A talk at Planningness Brooklyn 2010.

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2. urban computing
Chris Heathcote
@antimega
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I'm an interaction and experience designer - I've spent 15 years
working on this screen (computer), and the last 10 years working
on this screen (phone). But some of what I've been working on tries
to get away from the tyranny of the screen.

3. a definition
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let's try and define what urban computing is...

4. action / reaction
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well, at its most basic, we have actions causing reactions

5. input / output
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or in computer terms, input and output

6. inputs / outputs
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but it's more than that - a light switch has an input and output.
computers let us take many inputs and process them in many
different ways.

7. inputs /
processing /
outputs
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and the processing is what computers are really good at

8. keyboard+mouse /
application /
display
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so this is the traditional computer: do stuff with distinctly weird
input mechanisms, and a blob moves on the screen

9. sensors /
large databases /
many outputs
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so urban computing just extends that - many more sensors, many
more possible outputs + we can collate, store and process large
amounts of information

10. why should we care?
why now?
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11. technology changes
the way people act,
think, conceive what’s
possible
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It's interesting that we've heard already that usage changes before
thinking

12. the postal service
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and it's not new - the penny post (started in 1680) used to run in
London up to 6-8 times a day - the speed of information processing
increased tremendously

13. the railway
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1825 - the railway took that and made it country and continent wide
- to the point where we had to redefine how time worked

14. telegraph / telephone
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and then we made it instant - changing the relationship with data -
those in the know had absolute business advantage, it redefined
what newspapers were etc.

15. mobile phone
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changed from ringing a place to ringing a person - and the way
people live and act has changed quicker than ever before

16. where are we?
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17. near ubiquity
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of cellphones (in the first world, and a majority in the second and
third world)

18. ubiquity of
connections
& connectivity
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19. ubiquity of
computing
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people are carrying many computers with them everywhere
homes are full of computers - soon every switch and socket will
contain a computer

20. what changes?
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21. context
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it's a horrible word, but suddenly we can make things that seem
relevant to what's happening

22. where you are
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23. what time it is
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absolute, time of day, weekday/weekend (+ other information such
as weather)

24. who you are
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25. who you're with
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26. + new ways to interact
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27. in both the private and
public sphere
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28. BUT
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but - and it's a big but

29. BUT
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30. no idea of intention
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we still have no idea of people's real intentions

31. no idea of need
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or what they want or need

32. a new toolbox -
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so we have new things to play with - over and above the media
we're used to

33. Sensing:
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34. identifying place
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35. GPS
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many phones have GPS now

36. GPS
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but actually it's not just GPS

37. GPS + wi-fi + Cell ID
triangulation +
country ...
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lots of kinds of information are used to determine location

38. or much simpler
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39. Nike Grid
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Nike Grid - a city-based running game - could have used Nike+ or
GPS - but used payphones to check in and out - let everyone
participate

40. identifying things
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41. barcodes
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barcodes are great to identify (things with barcodes)

42. barcodes
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you can only make them so pretty

43. basket comparison
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supermarkets have had barcode scanners for years - to tell you the
price. the next step is to tell you the price at competitors - and by
scanning your receipt how much money you saved on your total
shop. -> uses a tremendous amount of data and computation

44. QR-codes
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45. QR-codes
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qr codes, data matrix, spotcodes.... there's no standards built into
cellphones in the West unlike in Japan - so they're essentially
useless

46. RFID
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(thanks to Adam Greenfield, author of Everyware, for this photo)
RFID is becoming ubiquitous through things like public transport
payment systems. NFC could take this into cellphones too.

47. Nabaztag
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it's a talking glowing wifi rabbit with an RFID reader in

48. Skål
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a super simple system for connecting media to objects

49. text recognition
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50. numberplates
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this was an ad for Castrol - people hated seeing their numberplate
on the billboard (even if it's already on your car), and they worried
that somehow they knew what kind of car they had

51. augmented reality
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Layar - using place and direction to work out what you're looking at

52. identifying people
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53. face recognition
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Japanese vending machines identify how old you are
NEC's EKI digital signage network can distinguish a person's sex and
approximate age
companies can provide interactive advertisements "which meet the interest of people who use the station at a certain time,"

54. emotion recognition
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many cameras recognise smiles, blinks

55. tracking use
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56. chromaroma
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turning Oyster card public transport usage into a game - passive
participation

57. chromaroma
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break records, collect stations

58. tracking health
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59. Nike+
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talking shoes! magic pebbles that talk to the Internet.... but software
trumps hardware - pebbles are forgettable and need power.
Location also infers speed, which infers kind of motion.

60. Pokemon
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Pokeball-styled pedometer that unlocks new powers in the game ->
changes kids' relationship to walking

61. Fitbit
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more magic pebbles - but where do you attach it when sleeping?

62. Withings
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everything is on the Internet, everything has a Twitter account

63. even bus stops weigh
you
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Dutch billboard that displays the weight of whoever's sitting on the
bench

64. communal use
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we can aggregate hundreds or thousands of data points in real-time

65. Nuage Vert
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a stark visualisation of how much energy a city is using

66. Nuage Vert
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that actually got people to try to reduce consumption on a particular
day

67. public data
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public data is opening up, realising that 3rd party developers and
hackers can find new ways of combining and interacting with data
better than organisations

68. Helsinki live tram map
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69. London live train map
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maps are the hello world of Open Data

70. Computation:
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71. Arduino
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connects sensors together with computation, plus it can talk to the
Internet

72. Pachube
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and it talks to things like pachube - a switchboard for data

73. Outputs:
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74. Virtual Reality
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this is not being in the world

75. Augmented Reality
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three problems: people don't have strong arms, instant mugging
target, and you look like a dick

76. text messages
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and alerts - people are used to receiving them - but don't overload

77. coupons
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the urban computing cliche - "you walk past starbucks and get 5
cents off a latte"

78. screens
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screens are everywhere. they're being deployed really quickly,
especially in new public buildings (stations, airports)

79. screens
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in the UK, we don't have planning permission for movement in
traditional outdoor sites. Other cities have sold off the right to
install screens across the city. (thanks to Adam again for this video)

80. screens
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BT Tower - 850,000 lumens, visible for miles - too bright to
photograph

81. hand from above
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Chris O'Shea's installation - reacts to people walking below

82. 2nd screens
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souped up Internet connected real time alarm clock - also interested
in 2nd screens next to the TV

83. 3rd, 4th & 5th screens
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turns out the fridge computer lot were right

84. what’s next?
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artificial intelligence is dirt cheap (check out Argos or JCPenney
catalog - kid's toys have amazing intelligence)

85. face rec
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your average compact camera recognises more faces than a 6 month
old baby. why do computers and phones need passwords any more?

86. voice rec
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It's never going to be perfect *and* real time. But I'm convinced
there's a lot we can do with constrained vocabularies.

87. haptics
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vibration and touch - we can start to make electronic surfaces have
a "hand" or feel.
Haptic compass - had 12 cellphone vibra motors and the one
closest to north kicked occasionally. What's interest is that the body
internalises this really quickly - superpowers are easy to acquire.

88. projectors - big
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we've all seen the videos of architectural mapping and projections

89. projectors - big
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this is Robert Lepage's The Image Mill projection in Montreal

90. projectors - big
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but (with few exceptions) we have the technology and no idea of
how to tell stories using it

91. projectors - small
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why doesn't your alarm clock look like this?
nanoprojectors are information torches (and will be in your
cellphone soon)

92. projectors - small
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or - even this

93. wearables
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This is the Looxcie Wearcam. looking more like a Bluetooth headset.
Need to work out how to mount and wear technology.

94. sonification
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Sound in underused - probably thankfully. but what information can
we convey, especially with headphones and audio location.

95. rjdj
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takes all a phone's inputs - microphone, accelerometer, location and
makes and changes music based on them

96. ruricomp
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I don't actually like the term 'urban' - as lots of this can help and
connect suburban and rural communities too. (this is a mockup by
paulpod)

97. so what does this
mean to marketing?
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98. becoming real-time
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creating and keeping data fresh is hard - but we need it to be real-time to feel interesting and
connected

99. 1 ad = 10,000 ads
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if we can change what we show or say based on context, we're going
to need a lot more executions - maybe even written, distributed and
shown in real-time

100. how to scale
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a lot of this currently only exists as events or location constrained
experiences

101. new forms of media
are needed
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screens aren't vertical tv ads (or banner ads)

102. need new platforms
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new platforms are emerging - but they're layers on top on phones
or computers (layar). platforms in the real-world (digital outdoor or
DOOH) are disconnected, small and all with different tech specs

103. need to understand
the materialness
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these new types of media need to be designed - we don't have
50-100 years of experience

104. entering the era of
magic
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you want a harry potter clock showing where people are? sure, no
problem.

105. you can read minds
(for a bit)
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new technology that's magic quickly becomes mundane

106. hit the uncanny valley
of ads
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the uncanny valley is a term from robotics - robots that seem
human but don't quite feel right - fight or flight. ads that shout your
name are exactly the same.

107. B.A.S.A.A.P.
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Matt Jones coined the term - Be as smart as a puppy.
If you can't be human, fail gracefully (with puppy dog eyes)

108. you'll still freak
people out
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it's a spectrum of understanding privacy concerns - "if we don't get
on the front page of the Daily Mail we're not trying hard enough"

109. urbn bacn
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bacn is the name for email you asked for but don't really want -
newsletters, offers, etc. If every company knows where you are, do
you want your phone vibrating every 5 yards? (this is a frame from
Keiichi Matsuda's Domestic Robocop film)

110. re-engage with
discussions of public
& private realm
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city by city, country by country there will be a reassessment of how
marketing and advertising impacts our daily lives

111. Thanks.
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112. Questions?
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113. task
Teams of 3 or 4 or whatever.
Pick a brand.
Think of the what they could create in the real world -
public space, subway, in car, in store, screens, projections, apps
What context can we infer - place/places/time/time of day/
things/usage...
Push it as far into the future as possible.
Elevator pitch - 30 seconds
I want to know:
What data are they sensing / using? How does it manifest?
What do people experience? What's magic about it?
Nike
Starbucks
coupons
projecting on the moon
113

114. @antimega
chris@metaloca.com
weblog: http://anti-mega.com
Making. Thinking.
metaloca.com
114