One Day Workshop to be held at UbiComp 2004 http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/UbiComp2004/ 7th September 2004 Nottingham, England
Call for Papers (PDF) http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/UbiComp2004/Papers/Urban%20Frontiers%20workshop%20CFP.pdf Organizers Eric Paulos ~~ Intel Research Berkeley Ken Anderson ~~ Intel PaPR Anthony Townsend ~~ NYU Taub Urban Research Center Dates Position Papers Due 26 July Notification of Acceptance 2 August Camera Ready Due 27 August Scope and Aims UbiComp in the Urban Frontier is a one day workshop to be held at the 6th Annual Ubiquitous Computing Conference in Nottingham, England. This workshop will be focused on understand how the rapidly emerging fabric of mobile and wireless computing will influence, disrupt, expand, and be integrated into the social patterns existent within our public urban landscapes. There is little doubt that laptops, PDAs, and mobile phones have enabled computing to become a truly mobile experience. With these new computing devices, we emerge from our office, work, and school into the urban fabric of our cities and towns. We often view these urban areas as "in-between spaces" - obstacles to traverse from one place to another. However, not only do we spend a significant amount of time in such urban landscapes, but these spaces contribute to our own formulation of identity, community, and self. Much of the richness of life transpires within our own urban settings. Similarly, there is a growing body of work within the field of social computing, particularly those involving social networking such as Tribe, Friendster, and Live Journal. At the intersection of mobile and social computing, we seek to provoke discussion aimed at understanding this emerging space of computing within and across our public urban frontiers. While toting a laptop around a city may seem a like an example of such city computing, the urban frontiers workshop will be more deeply concerned with addressing several sub-themes, including (but not limited to): a.. Place - What is the meaning of various public places? What cues do we use to interpret place and how will Urban Computing re-inform and alter our perception of various places? b.. Community - Who are the people we share our city with? How do they influence our urban landscape? Where do we belong in this social space and how do new technologies enable and disrupt feelings of community and belonging? c.. Infrastructure - How will buildings, subways, sidewalks, parking meters, and other conventional, physical artifacts on the urban landscape be used and re-appropriated by emerging technology tools? d.. Traversal - What is a path or route through a city using these new urban tools? How will navigation and movement, either throughout an entire city or within a small urban space, be influenced by the introduction of Urban Computing technology? The timing of the Urban Frontiers workshop is aimed at capturing a unique, synergistic moment - expanding urban populations, rapid adoption of Bluetooth mobile devices, and widespread influence of wireless technologies across our urban landscapes. The United Nations has recently reported that 48 percent of the world's population currently live in urban areas and that this number is expected to exceed the 50 percent mark by 2007, thus marking the first time in history that the world will have more urban residents than rural residents. Current studies project Bluetooth-enabled devices to reach 1.4 billion units in 2005 alone. Nearly 400 million new mobile phones are scheduled to be sold worldwide this year alone. WiFi hardware is being deployed at the astonishing rate of one every 4 seconds globally. We are gathering for an event to expose, deconstruct, and understand the challenges of this newly emerging moment in urban history and its dramatic influence on technology usage and adoption. We invite position papers on topics related to these themes. Participation Selection of workshop participants and presentations will be based on refereed submissions. Authors are invited to submit a two-page position statement in the ACM SIGCHI conference publications format. Position statements are encouraged to be provocative and will be used during the workshop to guide and disrupt our views of the urban frontiers. They may include personal experiences, performances, studies, or individual urban projects. Position statements should have only one author, and should include a brief biography. Further submission details will be posted in the coming week. Please check back. Please email submissions in PDF format to [EMAIL PROTECTED] no later than 26 July 2004. Format Activities and format of the workshop will be posted shortly. Proceedings A workshop proceedings will be distributed to participants, and will also be available online in PDF format. The proceedings will contain all the participants' position statements. -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
