sydney Morning Herald</i></a> and <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/glassup-augmented-reality-glasses-that-display-messages-from-your-smartphone"><i>Mashable</i></a>, the information in the smartphone is sent to the glasses via Bluetooth. The notifications are displayed on GlassUp's lenses, projected in front of the user. Similar to Google Glass, the notifications are based on which apps the user downloads. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The company has already been receiving trademark attention from Google who, GlassUp claims, has requested they change the product name.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hapoXv5H1jg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Meanwhile in Australia, Sydney-based company <a href="http://exploreengage.com/">Explore Engage</a> has been developing wearable computing. For the past two years, the company has devoted $2 million to creating prototype smart glasses. According to <i><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/a-minds-eye-in-front-of-your-nose-20121123-29xhe.html">The Sydney Morning Herald</a></i>, the company is positioning its glasses as a challenger to Google's version. Explore Engage's chief technology officer, Paul Kouppas notes that certain things aren't possible on Google Glass because they are monocular and not directly augmenting your line of sight. Explore Engage however is augmenting both lenses directly in the user's field of view which means they can put content right in front of your vision.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RtRMp5CvNXw/UgCQ6IJl67I/AAAAAAAAAF4/8iAODV8Vtk8/s1600/Explore-Engage-AR-Glasses---620x349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RtRMp5CvNXw/UgCQ6IJl67I/AAAAAAAAAF4/8iAODV8Vtk8/s320/Explore-Engage-AR-Glasses---620x349.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Explore Engage's Augmented Reality Glasses. Image source: The Sydney Morning Herald</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
The company is working up navigation, education, tourism, real-time translation, home entertainment, gaming, medical and sports-event glasses apps. The team wants to next work on apps for the glasses which include a CPR instructions overlay with voice prompts for what to do in an emergency, and, a cycling "heads up display" which provides route and safety information, navigation and communication between riders. In a departure from Google's mass market ambitions, Explore Engage says its niche product is, </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"more about particular use cases and bespoke design first, and mass marketing second...You could do a bit of a mashup between something like Second Life and a game like Doom, and allow them to co-exist in the real world."</blockquote>
<br />
Kouppas demonstrated the glasses on Cybershack:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/c5BghQhvzEk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
So despite the attention currently being give to Glass, there are other contenders in the wearable computing game offering versions tailored to the contexts in which they see the possibilities for augmented reality most relevant. If you're keen on wearing AR glasses, it appears that once these models have been developed there will be increasing choice, making it easier to find a glass that suits you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-11190465042044969542013-08-05T21:54:00.001-07:002014-02-24T13:57:45.144-08:00Google Glass and Mobile First-Person JournalismThere has been a lot of discussion around the usefulness and appropriateness of Google Glass. While many of the suggested uses focus on its Augmented Reality attributes and new ways of seeing the world, <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/30/google-glass-istanbul-protests-vice">The Guardian</a></i> recently reported on a more grounded and noteworthy use - that of "mobile first-person" journalism.<br />
<br />
<script src="http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?embedCode=hzYnh1YzrQUX_iLnnADt7BUO2KDiapoK&video_pcode=JqcWY6ikg5nwtXilzVurvI-vU6Ik&deepLinkEmbedCode=hzYnh1YzrQUX_iLnnADt7BUO2KDiapoK&height=259&width=460"></script>
<br />
Tim Pool, is taking advantage the particular qualities of our smart devices for "mobile first-person journalism". Smartphones, live streaming apps, 3G, and affordable drones, offer an opportunity for the journalism endeavors of both professional journalists and ordinary citizens to stream events captured on their phones and other devices, that give them access to images and events that may otherwise be beyond the reach of traditional journalism. For example, people actually living through political instability, or involved in the protests can film events as they're happening and stream or post them without the censorship sometimes experienced by the media. For example, Pool himself, <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/12/occupy-wall-street-has-drone-occucopter/45891/">turned a commercially available remote controlled drone into "Occucopter"</a> which flew over Occupy protests and streamed live footage via smartphone to the world. This was particularly useful when police were trying to keep journalists away during the police removal of protesters from Zuccotti Park during Occupy.<br />
<br />
More recently however, Pool has been using Google Glass to cover protests in Istanbul. As a "Glass Explorer", Pool has had the opportunity to trial Glass and has found it is particularly useful for <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/tim-pool-live-streaming-from-istanbul">live streaming protests</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When there's a wall of police firing plastic bullets at you, and you're running through a wall of tear-gas, having your hands free to cover your face, while saying 'OK Glass, record a video', makes that recording process a lot… easier," says Pool. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As soon as I saw Google Glass, I realised that it would allow me to do what I always do with this first-person live recording, but my hands would be free... I don't want to stand filming in front of the water cannon and guys with Molotovs. I want to show you what it's like to be there as best I can, even if that ends with me running full-speed into a cafe and rubbing lemons all over my face after being tear-gassed."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"There's no one standing in front of you: you're looking through a window at this event. And with social media, people can chat with me while I'm broadcasting, and chat to one another, which is just as powerful."</blockquote>
<br />
Pool has been working for <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_au">Vice</a> covering the protests in Istanbul, Cairo and Brazil during 2013 but has been doing this style of journalism since Occupy Wall Street in 2011. Rather than seeing it replacing traditional journalism, he sees it as complementary, and his coverage has also been broadcast by major media networks. However data connection is a major issue with mobile journalism particularly when livestreaming. To accommodate this Pool takes multiple SIM cards enabling him to switch networks if they drop out. But even without livestream video, mobile-first journalism can provide useful commentary. He notes a recent example where a teenage girl's tweeting of a shooting in shopping mall in Wisconsin, became the primary source of information for journalists.<br />
<br />
But Glass is proving particularly apt for "mobile first-person journalism" or "citizen journalism". A clip was recently posted on YouTube of "The First Fight and Arrest Caught on Glass", and while the majority of what is on film is a crowd of people, and a pretty uneventful arrest, the clip demonstrates the potentials - both good and privacy encroaching - that Glass can offer.<br />
<div>
<br />
<div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/4isOSntnpo8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On the upside, it can encourage "citizen journalism", and in cases as the fight above you can easily see its uses as evidence or if there had been police misconduct. It could also capture less serious and more entertaining events. In this sense it is not much different from the filming capabilities of a mobile phone, except that it is less obvious and hands-free which makes it easier to use. On the downside are the obvious privacy and surveillance concerns. As <a href="http://stopthecyborgs.org/2013/07/07/first-arrest-captured-by-google-glass/">Stop the Cyborgs</a> note, </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Notice the long tracking shots. Also notice that no one notices. Now imagine 10% of the population doing this all the time, walking in and out of buildings and homes. Imagine all this data being time stamped and geotagged, flowing to a large database in the cloud. A omniscient eye; a real time streetview extending into homes and businesses; society as a glass prism.</blockquote>
<br />
The ability for Glass to take surveillance to an even more creepy level is obvious. But Stop the Cyborg's also raise the question in relation to "citizen journalism", <a href="http://stopthecyborgs.org/2013/07/07/first-arrest-captured-by-google-glass/">whether Glass will actually transform what events we see</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While undoubtedly it is true that more news footage will be captured by amateurs, this does not mean that citizens will become investigative journalists exposing systematic issues. Rather citizens will become crowd sourced paparazzi and informers. They will of course expose celebs. They will catch the occasional crime or even Rodney King style police abuse not just humorous incidents. However this will still be embedded within the dominant dispositif. They will contribute images to be judged by the existing legal, economic and media apparatus rather than challenging it. This is not the activist journalism of Indymedia, secret revelations of ‘Spies For Peace‘ and Wikileaks, or the muck raking investigation of Private Eye but rather the crowd sourced submission of America’s Funniest Home Videos or World’s Dumbest criminals. Video is typically something which reveals human actions rather than systematic organizational issues. The normalizing gaze is extended and reproduced not fundamentally challenged by placing cameras on people’s heads.</blockquote>
<br />
Thus while Glass may give us tools to see the world in a new way, what we choose to see is not always determined by the technology, but by us. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-59050352867695809842013-07-29T15:07:00.002-07:002013-07-29T15:07:38.506-07:00Hello Lamp Post<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.hellolamppost.co.uk/">Hello Lamp Post</a> is a project that combines gaming, mobile phones and smart cities through the notion of playful cities. The creation of <a href="http://panstudio.co.uk/">PAN studio</a> it is the winner of the Bristol's Watershed arts venue's <a href="http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity">Playable City Award</a>.</div>
<br />
According to<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/jun/27/hello-lamp-post-playful-cities"> a recent article in <i>The Guardian</i></a> the project encourages people to communicate with street furniture including bus stops, post boxes and lamp posts by using the repair numbers found on the objects as SMS codes. Texting this number to a central server "wakes up" the object, and prompts questions via text. The next participant who encounters that object can learn about the previous replies. It is hoped that this will encourage regular conversations with the objects allowing people to learn stories about the hidden lives of the city's population, effectively enabling people to interact with the urban environment in more game-like ways.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/67889287" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br />
PAN co-founder Ben Barker describes how the team devised the project:<br />
<blockquote>
The team spent the early months of the project thinking about memory and city, and how we build our own psychogeographies of familiar environments. "Personally I was inspired by Austerlitz, a novel by Seabald in which the city was a walkable version of the protagonists brain. We became obsessed with how we put these memories back in the real world, how do we unite the physicality of the city and the stories we tell about it?<br />
"In all our conversations we were keen to avoid making an application that would limit who could play. Using SMS and the codes on objects we could avoid GPS and make it accessible to all. By making it open to everyone, all players needed was an interest in the stories of others."</blockquote>
For co-developer, Tom Armitage, the project is a way of reclaiming the term "Smart Cities" from major corporations such as IBM and Cisco which increases the reliance on their infrastructure and their idea of the smart city.<br />
<blockquote>
"It's exciting to see lots of great thought going on around alternate versions of the Smart City," says Armitage. "And it's thought that really focuses on all the other elements that make up a city - not just its technology. Dan Hill, CEO of Fabrica (and formerly Arup and Sitra) has <a href="http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2013/02/on-the-smart-city-a-call-for-smart-citizens-instead.html">a great recent blogpost on this</a>. The work of New York-based designer Adam Greenfield also explores designing not only for networked cities, but also network citizens.<br />
"There's a long tradition of technology reshaping the city by harnessing its citizens – services like Foursquare or Dodgeball, games like MogiMogi, even cycle hire platforms like Vélib. These all alter and improve the city through technology and people. We're taking some of that DNA and then investing the city with some personality."</blockquote>
<br />
The team hopes that by facilitating a different type of interaction with the objects in the city, and a game that does more than require task completion and points accumulation, that users might be able to change their perspective on the city and urban environment.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-89147612062843160532013-07-29T14:50:00.000-07:002014-02-24T14:51:21.538-08:00Google Glass and AR eyewearThere has been much talk and interest in AR eye-wear since Google announced its "Glass" last year. Wearable augmented reality technology has been around for a while now, developed for uses for example in the military, but the Google name-tag and big plans to make it part of our everyday life, has raised its profile high in our consciousness.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Reviews</h4>
<br />
There have been mixed reviews for those who have had access to the product and been able to trial it. In this post we will look at one review that praises the technology and one which is more skeptical. For those who are unfamiliar with the glass and what it does, you check out the minimalist glass <a href="http://www.google.com/glass/start/">site</a> or watch the official video:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/v1uyQZNg2vE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
But back to our reviews. First up is a review that is enthusiastic of Google Glass and its possibilities. This is followed by an account of the glass which is a little more tempered in its opinion of the product's potentials. The reviewers we draw upon are tech bloggers Robert Scoble of "Rackspace" and <a href="http://scobleizer.com/">http://scobleizer.com</a>, and Mike Butcher. Butcher is also a journalist and the editor for the European TechCrunch. Of course these are just two opinions among the plethora of posts and reviews of Google Glass out there so if you want more, feel free to go forth and find them.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Robert Scoble</h4>
<br />
Scoble's review is pro Google Glass. In fact Scoble declares the glass so significant that it's life changing. Here are some excerpts from Scoble's review. The full review can be found <a href="https://plus.google.com/+Scobleizer/posts/ZLV9GdmkRzS">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It's that significant.<br />
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations "who would buy this?" As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.<br />
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of "wow" or "amazing" or "that's crazy" or "stunning." <br />
4. At NextWeb 50 people surrounded me and wouldn't let me leave until they had a chance at trying them. I haven't seen that kind of product angst at a conference for a while. This happened to me all week long, it is just crazy.<br />
5. Most of the privacy concerns I had before coming to Germany just didn't show up. I was shocked by how few negative reactions I got (only one, where an audience member said he wouldn't talk to me with them on). Funny, someone asked me to try them in a bathroom (I had them aimed up at that time and refused).<br />
6. There is a total generational gap that I found. The older people said they would use them, probably, but were far more skeptical, or, at minimum, less passionate about the fact that these are the future, than the 13-21-year-olds I met.<br />
<br />
Also, Google is forbidding advertising in apps. This is a HUGE shift for Google's business model. I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company.<br />
<br />
I continue to be amazed with the camera. It totally changes photography and video. Why? I can capture moments. I counted how many seconds it takes to get my smartphone out of my pocket, open it up, find the camera app, wait for it to load, and then take a photo. Six to 12 seconds. With Google Glass? Less than one second. Every time. And I can use it without having hands free, like if I'm carrying groceries in from the car and my kids are doing something cute. <br />
<br /></blockquote>
<div>
<blockquote>
This has changed my life. I will never live a day without it on. It is that significant.</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
Glowing reviews from Mr Scoble then. But to balance the reviews we'll now look at Mike Butcher's not quite so enthusiastic review.<span style="background-color: white; color: #404040; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<h4>
Mike Butcher</h4>
<br />
In a nutshell, Butcher claims that using Google Glass is well, just weird. He poetically describes the technology as "this era’s Segway: hyped as a game changer but ultimately used by warehouse workers and mall cops." The full review can be found <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/26/eric-schmidt-is-right-using-google-glasses-is-weird-heres-my-experience/">here</a> but here are some of the main points of Butcher's critique:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
"Next up is using your voice to do various commands like “Take a picture.” If you have someone standing in front of you, this is extremely odd. Suddenly they are cut out of the conversation and you’re talking to the Glass. This is very unlike being able to check something on your smartphone while you are chatting casually to someone. The latter feels quite normal, but performing similar operations while wearing Google Glass would seem downright rude in front of someone.</div>
</blockquote>
<div>
<blockquote>
Ultimately this suggests to me that Google Glass will be incapable of being used socially. Okay, people in the tech world may use it socially and wander around with them on at conferences Googling each other. But it’s my belief that ‘normal’ people will not.<br />
<br />
In part this was suggested by Andrew Keen onstage at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam. His point is that there is “no permission” given when the person in front of you is brandishing Google Glass. He’s right, and I can see most people asking the person to remove their Glass before conducting a civil conversation. You just don’t see that happening when two people with smartphones start talking.<br />
<br />
Where I can see Google Glass working is in activities where you require both hands to be free. Skiing down a mountain filming, using the Glass like you would a GoPro camera, for instance. And in industrial applications – building and manufacturing, yes, I can see this would work very well: “Show House Plans” for instance, would be a great command for a building app. And you can see the police suddenly thinking of a few useful applications."</blockquote>
<br />
So while Butcher thinks the technology will have some beneficial uses, he believes it is not going to seamlessly integrate into day to day life for the majority of people. Butcher also raises a good point concerning privacy. If it is so easy to take pictures, recordings, and collect data using the glass as Scoble suggests, then what right do wearer's have to subject others to the lens of their glasses, could wearers breach privacy by surreptitiously recording others, and what information about individuals can be accessed by wearers. In the end who has the right? Google glass wearers or non-wearers. For those who are keen to sport the new eye-wear, it might be a good idea to employ Google Glass etiquette. Google has recently released<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/19/google-glass-advice-smartglasses-glasshole"> official advice on appropriate behaviour</a> while wearing the smartglasses and to help wearer's avoid becoming "Glassholes".<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Of course there are those who question the need to have all this information available at eye-level all the time. The UK newspaper, <i>The Guardian</i>, produced a brilliant spoof of Google Glass with their Guardian Goggles, for April Fools Day this year. You can watch the clip here.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RY-WBBKDQJg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div>
<br />
Perhaps the Guardian Goggle's slogan hits the mark when it comes to such technologies "Guardian Goggles: because life's too short to think for yourself"<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zDdS23eoIGg/UaQSx8x3tNI/AAAAAAAAABQ/BJtWXB5Rwtw/s1600/Guardian-Goggles-015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zDdS23eoIGg/UaQSx8x3tNI/AAAAAAAAABQ/BJtWXB5Rwtw/s320/Guardian-Goggles-015.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, clean, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, clean, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>More seriously, Charles Arthur, technology editor for <i>The Guardian</i> recently <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/jul/02/google-glass-video-review">reviewed Google Glass</a>, discussing its potentials, shortcomings, possible impact on social interaction and privacy concerns:</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/9A5wbCSiKNo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-52813833376207204652013-07-29T14:37:00.000-07:002014-02-24T15:12:48.620-08:00Smart Cities are about people too<h2>
</h2>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/h3PMaScAVqE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
With all this talk about smart cities it is easy to forget that the future of cities is as much about people as it is about technologies. This is something Anthony Townsend addresses in his keynote speech at 2012 Code for America which critiques "smart cities" and observes the limited engagement with citizens in smart city rhetoric.<br />
<br />
There is an increasing amount of interest in and claims to Smart Cities both by city governments and companies looking to provide their version of smart city intelligence to cities each seeking to promote their brand of city smarts. IBM and Cisco are such companies.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_cities/overview/">IBM Smart Cities</a>: </b><br />
<br />
Operates on the basis
that a city is made up of infrastructure, operations and people working as an
interconnected system of systems. According to IBM a Smart City drives
sustainable economic growth and prosperity. Cities are data driven and leaders
can analyse data to make better decisions, anticipate problems and coordinate resources.
By collecting and analyzing the extensive data generated every second of every
day, tools such as the IBM Intelligent Operations Center coordinate and share
data in a single view creating the big picture for the decision makers and
responders who support the smarter city. Planning and management strategies
include: public safety, smarter buildings and urban planning, government and
agency administration; Infrastructure strategies include: Energy and water,
environmental, transportation; Citizen programs include: social programs,
healthcare, education.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>IBM Smart cities include:</b> Portland, Memphis, Rio de Janeiro. Rio is the
most integrated and biggest example of the Smart City Operations Center.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><a href="http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/smart_connected_communities.html">Cisco Smart and Connected Communities</a>:</b> On their website Cisco describes their program thus:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As world populations shift to urban areas, community
leaders are pressed for answers to related problems. These include
overcrowding, pollution, budget and resource constraints, inadequate
infrastructures, and the need for continuing growth. Cisco Smart+Connected
Communities solutions use intelligent networking capabilities to bring together
people, services, community assets, and information to help community leaders
address these world challenges. By connecting the unconnected, we can do
amazing things to address these real world challenges and create a more
sustainable environment.</span> <o:p></o:p></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Cisco Smart Cities include:</b> Northern Ohio, City of Holyoke, San Francisco, and Amsterdam. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The emphasis of these programs is to provide "smart" systems and technologies to assist in running cities efficiently and in ways that aim to make the city less polluted, less congested and less over-extended. But as Townsend noted, much of the talk is about the role of technology as a savior in these cities, relegating the actual human input aside. While it may be useful to predict where crime, emergencies or congestion may happen, it is also necessary to work on the underlying issues and to involve citizens in the process, empowering both themselves and the city.With so much data being generated by the city and its residents, it is also necessary to interrogate issues surrounding the collection and retention of such data, as well as ask what all of it is used for. Doing this may raise issues of surveillance and privacy, among other less sinister information and uses. However, by focusing on the technology as separate from people, many of these concerns have been rendered less visible, lending an element of neutrality to the systems and infrastructure of smart cities. This suggests that their needs to be a version of smart cities that not only is concerned with technology but which is inclusive of people. To be smart, cities must also engage their citizens in working toward solutions.<br />
<br />
Others suggest that smart cities do not hold the answer for a greener, cleaner, safer, efficient, equitable and tolerant city. Indeed Kevin Slavin suggests that it is not smart cities and smart urbanisms to which we should be looking, but to new ways of living in the city:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/o03wWtWASW4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01965567378767304821noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-68492697964315438152013-07-28T18:43:00.000-07:002013-07-28T18:43:59.296-07:00Exploring Sydney's Digital-Urban Interface<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JZMlI9-qYRA/Ue8lzb132UI/AAAAAAAAATw/vJ7pxJxEw8M/s1600/DSC_0994.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JZMlI9-qYRA/Ue8lzb132UI/AAAAAAAAATw/vJ7pxJxEw8M/s400/DSC_0994.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Accessing the digital layers ... networked urbanism is ruining our posture!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Recently, Sophia and I took a group of 25 urban geography students on a field trip in the Central Business District of Sydney, designed to examine various ways in which the digital and the urban are coming together.<br />
<br />
We based the field trip on the 'Systems/Layers Walkshop' concept designed by Nurri Kim and Adam Greenfield for Do Projects. Nurri and Adam have produced a <a href="http://doprojects.org/news/1101-systemslayers">fantastic booklet</a> that can be used to help prepare for such an exercise, based on their experiences of running these 'walkshops' in a number of cities.<br />
<br />
The purpose of the walkshop is to develop a better understanding of networked urbanism and its implications. To quote from their booklet:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We live in an age in which the form of cities, the ways in which we experience them, and the choices they present us with are all in the process of profound and rapid change, driven by the
presence of networked information-processing systems everywhere around us. Mobile phones, CCTV cameras, building-scale displays, embedded sensors, and remotely-operated barriers are all part of this
transformation. Between them, these systems superimpose a layer of information on top of the physical bricks and paths of the city, and this is increasingly a place where control over space and behavior can be
exerted.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We believe that understanding this layer, the systems that make it up, and its implications for the freedom to move and act is vital to full citizenship in the congested, contested urban spaces of
the twenty-first century.</blockquote>
And so, the walkshop is a tool to develop this understanding of layers and systems, and to generate discussion about their implications. This is what you do:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What you’re going to be looking for are appearances of the networked digital in the physical, and vice versa:
apertures through which the things that happen in the real world are gathered up by the global informational network, and contexts in which information originating on the network affects what people see, confront and are able to do.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Places where information is being collected.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Places where information is being displayed.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Places where networked information is being acted upon.</blockquote>
I also asked the participants to read Dan Hill's wonderful essay on '<a href="http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/02/the-street-as-p.html">The Street as Platform</a>' in preparation for the day.<br />
<br />
We focused our attention on a couple of relatively small areas in the Central Business District. For those who know Sydney, here's how we rolled...<br />
<br />
We started at Central Station, where we had a talk from two people from the City of Sydney about their <a href="http://www.sydneyfoodtrucks.com.au/">Food Truck program and mobile app</a>.<br />
<br />
We then caught a train from Central Station to Circular Quay, for a walk around followed by a talk from the folks at <a href="http://www.skedgo.com/tripgo">Skedgo</a>, who are responsible for the real-time public transport app TripGo.<br />
<br />
After a break for lunch, we then caught a train back to Town Hall Station, and broke up into small groups to explore the terrain between Town Hall and St James Station on foot. We reconvened as a large group to report back on our small group observations and reflect on the day.<br />
<br />
Here's a quick report on what we saw and what we learnt, and some reflections on the experience.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
<b>Surveillance</b><br />
<br />
Surveillance was the most visible system of data capture by far. Counting CCTV cameras soon got boring - at the start of the day, in the 100 metre walk we made from the platform at Circular Quay railway station to the concourse below, we counted over 30 cameras tracking our movements. (I wonder what their operators made of a group of 25 people standing around pointing at the cameras and taking their photograph?) And we walked past dozens, if not hundreds, more cameras over the course of the day. It was difficult to know who operated many of them -- we couldn't find signs for some, and even those with signs often failed to state the name of the authority that was collecting data from them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R_qP7aoUKSA/Ue8lsHYUD_I/AAAAAAAAARI/gw-XkRk_PoE/s1600/DSC_0942.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R_qP7aoUKSA/Ue8lsHYUD_I/AAAAAAAAARI/gw-XkRk_PoE/s400/DSC_0942.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gjbdJHFjNkY/Ue8ltWylGUI/AAAAAAAAARo/czJxktEfGz8/s1600/DSC_0944.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gjbdJHFjNkY/Ue8ltWylGUI/AAAAAAAAARo/czJxktEfGz8/s400/DSC_0944.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m3bKPVgPF9o/Ue8lyPcUPjI/AAAAAAAAATQ/DXVOEMUAiWY/s1600/DSC_0982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m3bKPVgPF9o/Ue8lyPcUPjI/AAAAAAAAATQ/DXVOEMUAiWY/s400/DSC_0982.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Various bits of surveillance infrastructure, Circular Quay railway station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
CCTV was not the only form of surveillance we encountered. One group of students reported on a conversation they had with the driver of a delivery vehicle. He told them that his movements throughout the city were remotely monitored by his employer via the networked GPS device installed in his vehicle -- this system was designed to improve the efficiency of the delivery fleet, but from his perspective, this entailed a form of surveillance that had resulted in significant work intensification.<br />
<br />
Parking meters were also 'networked', enabling credit card transactions to pay for parking, and parking inspectors were equipped with hand-held devices to print fines, log locations and license plates, and store data. <br />
<br />
<b>Spatial demarcation and barriers</b><br />
<br />
We passed card- and RFID-reading doors, gates, lifts, and bollards a-plenty in our travels, each one of which presumably depends on integration with a digital database of authorised entrants, and each one of which also presumably collects data on entries (and possibly exits).<br />
<br />
The lifts at the bottom of the City of Sydney office building adjacent to Town Hall were the site of a very physical ritual of staff stretching out their ID cards to gain access to their workplace.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NgXBtTG9sHk/Ue8lxTHBbXI/AAAAAAAAATA/dU-M_Qu5K_U/s1600/DSC_0977.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NgXBtTG9sHk/Ue8lxTHBbXI/AAAAAAAAATA/dU-M_Qu5K_U/s320/DSC_0977.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pbKYshpO_FQ/Ue8lvCxogvI/AAAAAAAAASM/1LoFGerS9Jg/s1600/DSC_0962.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pbKYshpO_FQ/Ue8lvCxogvI/AAAAAAAAASM/1LoFGerS9Jg/s320/DSC_0962.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qn5p0aixsZs/Ue8lylCRFgI/AAAAAAAAATc/F8fuDaXNdgw/s1600/DSC_0986.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qn5p0aixsZs/Ue8lylCRFgI/AAAAAAAAATc/F8fuDaXNdgw/s320/DSC_0986.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8TUGFhlVO9I/Ue8ly7E93MI/AAAAAAAAATo/9ebUL2Cmu6k/s1600/DSC_0987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8TUGFhlVO9I/Ue8ly7E93MI/AAAAAAAAATo/9ebUL2Cmu6k/s320/DSC_0987.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Consumption</b><br />
<br />
Of course, given that we were in the CBD, systems and layers concerned with consumption were almost as ubiquitous as surveillance. A few examples...<br />
<br />
The availability of EFTPOS facilities in shops was near universal (the ramen joint in which Sophie and I had lunch was cash only ... but you could like it on Facebook of course!), and a great many retailers advertised loyalty schemes for shoppers. This combination of credit and loyalty systems is put to work for a range of purposes, including consumer profiling and advertising.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o5SGWZPSml8/Ue8lwI3Cm-I/AAAAAAAAASo/HtPfajrFe2o/s1600/DSC_0973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o5SGWZPSml8/Ue8lwI3Cm-I/AAAAAAAAASo/HtPfajrFe2o/s320/DSC_0973.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OEEBeoNwKt4/Ue8l132Q-UI/AAAAAAAAAUo/eBvdm4BrZN0/s1600/DSC_1011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OEEBeoNwKt4/Ue8l132Q-UI/AAAAAAAAAUo/eBvdm4BrZN0/s320/DSC_1011.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A great many advertisements in the city contained with web addresses or QR codes. Here, advertisements are designed to encourage consumers to access extra layers of data about products and services beyond the information in the advertisement itself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a3cKqYfHiRA/Ue8l0p2siYI/AAAAAAAAAUE/_oT6ipFtYo8/s1600/DSC_0999.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a3cKqYfHiRA/Ue8l0p2siYI/AAAAAAAAAUE/_oT6ipFtYo8/s320/DSC_0999.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Window advertising with QR code, George Street</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There were relatively few digital screens displaying advertisements, although we did come across some inside train stations, lifts and shopping malls.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1BE8sumrUGM/Ue8l0wwG30I/AAAAAAAAAUM/ag-MwtEgSU4/s1600/DSC_1004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1BE8sumrUGM/Ue8l0wwG30I/AAAAAAAAAUM/ag-MwtEgSU4/s320/DSC_1004.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OcDLfnwPZAg/Ue8lxhVlhgI/AAAAAAAAATE/W-BZVlJ5W7U/s1600/DSC_0978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OcDLfnwPZAg/Ue8lxhVlhgI/AAAAAAAAATE/W-BZVlJ5W7U/s320/DSC_0978.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While screens aren't yet common in Sydney's streets, they have become a <a href="http://www.executivechannel.com.au/">standard feature of lifts in CBD buildings</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Several commercial establishments also sought to engage customers via social media, with advertised discounts and/or prizes for people who 'liked' their business on Facebook, etc.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SwzTXgScJgA/Ue8lyROcgyI/AAAAAAAAATY/w-wfc905bJE/s1600/DSC_0983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SwzTXgScJgA/Ue8lyROcgyI/AAAAAAAAATY/w-wfc905bJE/s320/DSC_0983.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The Sydney Food Trucks app that we had heard about from the City of Sydney at the start of our walk was also focused on enabling a particular kind of consumption. As the City reps told us, the program is part of wider 'night time economy' agenda of the City, in which the City is seeking to diversify food options beyond the ubiquitous late night kebab and branded fast food offerings. Trucks have to go through pretty extensive registration process to get a license, and then are fitted with GPS devices. These devices are partly designed to ensure that the Trucks don't breach regulations which define where they are allowed to set themselves up. But the information is also used in an App that allows people to see where trucks are located in real-time. <b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Transportation and Navigation</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
While Sydney is probably a little 'behind' other cities in this regard, transportation and navigation are increasingly networked, so that people's movements are both <i>facilitated</i> by digital systems and generate yet more digital data.<br />
<br />
We observed many private vehicles fitted with satellite navigation devices. We also observed a car share vehicle, equipped with RFID readers to regulate access to the vehicle to members who have booked the vehicle.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6y1H5nzyRyg/Ue8lvwLnQ7I/AAAAAAAAASc/X_6_2J6nrMY/s1600/DSC_0971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6y1H5nzyRyg/Ue8lvwLnQ7I/AAAAAAAAASc/X_6_2J6nrMY/s320/DSC_0971.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taxi with Sat Nav.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HVdg7lcOgTU/Ue8lvhvpPPI/AAAAAAAAASY/9wHHmViXBC8/s1600/DSC_0968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HVdg7lcOgTU/Ue8lvhvpPPI/AAAAAAAAASY/9wHHmViXBC8/s320/DSC_0968.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GoGet (car share) van with RFID reader conneted to locks and ignition.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
As for public transport, after many years of embarrassing and expensive failures, Sydney finally has a new public transport 'smart card' - the Opal card - that is currently being trialled on the ferry services and some train lines. Card readers are now appearing at barriers across the network. As is the case in other cities with smart cards, Opal card users will generate vast mountains of data about public transport use in the city. They will also be connected, in many if not most instances, to the credit accounts of their users for automatic top-up.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eG_sYnb_o-E/Ue8lubbpp2I/AAAAAAAAASI/UTJg1uCEhug/s1600/DSC_0950.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eG_sYnb_o-E/Ue8lubbpp2I/AAAAAAAAASI/UTJg1uCEhug/s320/DSC_0950.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opal Card Reader, Circular Quay</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Of course, the existing magnetic-coded tickets and barriers already collect plenty of information about patterns of transport use, as do ticket dispensing machines connected to credit systems.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_i_hPBQOkI/Ue8l2V9H1YI/AAAAAAAAAUw/7kMV8EIFwDc/s1600/DSC_1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_i_hPBQOkI/Ue8l2V9H1YI/AAAAAAAAAUw/7kMV8EIFwDc/s400/DSC_1024.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Train ticket machine, St James Station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We were treated to an impromptu, and very informative, talk from one of the barrier attendants at a Ferry wharf in Circular Quay about the current trial of 'real-time' information displays about ferry movements. Ferries have been equipped with GPS devices, and on approach to the wharves, a computer system allocates an available wharf space and advises passengers accurate information about impending arrivals and departures.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SOrzyqN5BgU/Ue8luPcj3eI/AAAAAAAAAR4/dTAtWIfkSps/s1600/DSC_0948.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SOrzyqN5BgU/Ue8luPcj3eI/AAAAAAAAAR4/dTAtWIfkSps/s400/DSC_0948.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Real-time Ferry Information Trial</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This trial builds on the installation of GPS in all buses in Sydney - this installation is now a contractual requirement for all bus operators in the city, and is observable via the signs and aerials on buses. Unlike the ferries, real-time information about bus locations is not displayed at bus stops. But it has now been made available to the public via an expanding number of transport apps for mobile devices that have been authorised by the State Government.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-394qrpbcyV0/Ue8ltzPrv_I/AAAAAAAAARs/rSyFXOiPn44/s1600/DSC_0945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-394qrpbcyV0/Ue8ltzPrv_I/AAAAAAAAARs/rSyFXOiPn44/s320/DSC_0945.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of many ads for new NSW Transport Apps</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We popped in on the developer of one of those apps (Skedgo, who run TripGo), who told us a little about the competitive process they went through to have their app authorised. They also explained that they are still unable to provide real-time information about trains, which continue to operate on a system that is incompatible with more modern location technologies (train locations are monitored by track sensors on approach to train stations, a 'legacy system' for which there is no workaround as yet -- real-time train information from these sensors is displayed on public screens on platforms, however).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yO1ItUSBwuI/Ue8ltCNJV0I/AAAAAAAAARc/5iO-10LzEVY/s1600/DSC_0943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yO1ItUSBwuI/Ue8ltCNJV0I/AAAAAAAAARc/5iO-10LzEVY/s320/DSC_0943.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Platform screen, Circular Quay station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It probably goes without saying that we found the SkedGo office when I announced the address to the group, and several people plugged the address into their smart-phones and followed the little blue dot on their screens. At that point, I got a little nostalgic about the olden days and the pleasures of being lost ... and received many bemused and uncomprehending looks for my trouble. As with CCTV, we eventually stopped counting the number of people in the city who appeared to be accessing maps and transport data on the mobile devices.<br />
<br />
<b>Information</b><br />
<br />
In the parts of the city we walked, there was a surprising lack of places advertising publicly-accessible internet and/or wi-fi. We did come across one small public library kiosk with free computer/internet access, provided by the City of Sydney Council. Compared to other cities people had experienced, there was also a relative paucity of digital signage and screens. Yes, you could find them inside shopping malls and the like, but in Sydney, regulators <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/digital-roadside-billboards-with-multiple-ads-on-way-20130120-2d188.html">continue to debate the rules that will apply to digital advertising screens</a> in public spaces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aHSwBnTcm_A/Ue8l07pXqWI/AAAAAAAAAUI/Rg8qu4kY29Q/s1600/DSC_0998.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aHSwBnTcm_A/Ue8l07pXqWI/AAAAAAAAAUI/Rg8qu4kY29Q/s400/DSC_0998.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old school public screen.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Most of the evidence we found of digital information provision depended upon access to private, rather than public, screens. For instance, in the Rocks, an historic part of the city, many signs carrying historical and tourist information also had QR codes, enabling smart phone users to access further information if they so desired.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Mtci29hBhU/Ue8lwrlscPI/AAAAAAAAASs/OHRen_2SOS0/s1600/DSC_0974.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Mtci29hBhU/Ue8lwrlscPI/AAAAAAAAASs/OHRen_2SOS0/s400/DSC_0974.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NFC and QR code reference points, The Rocks.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I also lost count of the number of advertisements advertising mobile apps that promised to make life better.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Nd84DVAznAM/Ue8l1fl9yjI/AAAAAAAAAUY/vbx9pOA6kZU/s1600/DSC_1005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Nd84DVAznAM/Ue8l1fl9yjI/AAAAAAAAAUY/vbx9pOA6kZU/s320/DSC_1005.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yOKQvYt9nak/Ue8l2md4NWI/AAAAAAAAAU0/ZfVbjYZGddU/s1600/DSC_1027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yOKQvYt9nak/Ue8l2md4NWI/AAAAAAAAAU0/ZfVbjYZGddU/s320/DSC_1027.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indeed mapping capabilities have recently been added to Central Train Station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>A few reflections on our experience...</b><br />
<br />
Compared to a lecture, this walkshop was a way more effective means of demonstrating the 'taken-for-grantedness' of a range of digital systems and layers that have become part of the background of everyday urban life. By the end of the day, most of us had achieved a little distance from our habits, and were approaching these systems and layers with a bit more of a conscious, and therefore critical, eye. Mission accomplished ... mostly! I think a few faces still carried looks of bemusement about the whole experience at the end of the day, wondering what all the fuss was about.<br />
<br />
Which of course leads us to the question - what <i>was </i>all the fuss about? Why should we care about any of this?<br />
<br />
The 'so what?' discussion at the end of the day was especially interesting to me, and it generated a number of issues. As you can imagine, the issue of <b>privacy </b>got a good run in our discussions - <a href="http://citiesandcitizenship.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/locational-privacy-beyond-privacy-as.html">it's a very common frame for interrogating these developments</a>. But as important as this is, it was good that some other issues were identified too.<br />
<br />
We had an interesting conversation about the <b>different kinds of projects that were animating the various applications we had identified</b> - the overwhelming majority of observable systems and layers seemed to be concerned with surveillance, commerce and wayfinding. We also talked about the kinds of interpolation and interception enabled by various applications, in light of reading we had been doing by our two 'Steves' ... Flusty and Graham ... on spaces of interdiction and software-sorted geographies. The question of how we were being addressed, how our behaviour was being shaped, and how we were being positioned in relation to others is certainly of great interest to me.<br />
<br />
A final issue of particular interest concerned the<b> ownership of data</b> and the <b>role of the public and private sectors in the production of applications</b>. Here, the comparison between the City of Sydney and NSW Transport was quite interesting. The City had taken the approach with the Food Trucks program of developing their own app with their data. The tech people there had some reservations about this and the associated closure of the data ... but on the other hand, it was done very cheaply, and with considerable success. TripGo, on the other hand, was produced by a private company licensed to access data provided by the state under quite strict conditions, and is one of several transport apps available in a market. When asked about the relative merits of this approach, not surprisingly, the Skedgo folks were of the view that the private sector was best placed to develop apps, and that data should be made available. But there are some interesting issues here about the positioning of users as consumers, about who is extracting profit from the data, etc. <br />
<br />
<b>Reflecting on the walkshop format</b>, I think the talks we organised at various points during the trip worked quite well in surfacing some issues that might not have been immediately visible to us as detached observers. Our various informants were the source of some important insights about the kinds of policy issues and conflicts that are accompanying the proliferation of digital systems and layers in the city. For instance, from representatives of the City and Skedgo, we got quite different perspectives about the role of the state and the private sector in collecting and distributing digital data to urban inhabitants. Nor do I think many of us would have thought of the industrial implications of a real-time monitoring system designed to increase efficiency by reducing 'downtime', unless some of us had stopped to talk to a delivery guy. And hey ... it was nice to have the occasional rest while we sat down to listen to someone else talk, a point that's not insignificant if you want to keep people engaged across a whole day!<br />
<br />
If we do it again, I think I'd start and finish in a more controlled environment. For some reason, trying to get discussion in a park in the morning proved to be especially difficult. And while the discussion at Hyde Park and St James station in the afternoon was terrific, we didn't really capture either our observations or reflections very well as a group for further analysis and publication.<br />
<br />
So, a big thanks to Nurri and Adam for the template, and to the participants for their insights and contributions! <br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7539850436444870630.post-32662331553214260942013-07-24T20:28:00.000-07:002013-07-24T20:43:09.455-07:00The politics of location in the networked city<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Mobile media devices are increasingly equipped with sophisticated location-awareness capabilities, which enable the devices and their users to be located and represented on digital maps of urban space. This recent development has the potential to transform and intensify the interactions between urban places and digital spaces. This project will assess the implications of this development for the governance of cities. It will provide a systematic overview of the different ways in which location-awareness capabilities are being put to use, and it will explain how these locative media projects are enmeshed in wider political contests over the nature of cities and the ways in which their populations are governed."</i></blockquote>
That's the rather dry summary of a research project proposal I submitted to the Australian Research Council in 2011. To my surprise and delight (and apparently <a href="http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/10/taken-for-granted">to Quadrant's displeasure</a>), that application was successful and I was granted some funds to conduct the research. Yay!<br />
<br />
My interest in the politics of location that's emerging at the digital-urban interface first arose during a period of extended parental leave way back in 2008, when I actually had time to read a few novels. Among the books I read were <a href="http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/index.asp">William Gibson</a>'s <i>Pattern Recognition</i> and <a href="http://craphound.com/">Cory Doctorow</a>'s <i>Big Brother</i>. Both books are science fiction of the 'near future' variety, and emerging locative technologies are crucial to the worlds that their characters are trying to navigate. Shady government authorities, police, artists, advertisers, activists, crooks and teenage hackers are all busy trying to figure out what they can do with GPS, RFID, mobile phones, portable computers, and the like. The books speak to the ways in which these various locative technologies are being enrolled in a range of quite different projects with quite different political implications.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m09dBSF0IUY/UfCWsb95u0I/AAAAAAAAAVA/uK6mGmUGCr8/s1600/DSC_0740.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m09dBSF0IUY/UfCWsb95u0I/AAAAAAAAAVA/uK6mGmUGCr8/s320/DSC_0740.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here they are (will I regret admitting to reading teenage fiction on a blog?? <i>Little Brother</i> is Doctorow's first book for teenagers ... it's a good one!)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Reading both these books was exhilarating. In 2007, I'd published my first book <i>Publics and the City</i>, which is about struggles over the meaning and possibilities of urban public space. That book concludes with some reflections on the significance of media for our experience of the city -- a significance which is too frequently overlooked with the persistence of the 'stage' as a metaphor for the city's contribution to public life. But reading Gibson and Doctorow made me realise just how little I had thought about the ways in which mobile computing and communications technologies were interacting with the urban in efforts to make publics and do politics.<br />
<br />
How had I missed all this? Certainly, even way back then when iPhones were still a novelty, some people were on to this -- in my own academic discipline of geography, folks like <a href="http://www.ncl.ac.uk/apl/staff/profile/steve.graham#tab_profile">Steve Graham</a>, <a href="http://www.nuim.ie/nirsa/people/admin/kitchin.shtml">Rob Kitchin</a>, <a href="http://cyberbadger.blogspot.com.au/">Martin Dodge</a> and <a href="http://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=336">Mike Crang</a> were drawing attention to the role of code in producing space and the politics of 'sentient cities'. Beyond that discipline, people like <a href="http://www.purselipsquarejaw.org/">Anne Galloway</a> and <a href="http://culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/about/people/academic/scott-mcquire">Scott McQuire</a> were writing about ubiquitous computing and the urban, and beyond academia, folks like <a href="http://speedbird.wordpress.com/">Adam Greenfield</a> and <a href="http://www.cityofsound.com/">Dan Hill</a> were also trying to raise awareness of the ways in which these technologies were becoming an invisible part of everyday urban life (Galloway's article in <i>Cultural Studies</i> was published in 2004, Greenfield's book <i>Everyware</i> came out in 2006, and McQuire's book <i>The Media City</i> came and Hill's wonderful essay on the <a href="http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/2008/02/the-street-as-p.html">street as platform</a> appeared on his blog in 2008).<br />
<br />
While it took those encounters with Gibson and Doctorow for me to finally pay attention, it seems I wasn't the only urbanist to have neglected these developments. When I finally put a grant application together in 2011, I did a quick search through some of the key urban studies/urban geography journals. I found that not a single article published in the <i>International Journal of Urban and Regional Research</i>, <i>Urban Studies</i>, or <i>Planning Theory</i> had discussed location-aware mobile media devices or locative media even in passing. Only one article across these three key journals even made mention of ‘mobile media’. With notable exceptions like the people mentioned above, it seemed as though the 'digital' folks and the 'urban' folks weren't really engaging with one another. But it's crucial that they do if we are to get to grips with the rapid on-going developments at the digital-urban interface.<br />
<br />
Happily, more and more people are taking steps out of their disciplinary comfort zones, and exciting cross-disciplinary dialogues are starting to take place. This blog is intended to be a little contribution to that dialogue.<br />
<br />
One of the reasons I'm incredibly grateful to have received funding for this research is that it means I'm not doing it alone -- Sophia Maalsen is now contributing her very excellent research skills to the project. One of her on-going roles is to scour the world for examples of the ways in which different actors are putting locative technologies to use for different purposes. And seeings as how we receiving public money to do this, it seems like a good idea to share!<br />
<br />
So, when we find cool/creepy/crazy stuff, we'll post some of it here. <br />
<br />
We'll also post some analysis and reflection along the way, in the hope that it might contribute to on-going conversations and maybe even receive some useful feedback.<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading!<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Here, Maharashtra 416509, India15.8867551 74.17977659999996815.8562106 74.139436099999969 15.9172996 74.220117099999968