Instrumenting the city: developing methods for observing and understanding the digi

tal cityscape

Ubicomp 2006

Eamonn O’Neill, Vassilis Kostakos, Tim Kindberg, Ava Fatah gen. Schiek, Alan Penn, Dana

ë Stanton Fraser and Tim Jones

Presenter: Jen-hao

Introduction

• The technologies interweave with the built environment.

• We need to understand the city as a system, encompassing it’s physical and digital forms and their relationships with people’s behaviors.

Physical form v.s. Digital form

BluetoothBluetooth

WiFi

3G, GPRS

-Physical -Digital

Space syntax

• Space syntax analyses cities as systems of space created by the physical artifacts.

• Urban design plays a critical role in the construction of society and social behaviors.

Space syntax

Axial map of Tokyo, 70,000 lines, coloured by radius-n integration.

salle commune

salle commune

salle commune

salle commune

salle commune

salle commune

Gatecounts

• A gate is conceptual line across a street.• The observer stands on the street and counts

the number of people crossing that line.

Static snapshots

• Recording both stationary and moving activities in the space.

• Understanding how people appropriate a particular space, and how people use it to contact with each other.

Interaction space

• Interaction spaces that are created by artifacts or devices such as computer displays.

• Interaction spaces may also be wireless.– Fixed: 3G, Wifi, GPRS– Mobile: Bluetooth

Extending the gatecount method

• Bluetooth scanners are installed on the streets with low, medium and high pedestrians flows.

A Bluetooth gate

Extending static snapshots method

• Scanners are installed in a bar and in a café.

• Human observers recorded people’s positions, behaviors and movements through space, and the precise time of these activities.

Field trials

Field trials

Bluetooth names

• Default names– “NOKIA 6680”, “TomTom GO 300”

• User-defined names: – “Pick me pick me”, “Send me porn”, “U Found me”…– “Nokia 6280 Wayne”, “Annie”, “John K. Taylor”

• 58% of discoverable devices had user-defined names• The naming reflects the intentions of interactions with

the others. • The user defines the “feel” of the interaction space.

Conclusions and future work

• Providing a way to analyze and understand ubiquitous computing features as integral aspects of the urban environment.

• Continue to refine the scanning methods to raise the accuracy.

• Understanding the city as a system encompassing both the built environment and ubiquitous technologies.