city of news

"Is there a way for us to define ourselves and the space in which we dwell, when the city is increasingly referenced as a space of disappearance, a space of the future but not of the present, a space of anxiety and loss ?" M. Christine Boyer

City of News is an interesting (albeit a bit old) project that looks to map the choices made while traversing the internet into architectural city models based on memory and constructed by text and image from the web. Or, alternatively, from the website:

City of News is a dynamically growing urban landscape of information. It is an immersive, interactive, web browser that takes advantage of people's strength remembering the surrounding three-dimensional spatial layout. Starting from a chosen "home page", where home is finally associated with a physical space, our browser fetches and displays URLs so as to form skyscrapers and alleys of text and images through which the user can "fly". The City is organized in urban quarters (districts) that provide territorial regrouping of urban activities. Similarly to some major contemporary cities there is a financial district, an entertainment district, and a shopping district. In addition to these areas we have created other functional groupings by creating a mapping between modern newspaper layout and city planning.

More text, image, and video are here.

preppy

is this page too Preppy?

I think the answer is clearly...yes.

interactive architecture

The Bartlett architecture school in the UK has a intriguing workshop / conference focusing on 'interactive architecture.' This seems like a quite intriguing area that I haven't seen much information about (there is an interactive architecture lab at tsukuba university, but the english version of the page is not completely up yet). The workshop page (found here) provides more information, but here is the brief synopsis:

The Bartlett interactive architecture workshop is the base from which concepts about time dependant architecture can be explored both theoretically and experimentally. The idea that architecture and the perception of architecture can change over time allows speculation about an architecture which interacts with its environments and its user.

In Addition there is a call for papers. Again, info is at the website, but topics include the following.

Movement, Behaviour and Dynamic Syntax
Reflexive Architecture – Bringing distant sites together
Responsive Workplaces
Active Environmental Modulation
Perception, Fabric and Process
Other Sacred (and profane) Cows

word.

impact of weblogs on political coverage

There is a good wealth of information about this subject linked from this site. The debate is *raging* about the role that weblogs should play in the coverage of significant national events. In other words, what is the future / role of blogs in serious news coverage. I think many people have gotten the impression that weblogs are a trivial enterprise - an association best attributed to the personal /diary nature of many blogs. I think that what many don't see, is the possibility of amateur journalism to alter the publishing landscape. The Berkman center for Internet and Society at Harvard is pursuing just such a line of thought - offering a free blog to anyone with a harvard.edu email address. The goal is to inspire a discourse that breaks free of the current media environment - one based on consolidation and therefore a lack of freedom of expression - and informs the upcoming New Hampshire primary and subsequently, the next presidental campaign. A member of the Berkman group, Dave Winer (an unfortunate name), has this to say about the project:

Citizen bloggers covering the candidates for U.S. president. Everyone who hears the concept says Hmm, that might work. More than anything, I want the U.S. presidential election of 2004 to be a real election, to mean something. I wonder if many other citizens feel the same way?

With New Hampshire so close to Cambridge, the technology so ripe and the candidates so willing, it seems we may actually be able to route around the professional press and make something real happen this election cycle.

The rest is Here.

links

Xingtone is an LA based company that allows your mobile phone to convert audio files into ringtone formats - this is an interesting idea, and one that is predictable running to a bit of a DRM problem here in hollywood. Here is an article about the service.

The Sony Ericsson Clicker is a piece of software that takes advantage of some simple applescripts and apple's fondness for bluetooth to allow you to use your phone as a remote control for your computer. I'm just envisioning people using this at parties - controling itunes - but there are some other interesting examples listed, such as having your computer wake up from sleep when you walk into the room, etc. The nice thing is that you can pretty much control anything, as long as you have the right applescript. Another writeup is Here.

Supafly is a mobile based game created by Its Alive, the same swedish company that did botfighters. According to the website, "Supafly is a virtual soap opera, and the goal is to become a virtual celebrity. To do that, you have to create as much gossip around you as possible, while maintaining your relations and status in your group. Using positioning technology, the game takes place in the real world, and you play on your mobile and on the web."

I'm trying to figure out a way to make an intriguing mobile service / experience that highlights Los Angeles as a unique cultural and historical space. Or something. I'm trying to get my hands on every kind of mobile experience I can find. try to see what works. what doesn't. any links would be appreciated.

thanks.

Book: Los Angeles - The Architecture of Four Ecologies

I've started to make my way through this. It's a fascinating study of the way LA architecture has defined the cultural and social space of the city.

Los Angeles

A new mobile interest.

A few choice LA quotes:

Whatever glass and steel monuments may be built downtown, the essence of Los Angeles, its true identifying characteristic, it mobility. Freedom of movement has long given life a special flavour there, liberated the individual to enjoy the sun and space that his environment so abundantly offered, put the manifold advantages of a great metropolitan area within his grasp.
- Richard Austin Smith: Fortune, March 1965

In Los Angeles people think of space in terms of time, time in terms of routes...and of automobiles as natural and essential extensions of themselves.
- Miles: International Times, 14 March 1969

On my first visit to Los Angeles I was conventionally prepared for almost anything except what it really looked like - a quite beautiful place.
- Nathan Silver: New Statesman, 28 March 1969

LA is a place built on mobile culture. Or rather, the kind of place that has built mobile culture. I'm beginning to think about how to use mobile networks in this city, how to best incorporate them into the existing landscape in a way that social space would be positively reinforced. I need to think more about this. I want to know what the Labyrinth Project is conceiving for their upcoming mobile los angeles project. Are they aware of space? Social Geography? In the meantime, I would recommend checking out the book I'm about to post.

audioblog: not just voicemail

from the discourse on audblogging over at radio.weblogs.com.

Think of audioblogging as "voice mail to the world".  Why don't we see the same debate about voice mail versus email?  We actually make the decision to choose one over the other all the time.  That's because the maturity of those technologies make it very natural and easy to choose the tool that gets the job done.  Convenience and accessiblity are also some of the factors in this case as will be in the future in the "when do I audioblog or text blog" debate.

I think that this is the wrong idea. There is a reason email has caught on - it is more efficient in many ways that "voice mail." Audioblogging should not be limited to sound that comes from a phonecall. There is a potential that extends beyond that limitation of a voice call, yet the emphasis right now seems to be on moblogging audio via a just that. However, from both a social, commercial and artistic standpoint, the possibilites of audio on mobile devices and using sound in blogs are far greater. How about posting sound to a blog that is tagged with a certain (semantic?) location - if someone who's mobile device is communicating with your (blog) database, comes within the bounds of this semantic location, they can either stream and listen to the audio associated with the locaton, or add to your database. I like the idea of having blogs inform and define location based sound collections.