context :: january 2005
| home | site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català | friday :: january 28, 2005
plan: pervasive and locative arts network
A new generation of pervasive technologies is enabling people to break away from traditional desktop PCs and games consoles and experience interactive media that are directly embedded into the world around them. And locative media, the combination of mobile devices with locative technologies, supports experiences and social interaction that respond to a participant�s physical location and context. Together these convergent fields raise possibilities for new cultural experiences in areas as diverse as performance, installations, games, tourism, heritage, marketing and education.
The creative industries are also beginning to take up these opportunities, led by artists who are actively charting out the potentials and boundaries of the new pervasive and locative media. Other cultural sectors have also been exploring the potential of pervasive and locative media including the games industry through commercial examples of locative games played on mobile phones. Researchers have also demonstrated applications in heritage and tourism, for example personal tourist guides and outdoors augmented reality displays and as well as in mobile learning experiences and participatory local history mapping projects.
A key characteristic of this research is its interdisciplinary nature, with many of these projects combining practicing artists, technology developers and also ethnographers, whose studies of early experiences that are actually delivered as public artworks have yielded new insights into the ways in which participants experience pervasive media, and, conversely, new metaphors for engaging in locative media.
However, realising the full potential of pervasive and locative media requires several further developments. >from *First Workshop of the Pervasive and Locative Arts Network (PLAN)*. Conference & workshop at the I.C.A. (The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK). February 1-2, 2005.
> spacenamespace. about annotating space with metadata; about building semantic models of places; about exchanging geospatial data in rdf.
> buddyspace. an open-source cross-platform instant messaging and geo-location tool. the semantics of presence.
> neighbornodes: wireless extensible neighborhood network. an online and augmented real-world social space. november 12, 2004
> urballon: an urban media space. a parallel experience between urban and information spaces. october 8, 2004
> parccentralpark. an emerging urban kitchen. may - september 2004
> first international moblogging conference. theory and experience of mobile web publishing. june 30, 2003
> psy-geo-conflux: the meaning of living in a city. current artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. may 14, 2003
> smart mobs: new uses of mobile media. the combination of mobile communication and the internet. october 3, 2002
> locative media
> layers and layers of plans generating networks| permaLink friday :: january 21, 2005
The earthquake near Sumatra and subsequent tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 resulted in a large number of deaths; early estimates suggest six digit figures, with the hardest hit being remote regions of Sumatra. In the aftermath of this event, many countries have sent aid of various kinds, and the Internet community has asked itself whether the Internet might have been used to help.
This note proposes a system that could be used to quickly warn people in an identified geographic region of an impending event, such as a tsunami, hurricane or typhoon, or attack. It builds on existing technologies that are presently used for other purposes: given a alert from an appropriate Warning Center, the Internet (using, for example, Internet Mail and S/MIME) could be used to deliver an authenticated message to a set of mobile telephone operators, who in turn could send an SMS broadcast to mobile telephones in affected regions, alert of the event. The same email could trigger public and private organizations to initiate necessary support services such as evacuation orders or provision of shelter and emergency medical response. Such an approach would, of course, not warn everyone - everyone does not carry a mobile telephone, and everyone who does would not necessarily read it. But it would warn a large percentage, which might help...
Delivery of such a message via the Internet can be accomplished in a number of ways: mail, instant messaging, or other approaches. For the present purpose, the simplest approach would seem to be the use of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). It requires, in essence, the creation of appropriate mailing lists, perhaps managed by the early Warning Centers themselves, of appropriate contacts in government and service providers. Operationally, if the operators prefer, another service could be used.
The great danger in such is that miscreants might send messages that appear similar to the same targets, spoofing the source. Such an event would severely damage the credibility and therefore the utility of such a system. As such, it is critical that an authenticated electronic mail message be used. Proof of authenticity might be provided using facilities such as S/MIME or PGP.
WWW (http or https) may also be used on a polled basis to deliver alerts. Such a system avoids many of the security issues mentioned regarding electronic mail, but has two unfortunate properties: polling must be sufficiently frequent to ensure timeliness of the delivery of the alert, and the frequency presents a scaling issue.
An approach to this might be built using Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Alert centers might use such a system as a way to publish their alerts permitting receivers to trigger automated actions when they occur. >from *Structure of an International Emergency Alert System*. Internet-Draft submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) by F. Baker and B. Carpenter. January 10, 2005
> the south-east asia earthquake and tsunami blog.
> sahana disaster management system
> arc (alert retrieval cache).
> emergency disasters data base.
> recent world earthquake activity. u.s. geological survey earthquakes: rss feed information
> feedbeep. sms alerts to your phone or pager about any rss feed.
> smartmobbing disaster relief by howard rheingold . january 20, 2005
> world conference on disaster reduction. kobe, japan, january 18-22, 2005
> how the earthquake affected earth. january 10, 2005
> video blogs break out with tsunami scenes. january 3, 2005
> expert: I tried to warn of tsunami. january 3, 2005
> lack of phone numbers stymied tsunami alert. december 31, 2004
> tsunami: the message public notice alert| permaLink friday :: january 14, 2005
"Poverty, disease, and environmental decline are the true axis of evil," says Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. "Unless these threats are recognized and responded to, the world runs the risk of being blindsided by the new forces of instability, just as the United States was surprised by the terrorist attacks of September 11." Among the many destabilizing pressures examined, State of the World 2005 highlights the following as particularly critical for efforts to build a more peaceful world:
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: More than 100 developing countries worldwide are currently experiencing a "youth bulge" (a situation where people aged 15 to 29 account for more than 40 percent of all adults). Economic opportunities are particularly scarce in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where 21-26 percent of young people are unemployed. Worldwide, the more than 200 million young people worldwide who are either jobless or do not earn enough to support a family�especially young men�can be a destabilizing force if their discontent pushes them into crime or into joining insurgencies or extremist groups.
To confront these challenges to global security, State of the World 2005 calls for a strengthening of the civilian institutions and systems that are best equipped to address them. A range of strategic investments in sustainable energy, public health, protection of ecological systems, education, jobs, and poverty alleviation will assist in this transition, write the report's authors. >from *POVERTY, DISEASE, ENVIRONMENTAL DECLINE ARE TRUE 'AXIS OF EVIL' State of the World 2005 calls for new approach to global security*. January 12, 2005
> AIDS epidemic should be treated as a disaster. november 12, 2003. [more]
> worldwide hunger more a political problem, study finds. january 30, 2002
> uproot the new forces of instability
| permaLink friday :: january 7, 2005
Polley concludes, "There is still proportionality between response strength in the brain and the stimulus. But now neurons are much more selective, and can represent sound intensity with decreasing firing rates as well as increasing firing rates." This system is "optimal" for representing subtle changes in loudness, reasons Polley, because "it gives you two directions to change through," making it many times more responsive than a simple firing rate increase. "And it becomes optimized through learning." From a psychological viewpoint, the study says something about how we acquire and refine new skills. When we speak of training a musician's ear or a painter' s eye, speculates Polley, we may be referring to the alternate sensory processing system employed by the expert rats. "This is implicit learning," he says. "How do we learn the skills that distinguish one tradesman from another tradesman? These processes are undoubtedly operating in these types of learning behaviors, and they most likely are responsible for expertise. We are looking at the neural substrate for these lifelong learning processes." >from *Brain Can Be Trained to Process Sound in Alternate Way*. December 14, 2004
> synapses: plasticity and stability. 'synapses are completely turning over all of their constituents multiple times a day � a stunning finding. neuroscientists have long been intrigued in how the brain changes with learning and experience, a phenomenon called plasticity. perhaps we need to think more closely about how connections in the brain remain stable in the face of such incredible ongoing turnover.' february 19, 2003
brain training [download]| permaLink > context weblog archive
http://straddle3.net/context/03/en/2005_01.html
context :: january 2005
| home | site map | about context | donate | lang >>> español - català | friday :: january 28, 2005
plan: pervasive and locative arts network
A new generation of pervasive technologies is enabling people to break away from traditional desktop PCs and games consoles and experience interactive media that are directly embedded into the world around them. And locative media, the combination of mobile devices with locative technologies, supports experiences and social interaction that respond to a participant�s physical location and context. Together these convergent fields raise possibilities for new cultural experiences in areas as diverse as performance, installations, games, tourism, heritage, marketing and education.
The creative industries are also beginning to take up these opportunities, led by artists who are actively charting out the potentials and boundaries of the new pervasive and locative media. Other cultural sectors have also been exploring the potential of pervasive and locative media including the games industry through commercial examples of locative games played on mobile phones. Researchers have also demonstrated applications in heritage and tourism, for example personal tourist guides and outdoors augmented reality displays and as well as in mobile learning experiences and participatory local history mapping projects.
A key characteristic of this research is its interdisciplinary nature, with many of these projects combining practicing artists, technology developers and also ethnographers, whose studies of early experiences that are actually delivered as public artworks have yielded new insights into the ways in which participants experience pervasive media, and, conversely, new metaphors for engaging in locative media.
However, realising the full potential of pervasive and locative media requires several further developments. >from *First Workshop of the Pervasive and Locative Arts Network (PLAN)*. Conference & workshop at the I.C.A. (The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK). February 1-2, 2005.
> spacenamespace. about annotating space with metadata; about building semantic models of places; about exchanging geospatial data in rdf.
> buddyspace. an open-source cross-platform instant messaging and geo-location tool. the semantics of presence.
> neighbornodes: wireless extensible neighborhood network. an online and augmented real-world social space. november 12, 2004
> urballon: an urban media space. a parallel experience between urban and information spaces. october 8, 2004
> parccentralpark. an emerging urban kitchen. may - september 2004
> first international moblogging conference. theory and experience of mobile web publishing. june 30, 2003
> psy-geo-conflux: the meaning of living in a city. current artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. may 14, 2003
> smart mobs: new uses of mobile media. the combination of mobile communication and the internet. october 3, 2002
> locative media
> layers and layers of plans generating networks| permaLink friday :: january 21, 2005
The earthquake near Sumatra and subsequent tsunami throughout the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 resulted in a large number of deaths; early estimates suggest six digit figures, with the hardest hit being remote regions of Sumatra. In the aftermath of this event, many countries have sent aid of various kinds, and the Internet community has asked itself whether the Internet might have been used to help.
This note proposes a system that could be used to quickly warn people in an identified geographic region of an impending event, such as a tsunami, hurricane or typhoon, or attack. It builds on existing technologies that are presently used for other purposes: given a alert from an appropriate Warning Center, the Internet (using, for example, Internet Mail and S/MIME) could be used to deliver an authenticated message to a set of mobile telephone operators, who in turn could send an SMS broadcast to mobile telephones in affected regions, alert of the event. The same email could trigger public and private organizations to initiate necessary support services such as evacuation orders or provision of shelter and emergency medical response. Such an approach would, of course, not warn everyone - everyone does not carry a mobile telephone, and everyone who does would not necessarily read it. But it would warn a large percentage, which might help...
Delivery of such a message via the Internet can be accomplished in a number of ways: mail, instant messaging, or other approaches. For the present purpose, the simplest approach would seem to be the use of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). It requires, in essence, the creation of appropriate mailing lists, perhaps managed by the early Warning Centers themselves, of appropriate contacts in government and service providers. Operationally, if the operators prefer, another service could be used.
The great danger in such is that miscreants might send messages that appear similar to the same targets, spoofing the source. Such an event would severely damage the credibility and therefore the utility of such a system. As such, it is critical that an authenticated electronic mail message be used. Proof of
 authenticity might be provided using facilities such as S/MIME or PGP.
WWW (http or https) may also be used on a polled basis to deliver alerts. Such a system avoids many of the security issues mentioned regarding electronic mail, but has two unfortunate properties: polling must be sufficiently frequent to ensure timeliness of the delivery of the alert, and the frequency presents a scaling issue.
An approach to this might be built using Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Alert centers might use such a system as a way to publish their alerts permitting receivers to trigger automated actions when they occur. >from *Structure of an International Emergency Alert System*. Internet-Draft submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) by F. Baker and B. Carpenter. January 10, 2005
> the south-east asia earthquake and tsunami blog.
> sahana disaster management system
> arc (alert retrieval cache).
> emergency disasters data base.
> recent world earthquake activity. u.s. geological survey earthquakes: rss feed information
> feedbeep. sms alerts to your phone or pager about any rss feed.
> smartmobbing disaster relief by howard rheingold . january 20, 2005
> world conference on disaster reduction. kobe, japan, january 18-22, 2005
> how the earthquake affected earth. january 10, 2005
> video blogs break out with tsunami scenes. january 3, 2005
> expert: I tried to warn of tsunami. january 3, 2005
> lack of phone numbers stymied tsunami alert. december 31, 2004
> tsunami: the message public notice alert| permaLink friday :: january 14, 2005
"Poverty, disease, and environmental decline are the true axis of evil," says Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. "Unless these threats are recognized and responded to, the world runs the risk of being blindsided by the new forces of instability, just as the United States was surprised by the terrorist attacks of September 11." Among the many destabilizing pressures examined, State of the World 2005 highlights the following as particularly critical for efforts to build a more peaceful world:
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: More than 100 developing countries worldwide are currently experiencing a "youth bulge" (a situation where people aged 15 to 29 account for more than 40 percent of all adults). Economic opportunities are particularly scarce in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, where 21-26 percent of young people are unemployed. Worldwide, the more than 200 million young people worldwide who are either jobless or do not earn enough to support a family�especially young men�can be a destabilizing force if their discontent pushes them into crime or into joining insurgencies or extremist groups.
To confront these challenges to global security, State of the World 2005 calls for a strengthening of the civilian institutions and systems that are best equipped to address them. A range of strategic investments in sustainable energy, public health, protection of ecological systems, education, jobs, and poverty alleviation will assist in this transition, write the report's authors. >from *POVERTY, DISEASE, ENVIRONMENTAL DECLINE ARE TRUE 'AXIS OF EVIL' State of the World 2005 calls for new approach to global security*. January 12, 2005
> AIDS epidemic should be treated as a disaster. november 12, 2003. [more]
> worldwide hunger more a political problem, study finds. january 30, 2002
> uproot the new forces of instability
| permaLink friday :: january 7, 2005
Polley concludes, "There is still proportionality between response strength in the brain and the stimulus. But now neurons are much more selective, and can represent sound intensity with decreasing firing rates as well as increasing firing rates." This system is "optimal" for representing subtle changes in loudness, reasons Polley, because "it gives you two directions to change through," making it many times more responsive than a simple firing rate increase. "And it becomes optimized through learning." From a psychological viewpoint, the study says something about how we acquire and refine new skills. When we speak of training a musician's ear or a painter' s eye, speculates Polley, we may be referring to the alternate sensory processing system employed by the expert rats. "This is implicit learning," he says. "How do we learn the skills that distinguish one tradesman from another tradesman? These processes are undoubtedly operating in these types of learning behaviors, and they most likely are responsible for expertise. We are looking at the neural substrate for these lifelong learning processes." >from *Brain Can Be Trained to Process Sound in Alternate Way*. December 14, 2004
> synapses: plasticity and stability. 'synapses are completely turning over all of their constituents multiple times a day � a stunning finding. neuroscientists have long been intrigued in how the brain changes with learning and experience, a phenomenon called plasticity. perhaps we need to think more closely about how connections in the brain remain stable in the face of such incredible ongoing turnover.' february 19, 2003
brain training [download]| permaLink > context weblog archive
http://straddle3.net/context/03/en/2005_01.html