Civic apps & Urban planning
A few Space Annotation Projects Nov 23,2003
Run by ITP alum Steve Bull Tag - Wireless game in Times Square Urban Tapestries - "Public Authoring in the Wireless City" - space annotation project on a large scale.... Game of Assassin played using mobile phones HipnTasty - Wireless entertainment apoplications aimed primarily at young women Hypertag - Bluetooth/IR tags for short-range transmission to mobile phones, used to annotate spaces.
Citizen Participation and Urban Monitoring Oct 7,2004
Two projects on citizen participation in local government, monitoring and maintenance of urban spaces: Fund for the City of New York's ComNet: "ComNET, a program created by the Fund's Center on Municipal Government Performance (CMGP), introduces easily operated hand-held computers to community organizations so that troublesome street level conditions can be recorded and tabulated quickly, easily and accurately.... "On city streets, residents—from youth to seniors—collect data about neighborhood conditions (e.g. graffiti, potholes) with handheld computers, custom-designed software, wireless modems, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers and digital cameras."
Civil Technologies: The Values of Nonprofit ICT Use Dec 28,2005
There's a new report out from the Social Science Research Council's Information Technology and International Cooperation program, "Civil Technologies: The Values of Nonprofit ICT Use," by Ken Jordan and Mark Surman with funding from the Ford Foundation. This report is the last in a series of three major reports on the Internet, governance and civil society that were published by the ITIC program.
Doors of Perception Aug 7,2005
Doors always has some interesting links on design and social innovation. They cover sustainability, health care, social justice, economics, all staring from a design point of view.
E-Tech notes Feb 13,2004
He and his company are doing a "Wireless Roadshow to teach local technology NGOs how wireless technologies can be used to bring Internet and intranet connectivity to those parts of the world not included in the plans of the commercial telecommunications companies."... Lili covered the history of the social computing group really well, and gave great context and setup for Wallop, an environment they're working on which maps and organizes relationships between you and the people you care about, through emails, photos, shared work, and other documents.
Eruvim in Manhattan Jul 14,2005
Elliott Malkin has done an interesting project on Eruvim in Manhattan.
Muniwireless Jul 9,2004
Muniwireless is a blog covering reports on municipal wireless and broadband projects. A worthwhile read if you're interested in how broadband can be useful for civic projects.
School on a Yak Oct 16,2005
Does anyone have more info on the School on a Yak project in Bhutan?... He gave me this link, which describes it very briefly, but I couldn't find anything more.
Smart Mobs Jul 9,2004
Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs blog dedicated to subjects stemming from his book of the same name. He and other bloggers report on various social/technology items here.
Some SMS/public art/public speech projects Feb 4,2004
Related to that, the Hellowworld project: "Send in your message, and see how it is projected by a laserbeam onto a mountain overlooking Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, onto the UN building in New York City, onto the most prominent building in downtown Mumbai or onto a 140 metre tall water fountain in Geneva.... These messages are first parsed according to a code that dictates how the music is created, and then rhythmically drive a speech synthesizer and a picture synthesizer in order to create a compelling, collaborative audiovisual performance.
Tactical Tech Sep 14,2003
From their site: "The Tactical Technology Collective (Tactical Tech) stands at the crossroads of the NGO and technology sectors. Through building links between them, we aim to help establish an accessible baseline of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) needed by all NGOs (i.e. if applicable computers, internet access, e-mail, mobile communications, etc.) and their integration beyond rudimentary usage into an integrated strategic tool for planning, advocacy & campaigning."
Tholos Systems Video Landmarks May 30,2004
Tholos Systems wants to make a realtime surround video connection between the capitals of Europe. The proposed images are very seductive: Tholos Systems wants to make a realtime surround video connection between the capitals of Europe.
Urban Atmospheres May 30,2004
While toting a laptop around a city may seem a like an example of such city computing, Urban Atmospheres research is more deeply concerned with addressing several sub-themes, including (but not limited to):" Place – What is the meaning of various public places?... The single main research challenge of Urban Atmospheres research is to understand how this future fabric of digital and wireless computing will influence, disrupt, expand, and be integrated into the social patterns existent within our public urban landscapes."
Urban Pollution Project Sep 22,2004
The Urban Pollution Project, an addition to the Equator project, monitors airborne pollutants in a city on a very local level.... They continually scan for other bluetooth radios, e.g. in passing cell phones, and transmit the pollution levels if a connection is accepted.
Urban Research Initiative May 30,2004
The Urban Research Initiative at NYU is predicated on the fact that "The economic future of our cities will be defined by their capacity to generate, process, and distribute information." From their introduction, "Urban Researchers must understand and explain the way in which information and telecommunications technologies are transforming the cities and metropolitan areas where people live and work.
Wired/Unwired: The Urban Geography of Digital Networks May 30,2004
Anthony Townsend's dissertation on urban geography and digital networks.