What maps need · posted by vaibhav bhawsar Jun 15, 2009
I personally like the inclusion of the word Atmosphere in the stack of things maps need to be in the future. What is good about it is that atmosphere can be expanded to include the ambient and the ubiquitous.
I found this on Cartifact
StrangeMap · posted by vaibhav bhawsar Feb 27, 2007
What is it?
A photo service where you can shoot familiar people/strangers and post those photos up on a website to share with other strangers.
Who are familiar Strangers?
People who you see everyday while you take the subway or walk to school. But they are essentially strangers.
So how does it work?
You take a picture, tag it with the place you were in- the address. Send it to mobtree{att}recombine…net
The picture is logged and shows up as a new familiar stranger on the community page. Now other users can add any info about the person you just shot. Does this scare you?
See more about it in these images-
See this pdf for higher resolution wireframes and flow (WIP)-
wireframesprint.pdf
Site for StrangeMap
(This is work in progress)
Why are you doing this?
Cause I don’t like familiar strangers who don’t talk to me? No. Is it urban voyeurism? Or is it about eventually getting to know strangers you see everyday? Eventually you wouldn’t need this app to mark your strangers.
Will there be a day when a familiar stranger who you shot becomes your friend?
Maybe.
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a note on textmarks · posted by vaibhav bhawsar Jan 21, 2007
What is TextMarks ?
why is Textmarks interesting?
I find it interesting because it allows one to publish or subscribe to a certain channel of information by sending a text message from their mobile phone. I haven’t tried it yet but it sounds like an idea which is similar to RSS or ATOM feed for blogs.
You can also publish a blog post from your phone using one of the widgets they provide on the site.
This is how the site defines a textmark:
A testmark is a keyword you select that people can text message to 41411 and receive a custom response from you. Users can also subscribe to your Textmark to get updates and alerts.
The way is see a Textmark is a combination of a chat room and a “TOPIC” discussion or even a mobile shout-box.
An example:
I create a Textmark called “Iamfrustrated” by going to textmarks.com. I need not register at this point. Next I am asked to enter the main body text that will be sent to a subscriber of “Iamfrustrated”. So I enter “I am frustrated by how everyone looks frustrated on the morning train”. So at this point I can make “Iamfrustrated” public so that people can also update it. Now if you are subscribed to “Iamfrustrated” ( which is done by sending “SUB iamfrustrated” to 41411) you can publish or ping people on this channel with whatever you want in less than 100 chars.
(I have set this channel/textmark in real so try it out-see their HELP section for more commands)
There is also an option to publish to a textmark from the site. You can also add a widget to your site which reflects the latest content of a given textmark.
It is a pretty open system of sharing or publishing or broadcasting or narrowcasting or ranting. You subscribe if you care else don’t sort of thing.
Ubiquitous Computing · posted by vaibhav bhawsar Jan 20, 2007
Having heard, read and seen a lot on ubiquitous computing for some time now I decided to go back in time when Mark Weiser, called the father of Ubi Comp, first started writing about it. To my surprise many of the things he wrote still hold true even today after about 13 years! So I recap a few things from this article.
Notes from Ubiquitous Computing and The world is not a desktop by Mark Weiser
People work in a world of shared situations and unexamined technological skills…however the computer today is isolated and isolating from the overall situation, and fails to get out of the way of the work.
The personal computer continues to be the most consuming tool of any personal or collaborative process.
He places the field of virtual reality almost as an opposite reaction to the idea of Ubi Comp. In a Ubi Comp experience the user continues to interact with the real world as opposed to the virtual world- and its interface. Extending this observation it becomes apparent that even mobile computing today does not make an effort to integrate the user back into his/her surroundings. All efforts to do so are a result of gazing into tiny inch screens of a mobile phone/PDA or personal assistant. Mobile devices still seek partial attention if not total attention of the user.
The future ubiquitous computer is not a PDA, phone or a digital assistant…Since information will be accessible everywhere one would not need to carry anything.
Ubiquitous computing has as its goal the enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user.
Invisibility is a key factor in creating tools for interacting with the world. He brings up the example of how eyeglasses are a good tool- “you look at the world, not the eyeglasses”. I think this is an inspiring way of looking at urban computing tools and how they should appear/disappear in the user’s surroundings.
On Voice input- I want to talk to(or listen) people around me, not to my computer… Voice input is attention grabbing.
Work on ubiquitous computing is still at an early phase. Most work now is concentrating on the mobile infrastructure for wireless networking. Because ubiquitous computing envisions hundreds of wireless computers in every office, its need for wireless bandwidth is prodigious.
Weiser towards the end talks about creating interpolable mobile networks that can accommodate a variety of mobile devices. In the present day we continue to have a problem defining a standard(more so an open standard) or protocol required for a user friendly mobile infrastructure as opposed to a carrier friendly one.
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