The next social revolution
Mobile communication, pervasive computing, wireless networks, collective action.
Bibliography
View by Chapter: Smart Mobs and the Power of the Mobile ManyTitle: Wireless Employees Become Mobile Workers
Author: Margo McCall
Publication: Wireless Week
Publication Date: 9/24/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: Last week America tried to get back to work. Police and city officials cleared a path through lower Manhattan so trading on Wall Street could resume, but dozens of other companies-including several in the wireless space-spent much of the week waiting for their offices near the World Trade Center to be declared safe.
Subjects: Cooperation, Mobile Phones, New York, SMS, Wireless
Keywords: Upoc, BlackBerry, WTC
Title: Text Messaging Comes Through: Users Turned To Pagers When Phone Lines Went Down In Crisis
Author: Deborah M�ndez-Wilson
Publication: Wireless Week
Publication Date: 9/24/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: LeVine is co-founder and vice president of operations for Upoc, a New York City-based startup that delivers entertainment and marketing content to the mobile phones of teenagers and young adults. The company's offices are three blocks from the site of two plane crashes that claimed the lives of thousands of people. "When the cellular carriers were having trouble, wireless messaging was keeping the rescuers and security personnel in touch."
Subjects: Cooperation, Mobile Phones, New York, SMS, Wireless
Keywords: Upoc, pagers, 911, WTC
Title: Mobile Community
Author: John Geirland
Publication: TheFeature.com
Publication Date: 9/24/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: The founders of UPOC, Inc. (upoc.com) are betting that community will be as powerful a concept in the mobile wireless arena as it is for the wired Web. The New York-based startup is aiming its mobile community building service at the "gen wireless" - the 56 million 15 to 29 year olds in the U.S. (May 2000 Census), 42% of which own a mobile phone or alphanumeric pager (UPOC commissioned Harris Interactive Study, July 2000).
Subjects: Activism, Cooperation, Mobile Phones, New York, SMS, Wireless
Keywords: Upoc, gen wireless, The Resistance
Title: My Pager, My Matchmaker
Author: Nick Montfort
Publication: Ziff Davis Smart Business
Publication Date: 7/7/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: Talk about new age romance: Wireless gadgets are now widely used in Asia to signal when a prospective date is within range. "Lovesick Japanese fawn over the Lovegety (www.love-gety.com), a beeper that comes in pink or blue. The Lovegety simply detects an opposite-gender device set to the same mode: Chat, Fun, or Friend. The systems are making money: Lip Service Communications, the U.S. distributor of the inexpensive Lovegety beeper, claims 1.5 million units were sold in Japan during the first eight months after the gadget's February 1998 release. That's a whole lot of lovin'."
Subjects: Handhelds, Japan, Mobile Phones, SMS, Ubiquitous Computing
Keywords: Lovegety, Mobile Cupid, Interactive Digital, Meme Tags, Rick Borovoy, interpersonal awareness devices (IPADs), Humming bird
Title: The Battle Engaged
Author: Paul de Armond
Publication: Albion Monitor
Publication Date: 2/29/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: The cohesion of the Direct Action Network was partly due to their improvised communications network assembled out of cell phones, radios, police scanners and portable computers. Protesters in the street with wireless Palm Pilots were able to link into continuously updated web pages giving reports from the streets. Police scanners monitored transmissions and provided some warning of changing police tactics. Cell phones were widely used.
Subjects: Activism, Mobile Phones, SMS, Wireless
Keywords: Seattle, Direct Action Network,
Title: The Future of Infantry?
Author: Jim Lai
Publication: Mindjack
Publication Date: 1/28/2002
Abstract or Excerpt: Wearable computers are in use right now, providing portable technical manuals for repair crews. The Land Warrior project takes wearable computing to its logical conclusion, linking together components such as a radio system, a rifle-mounted video camera and thermal sight, and GPS. Advances in technology since 1996 have made the prototype lighter, accelerating the feasibility of the project, but there is more to this than meets the eye. There's a corollary to William Gibson's line "The street finds its own use for technology." So can the military.
Keywords: The Land Warrior Project, COTS (commercial off-the-shelf), JEDI (Joint Expeditionary Digital Information), RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs),
Title: 'Gaydar' device clears up mixed signals
Author: Craig Wilson
Publication: USA TODAY
Publication Date: 2/25/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: Strangers in the night are about to become things of the past. Gaydar, or gay radar, billed as the first portable interactive electronic icebreaker/matchmaker for gay men and lesbians, ends the guesswork about the sexual orientation of that person across the room. Expected on the market early this summer, Gaydar is a pocket-size key chain that sends out a radio signal, activating similar devices within 40 feet. When the gadget gets a compatible signal, it begins to beep or flash, depending on how it's set. It can be set to transmit to men or women.
Keywords: 'Gaydar', Gay Lovegety
Title: Revolution By Cell Phone
Author: Michael Bociurkiw
Publication: Forbes
Publication Date: 9/10/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: When hundreds of thousands of protesters massed in central Manila in January to oust disgraced Philippine President Joseph Estrada, they were lured out of their homes and offices, not by megaphones or gunfire but by millions of instant messages broadcast to their cellular telephones.
Title: Call to Picket Finds New Ring in Britain's Fuel Crisis
Author: Alexander MacLeod
Publication: Christian Science Monitor
Publication Date: 9/19/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: In a government communications center in the heart of London, alarmed civil servants last week watched computer screens flash e-mail messages telling them that Britain was in the grip of a new and disturbing crisis.
Title: Britain's Labour Government and Trade Union Leaders Unite to Crush Fuel Tax Protest
Author: Chris Marsden
Publication: World Socialist Web Site
Publication Date: 9/15/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: The most significant feature of the anti-fuel tax protest that brought Britain to a virtual standstill over the past week, organised by a few thousand road hauliers and farmers, was the overwhelming public support it evoked.
Title: Military Palmtop to Cut Collateral Damage
Author: Ian Sample
Publication: New Scientist
Publication Date: 3/9/2002
Abstract or Excerpt: The super-palmtop will combine laser rangefinding, GPS satellite positioning, a satellite phone and text messaging. Called JEDI, or Joint Expeditionary Digital Information, the system will be controlled by Microsoft's Windows-CE operating system.
Title: Mobile Reporting: Peer-to-Peer News
Author: Justin Hall
Publication: TheFeature.com
Publication Date: 2/20/2002
Abstract or Excerpt: High-speed videophones mean high-speed reporting from the field.
Title: Users Turned to Pagers When Phone Lines Went Down in Crisis
Author: Deborah Mendez-Wilson
Publication: Wireless Week
Publication Date: 9/24/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: When the cellular carriers were having trouble, wireless messaging was keeping the rescuers and security personnel in touch.
Title: Digital Renaissance
Author: Henry Jenkins
Publication: Technology Review
Publication Date: 2/2002
Abstract or Excerpt: Online diarists rule an Internet strewn with failed dot coms.
Title: Personal Area Networks: Near-Field Intrabody Comunication
Author: T.G. Zimmerman
Publication: IBM Systems Journal 35 (3&4), 1996
Title: The Dynamics of Social Dilemmas
Author: Natalie S. Glance and Bernardo A. Huberman
Publication: Scientific American, March 1994, 76-81
Title: Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge
Author: Michael Suk-Young Chwe
Publication: Princeton University Press, 2001
Abstract or Excerpt: Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge.
Title: Forecasting Uncertain Events with Small Groups
Author: Kay-Yut Chen, Leslie R. Fine and Bernardo Huberman
Publication: HP Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA
Publication Date: 8/3/2001
Abstract or Excerpt: We present a novel methodology for predicting future outcomes that uses small numbers of individuals participating in an imperfect information market. By determining their risk attitudes and performing a nonlinear aggregation of their predictions, we are able to assess the probability of the future outcome of an uncertain event and compare it to both the objective probability of its occurrence and the performance of the market as a whole. Experiments show that this nonlinear aggregation mechanism vastly outperforms both the imperfect market and the best of the participants.
Title: Symbiotic Intelligence: Self-Organizing Knowledge on Distributed Networks Driven by Human Interaction
Author: Norman Johnson, Steen Rasmussen, Cliff Joslyn, Luis Rocha, Steve Smith and Marianna Kantor
Publication: Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Life (Complex Adaptive Systems, No 6), edited by C. Adami, R. Belew, H. Kitano, and C. Taylor, Bradford Books, 1998
Abstract or Excerpt: This work addresses how human societies, and other diverse and distributed systems, solve collective challenges that is not approachable from the level of the individual, and how the Internet will change the way societies and organizations view problem solving. We apply the ideas developed in self-organizing systems to understand self-organization in informational systems.
Subjects: Cooperation
Keywords: collective intelligence, symbiosis, Internet, self-organization, symbiotic intelligence, collective dicision making, problem solving capability
Title: Critical Mass
Abstract or Excerpt: The ".org" domain notwithstanding, Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets.
Title: Manila's Talk of the Town is Text Messaging
Author: Wayne Arnold
Publication: The New York Times, 5 July 2000, C:1
Publication Date: 7/5/2000
Abstract or Excerpt: Muslim insurgents battling Philippine troops in the south have a new weapon. When the shelling and gunfire let up, they send a barrage of scathing insults to Manila's forces by cell phone.
Title: Democracy in America, Vol. II
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Publication: trans. Daniel Gilman (New York: Century Co., 1898), 37-39, 119-121, 124-128.
Title: Bleep at First Sight
Publication: Reuters
Publication Date: 5/15/1998
Abstract or Excerpt: A love detector that bleeps when the chance of romance comes near has taken the Japanese market by storm, ringing up sales unseen since a distant cousin, the Tamagotchi, burst upon the scene years ago.
Title: ImaHima
Abstract or Excerpt: ImaHima is a mobile, location-integrated, community and instant messaging service allowing users to share their current personal status (location, activity, mood) publicly and privately with their buddies and send picture and instant messages to them.
Title: Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in The Age of the Wearable Computer
Author: Steve Mann and Hal Niedzviecki
Publication: Mississauga: Doubleday Canada, 2001
Title: Close Encounters: Supporting Mobile Collaboration through Interchange of User Profiles
Author: Gerd Kortuem et al.
Publication: Proceedings First International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC99), 1999, Karlsruhe, Germany
Abstract or Excerpt: This paper introduces the notion of profile-based cooperation as a way to support awareness and informal communication between mobile users during chance encounters. We describe the design of Proem, a wearable system for profile-based cooperation that enables users to publish and exchange personal profile information during physical encounters. The Proem system is used to initiate contact between individuals by identifying mutual interests or common friends.
Title: ImaHima Press Releases
Title: ENGwear: Wearable Wireless Systems for Electronic News Gathering
Abstract or Excerpt: ENGwear is an experiment in wearable news gathering systems conducted by students and researchers at the Humanistic Intelligence Lab at the University of Toronto.
Title: When Peer-to-Peer Comes Face-to-Face: Collaborative Peer-to-Peer Computing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Author: Gerd Kortuem et al.
Publication: 2001 International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2P2001), 27-29 August 2001, Link�ping, Sweden
Abstract or Excerpt: This paper motivates and describes the notion of mobile ad hoc information systems. Such a system consists of a decentralized and self-organizing network of autonomous, mobile devices that interact as peers. Connectivity is determined by distance between devices; as hosts change their physical location they establish pair-wise communication links based on mutual proximity. We describe application scenarios for mobile ad hoc information systems and identify technical challenges of a generic software infrastructure. Moreover, we present the goals and architecture of Proem, a peer-to-peer system and development platform for mobile ad hoc applications. Proem has successfully been used as instructional tool in an advanced software engineering course on peer-to-peer computing.
Title: Context-Aware Mobile Phones: The Difference Between Pull and Push, Restoring the Importance of Place
Author: Paul Rankin
Publication: Philips Research Laboratories, Redhill, Surrey, UK
Abstract or Excerpt: People on the move want information at the right time, in the right place, and personalized for them. This paper describes research and early concept testing towards achieving such relevance on mobile phones, noting the strong influence that the local environment within 10m has on situating human behaviour. Short-range RF beacons therefore offer a powerful way to augment reality, linking a handset to the various virtual associations of a locale, or the place to virtual projections from the user. Processes, which can negotiate sympathetically and confidentially between the current wishes and agenda of the user ('pull') and the range of opportunities generated by their environment ('push') while leaving the user in control, will determine the acceptance of new, location-based mobile services. The solution proposed exploits a set of default profiles, defined by broad user contexts and their calendar, in a two-way negotiation between the external triggers and the actions explicitly initiated by the user, but requires agreement on a common language for describing contexts and services classes. Many research challenges emerge.