Urban Atmospheres is a project that concerns itself with the way that urban populations are changing. They are increasing each year and at the time of the study 48% of the world's population are currently living in an urban environment.The main areas that the project concentrated on were -
- Place
- Community
- Infrastructure
- Traversal
The main method used to investigate these areas were urban probes. These probes are designed to facilitate new research possibilities in the current day as well as provide inspiration for future urban computing research.
The Projects
The projects contained within urban environments have a broad scope but many concentrate on the subject of air quality. The Ergo Project - air quality sensors were attached to mobile devices like mobile phones and the user then SMS'ed their post code and were able to compare air quality across different areas whereas Participatory Urbanism expands on the Ergo Project and incorporates GPS units to capture the variety of urban activities to see the difference between, for example a park and a bus stop. The use of these technologies, especially in the high-growth (economical and polluting) countries like India and China will be fascinating to watch.
The Project that most interested me was the Jabberwocky Project. Jabberwocky is a free mobile phone application designed to connect communities in urban spaces through Bluetooth devices and is deployed on both fixed objects and mobile phones.
Jabberwocky works by a user leaving behind a digital path as they move through an urban landscape. The fixed objects also emit a wireless signal from a digital tag called an iMote. When two Jabberwocky users approach each other picks up and records each others' unique id. Even if the other person is not a Jabberwocky user, the application still records each unique entry for people they have encountered.
Jabberwocky will also show a visualisation of the amount of familiar strangers that are nearby. As the study's researchers (Intel Research) commented, "One of the most powerful elements of Jabberwocky is that it is not driven by the bits of an online network, but by actual real-life daily ebb and flow within our actual urban landscapes and by the movement and interaction (or non-interaction) of others whose path we encounter. Therefore, the number of participants is not simply the size of some database on a central server but a more powerful, grass roots, and personal membership in urban life. To be specific, every Bluetooth mobile phone user is within the Jabberwocky community.Main Interface
Other Technologies using Wireless Technologies
Fire Eagle - Online site and services where other users can respond to your location as you move through your environment.
My Loki - Social networking enabling users to share their location with each other.
Reference List
