Eric is doing more great cool stuff over at the Intel Berkeley Lab
Begin forwarded message: > From: Eric Paulos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: March 28, 2007 6:48:30 PM CST > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [Urban Atmospheres] Urban Atmospheres Presents: > Participatory Urbanism > > Participatory Urbanism > empowering citizens to collectively author, share, and remix > measurments from their environment > > http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/ParticipatoryUrbanism/index.html > > Participatory Urbanism presents an important new shift in mobile > device usage - from communication tool to networked mobile > personal measurement instrument. We explore how these new > instruments enable entirely new participatory urban lifestyles > and create novel mobile device usage models. > > In the spirit of Urban Computing, Participatory Urbanism is the > open authoring, sharing, and remixing of new or existing urban > technologies marked by, requiring, or involving participation, > especially affording the opportunity for individual citizen > participation, sharing, and voice. Participatory Urbanism builds > upon a large body of related projects where citizens act as agents > of change. There is a long history of such movements from grassroot > neighborhood watch campaigns to political revolutions. > > Our mobile devices are more than just personal communication > tools . They are globally networked, speak the lingua franca of the > city (SMS, Bluetooth, MMS), and are becoming the dominant urban > processor. We need to shatter our understanding of them as phones > and celebrate them in their new role as measurement instruments. > Our desire is to provide our mobile devices with new super-senses > and abilities by enabling a wide range of physical sensors to be > easily attached and used by anyone, especially non-experts. > > The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million deaths each > year can be attributed to air pollution - thats more deaths than > those resulting from automobile accidents. Presently, citizens must > defer to a small handful of civic government installed > environmental monitoring stations that use extrapolation to derive > a single air quality measurement for an entire metropolitan region. > This sparse sensing strategy does little to capture the dynamic > variability arising from daily automobile traffic patterns, human > activity, and smaller industries. Are we to believe that the park, > subway exit, underground parking lot, building atrium, bus stop, > and roadway median are all equivalent environmental places? > > What happens when individual mobile devices are augmented with > novel sensing technologies such as noise pollution, air quality, UV > levels, water quality, etc? We claim that it will shatter our > understanding of these devices as simply communication tools > (a.k.a. phones) and celebrates them in their new role as > measurement instruments. We envision a wide range of novel > physical sensors attached to mobile devices, empowering everyday > non-experts with new super-senses and abilities. It radically > alters the current models of civic government as sole data gatherer > and decision maker by empowering everyday citizens to collectively > participate in super-sampling their life, city, and environment. > > Integrating simple air quality sensors into networked mobile phones > promotes everyday citizens to uncover, visualize, and collectively > share real-time air quality measurements from their own everyday > urban lifestyles. This rich people-driven sensor data leverages > community power imbalances, and can increase agency and decision > maker understanding of a community's claims, thereby potentially > increasing public trust. This detailed local knowledge informs > environmental health research and environmental policy making > persuading both individuals and civic government towards positive > improvements in air quality and environmental change. > > > _______________________________________________ > Urban-Atmospheres mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mailman.berkeley.intel-research.net/mailman/listinfo/urban- > atmospheres --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
