Hmm, after a long period of relaxation, some work, and lots of RSI hassle. it is time to get back on track. Hopefully, my computer will think the same. Right now, it is a little over-ambitious and confused (see memory stats):

Whilst having lots of programs open similarly, it also showed some beautiful mishaps (especially due to keynote, i think):

and a second later, this one:

nice, eh?

well as 2008 has started, lots has to happen. With recent news that virtually no blogs at all are actually read (and the notion that blogging seems narcissistic) I too have to give my contribution to what is is called the blogosphere.

After a first semester of being properly introduced into the blogosphere and its up- and downside, I do believe in its additional value being that not only of self-publishing , but moreover that of sharing. Where discussion concerning open source, copyright and the value of wikipedia have been discussed widely one cannot deny that experience, facts and fun are more easily shared and do get read (once in a while), with the ever-lasting tension of that one comment. Without being able to back it up I do believe the blogosphere does give alternative to a physically diminishing public space, where the digital gives an opportunity to reclaim the otherwise commercialized and often capitalized way of interacting with the each other, society and the world. And yes it is less face-to-face, and yes probably it does reveal a certain narcissism we mankind have. So be it. Whether it is yet another lolcat-blog, or yet another political-activist blog, screaming for a minority to give it attention, it is a new medium where things go round, where activity is taking place. Share your fun, share your crap, share your whatever! Read you in 2008.

A post on the Glow festival can be found here

This link is very interesting; an (almost) real time geo-locater of anonymous Wikipedia entries.

Below you can find eight minutes of recorded truth-editing compressed in two minutes. In this dance of red dots, what do we see? And what is the world editing about within these eight minutes of reality? A nice add-on would be if one could track changes per edit-topic. This could create a kind of ‘truth-status-bar’ of topics of your interest. Next step will be to record an hour and create one static image with all layers of edits. This in order to see where the weight of edits will lie (and maybe on what topics/issues).
movie

A full post can be found here.

A full report can be found here. All pictures courtesy of Anne Helmond.
The Library and Social Networks

Willem Velthoven heads Mediamatic, and began by presenting some RFID projects the company and foundation has been involved in. The first of these was the symbolic table. This ‘interface free” table allowed users to simply tag objects and to play with (Web) content in a tactile way. Other projects were those displayed at the PICNIC conference, such as the ‘friend finder’. This application allows conference visitors to meet up in real space and become friends on an online social network at the same time. Using RFID tokens they print out business-cards with their profiles on them. As an added incentive, they can get a free beer. So, in essence, the installation uses and manipulates digital data through physical interaction.

Another PICNIC project was iTea, which was also a conversation starter. By placing one’s tag in the teacup, visitors would receive personalized data taken from both their personal profiles as well as from a Google query of their name. This gave the users an impression of the possibilities of data mining, profiling and RFID. The Photo Booth was also very popular at PICNIC, and allowed people to get their picture taken with friends and interact with one another using RFID.

The latest Mediamatic project involves the new public library of Amsterdam. Where libraries increasingly face the challenge of ‘upgrading’ to current information and searching demands, there is also a possibility for innovation.

Velthoven was asked to reflect on the whole process of lending- and returning books, in this case by use of RFID and/or ‘traditional’ bar-codes. Although the project and implementation is just beginning, some critical questions and remarks were already clear. For instance, he noted a security concern, since it easy to gain access to others’ data. But this data could also be used differently: if a digital system for accessing lending data is already in place, why not make it possible to share that data?

The main question for the project concerns the (changing) role of a library today. Velthoven suggested that, through new technologies and social networking sites like the ones used at PICNIC, the library could become a social meeting place, where instead of reading in silence, one could meet up with fellow-readers, have book discussions, share interests etc. What Velthoven did not address is whether this should be the primary aim of a library, or whether or not there are already non-technical ways of achieving the same goals (e.g. book clubs).

Velthoven concluded with a simple message, ‘Make it fun again!’ Using online social networks in combination with new technologies like RFID, he sees a different path for classic institutions like the library.

RFID in japan - Ubiquitous Network Society

Wouter Schilpzand is a researcher at the Technical University of Eindhoven. He conducted a couple of months of field-research into location-based services in Japan. With an overload of examples, from the Oyster-card and a number of mobile-phone applications for (among other things) public transport payments, the message was that the integration of technology in Japan is way ahead of Europe. The question why, however, was not really addressed, though, which is a pity. By only looking at the results of this techno-saturation, Schilpzand’s presentation missed an opportunity.

That Japanese culture is a mix of tradition and technology is well known, so the story about how gadget-friendly the early adopters are could be expected. One outcome of ’successful’ dissemination is that the average Japanese consumer is less critical and more open to new applications and new technologies. Where the European market is interested in established products and known for watchdog-like skepticism, the Japanese prosumer is more willing to give feedback and thus contribute to the research and development of new commercial technologies.

The conclusion of his talk was that we should look more at the rapid development of Japanese RFID and mobile technology. What he did not point out is that this cannot be reproduced directly elsewhere, since there are cultural differences and problems of scale and infrastructure (Japan is a relatively secluded area and the population is concentrated in big cities with a strong, cohesive culture).

Perhaps the rise of what Bruce Sterling calls the Spime or technology Wrangler will teach us to be less afraid of upcoming technologies, and possibly without losing skepticism. That Schilpzand’s presentation was so different to the rest serves as a reminder that Anglo-American fears of big brother-scenarios still rule discussions of RFID technology. Highlighting the divide, he argued that the dangers of RFID mentioned by Rieback and others, while very interesting, are a repetition of warnings, rather than proposals for solutions.

Serious Gaming

Rafi Haladijan is one of the founders of a Paris-based company called Violet, which recently gained international fame with its product, the Nabaztag. This is (in our view) the first real consumer product that deals with widely discussed phrases like Ambient Intelligence and the internet of things. Before going into more detail on the product, Haladijan gave the audience some background information.

Violet was founded in 2003, when the internet was viewed somewhat differently; with unstable connections, low connectivity and slower modems, the goal of ‘developing infrastructure and services to link all types of objects’ was far-fetched. Nonetheless, Violet looked to move in this direction by focusing on the meaning of phrases like calm technology and ubiquitous computing.
The first instance of inspiration he mentioned is the talking teddy bear. Mixing views on Moore’s law and evolution, Haladjian explains that the teddy bear carries the statement that everything will indeed be hooked up to some kind of network via some sort of electronics. Not because of a technological drive being imposed on society, but simply an inevitable evolutionary step.

According to Haladijan, the reason why big players like Philips and Sony have not entered the market of home-entertainment / ambient intelligence yet is due to their approach. These companies focus on creating a ’smart-home’, but do so with a naive vision on user-technology interaction. The smart home is one very expensive product with no real killer application, and thus exactly misses the point. In a time where we are halfway between the Flinstones and the Jetsons, the question is how to shape the road we are on now. We all have to do this, he says, and not leave it to bulky tech-companies. This is why Violet aims to create affordable products (20 to 200 euro) within the realm of Ambient Intelligence, with a focus on poetic and fun applications. Haladijan reasons that, by creating affordable products, people will understand the new technologies better and be able to create their own needs and values on that basis. By empowering people to do certain things with their products, a more diverse and more interesting adoption of technology will emerge naturally. What he proposes, then, is a bottom-up approach to consumer adoption of RFID.

Within a standard Western home, a person owns approximately 6000 to 8000 objects, of which maybe five of them are linked to a network (radio, phone, television, computer). The aim is to link all 8000 objects to a network, talking to each other - exchanging information, ultimately linking everything in the world together!

For the Violet company the first step was a networked lamp, a strange precursor given that their prize product now is the NaBaztag, the world’s first smart rabbit. Using an anthropomorphic shape as an interface, the NaBaztag is a more attractive way to interact with a network. In other words, it creates a portal to an internet or network without a screen, but a connection that it is more intuitive than scree-based interfaces.

Next up is the Nazbaztag/tag, which is equipped with an RFID reader. The reason behind this is that it will integrate with Ztamps, tags which you can stick on almost anything. When the Ztamps comes near the rabbit (or the other way around), content can be triggered, anything from sound, lights, website to mail. The nice thing about this very simple but effective application is that one can contextualize and confine digital content to physical objects. Again here the philosophy is to not project a function onto the user, but to give user-generated content a chance with this technology in the belief that cool things will emerge through use. As a concluding statement, Haladjian reminds us that this all really comes down to storytelling and creating new and exciting ways to facilitate it (especially where interaction is the story!).

q&a
In the short q&a, which was more of a summary, the overall message was that we have to move interactions away from the screen and shift towards a new interaction paradigm. RFID should not be used as ‘another way to load stuff on your screen’, as Timo Arnall put it.

The great advantage to moving away from the screen is that we can move away from the world of metaphors (like the desktop metaphor on screen) to direct couplings of meaning and action. According to Haladjian, ‘We have to make a bridge from screen to the real world again, where the challenge is the spreading and representation of data.’

www.lauravdv.nl/spinplant.html

This link
and here is another one, on the dutch Wikipedia

is part of a larger research assignment for the masters of media course in amsterdam, where new (and old) media are critically researched, viewed and responded on. Besides a theoretical approach, a very important part of this course is to also to ‘field research’; active generation and involvement in the new media landscape.

Currently, the ‘truth-value’ of wikipedia is researched. Where does knowlegde here come from, and who writes it? is it really the emergent ‘wisdom of the crowd’ or is it just a few nerds editing on everything? By creating semi-false, but true-linked wikipedia entries, one can find out how and how fast articles are checked, re-edited or discarded and, moreover, on what grounds and authority?

Despite the many pro’s and con’s on wikipedia form mainly the academic world (saying its truth-value is worthless, or at least inadequate), it is out there and used widely. The fear exists that knowledge in this way becomes ‘flat’ and can hold back science and knowledge spreading by creating a web of ‘read-believe’. On the other hand one might say that, even if most wikipedias are not your fully-grown academic research, it does get read a lot, spreading a web of common knowledge that may, in my opinion, raise the average of this common knowledge to a wide range of different cultures.

The two different wikipedia entries also represent another thing i am curious at: if localized wikipedia respond with the same speed and in the same manner? The dutch wiki-entry is about a new word, the first is about a dutch event. Both descriptions are ‘true’, only some minor ‘fact-bending’ is done.

In just one day the results are the following:

In contrast to my expectations, my dutch entry was removed within a day (while my English entry was only asked to be categorized), due to the following reason: “considered work in progress”, verdicted by a certain ArnaudH (a not-even-moderator from wikipedia, with which we as MoM students have encountered more problems these days). See this link for the whole comment.

To not enter the discussion of truth-value within wikipedia, the point I do want to stress out is that a) apparently, ‘local’ wikipedia is checked much sooner than the ‘international’ English part and b) that if so, it is ‘moderated’ by such few people, that one can almost speak of a dictatorialization of knowledge on a local scale; of deciding what is ‘good for wiki’.

Both point are heavily contrasting the goal of Wikipedia, being open, international ‘emergence’ of knowledge. Interested next step would be to check whether the Dutch moderators verify their comments and deleting-of-entries with their larger (thus probably more balanced) English counterpart.