MobileTracker

I'm probably an idiot for not knowing about this already, but there's an interesting blog called MobileTracker that basically follows the mobile phone industry, in particular the device end. Looks like it's worth a regular visit.

Movable Type is up!

Thanks to the excellent work of Chris Sumner, we now have Movable Type at the Institute. I've moved the Place and Space blog to our servers; I still need to do a bunch of work to the template, to make the site look pretty, but we are now officially up and running.

A couple things. I've created user privileges for IFTF members Rod, Marina, Andrea, Bill, and Lyn; and for contributors Mimi, Regine, and Jokko.

You can access MovableType by pointing your browser to http://blogger.iftf.org. You'll be asked for a user name and password. Your username is your regular name (i.e., John Smith); the password is "iftf" (don't type the quotations marks). Once you're logged onto the system, you'll be taken to the main menu, where you can either access the Place and Space blog, or edit your profile. I recommend you first go into your profile and change your password (and whatever else you want).

Once you've done that, you're ready to start playing around with Movable Type. I would recommend just hitting "New Entry" on the main menu page, and giving it a try. Nothing that you write is permanent; we can always delete test entries.

The URL for the blog itself is http://blogger.iftf.org/place/index.html.

Wi-Fi as Urban Renewal

Wi-Fi as Urban Renewal is an interesting piece on attempts to create neighborhood-wide Wi-Fi zones. The full article is in the extended entry, as well as available at URL above.

Wi-Fi as Urban Renewal," 802.11 Planet, (March 27, 2003), online at www.80211-planet.com/columns/article.php/2171211

From Long Beach to New Orleans, cities and communities across the U.S. are looking to public Wi-Fi hotzones as the latest form of urban renewal. Will 802.11 technology become the new drawing card for reviving sagging downtowns?

New Orleans' historic French Quarter is a far cry from the modern air-conditioned glass towers, where phrases like Wi-Fi and hotspots are as common as jambalaya and jazz. The Wi-Fi Switch, a device the size of a large-screen television replacing numerous individual 802.11 access points, could breathe life back into the ailing tourist economy.

During the CTIA Wireless 2003 convention held in New Orleans Mar. 17 through Mar. 19, Vivato's $13,995 Outdoor Wi-Fi Switch beamed a Wi-Fi signal covering the city's historic French Quarter. Michael Valentino, Managing Partner of New Orleans and owner of the www.frenchquarter.com Web site, said the three-day trial sought to determine whether Wi-Fi could work in the unique, 280-year-old atmosphere.

Valentino hopes the switches would "penetrate the dense construction of our area and provide a wireless signal that will allow us to provide scores of useful applications for visitors, residents and businesses."

Wi-Fi Clouds Over NYC

Phil Belanger, marketing vice president for switch-maker Vivato, says the company is already working with members of NYCWireless to provide a cloud of Wi-Fi connectivity over the 843-acre New York City's Central Park. With 58 miles of pedestrian paths, 26,000 trees and more than 20 million visitors yearly, Belanger says the park has "iconic importance" to the public perception of Wi-Fi. Belanger believes four outdoor switches could blanket the park. He wouldn't offer a date when Central Park would go wireless, saying roof rights and other permissions have yet to be obtained.

Belanger says "people are coming out of the woodwork" expressing interest in his company's Wi-Fi switching gear. Interest in the devices is coming from as far afield as the Caribbean, where island leaders are investigating the switches for providing public Wi-Fi services.

But Vivato is not alone is fielding inquiries from communities interested in exploring Wi-Fi as an option for urban development.

War Puts Wi-Fi on Hold

Lorenzo Gigliotti of Web site design firm G-Site manages the first of four planned hotzones in the city of Long Beach, CA. Gigliotti says his company has received "a number of inquiries from other communities" interested in creating their own public hotzones. Discussions with New York City officials also curious about the concept are in limbo with municipal budgets diverted by concern over the U.S-led war on Iraq, Gigliotti says.

Although the Jan. 10 unveiling of a three-block Wi-Fi hotzone along Long Beach's Pine Avenue received much press attention, Gigliotti believes the upcoming Long Beach airport hotzone will be important both for the future direction of the project along with comparing customer needs. As Pine Avenue is Long Beach's 'restaurant row', users have so far concentrated their searches on dining and entertainment information. Other planned hotzones in the area include the city's marina and a local convention center.
Wi-Fi's Economic Developer

The Long Beach hotzone is a partnership between private Wi-Fi vendors and local governmental agencies. Bruce Mayes, the technology guru at the Long Beach Economic Development Bureau, says his office is receiving "calls from cities all over" interested in duplicating the success of Long Beach.

Although Mayes says the current building period makes it difficult to quantify any results of the hotzone's impact on city development, the experience has left him with only one surprise: "how well it is working."

Along with G-Site, Vernier Networks is providing the hardware to manage network access and security, while local wireless ISP Color Broadband provides the Internet connection and also network management.

No Silver Bullet

But Mayes warns that a Wi-Fi hotzone is not the 'silver bullet' for pulling a downtown out of the economic doldrums. George Heinitsch tends to agree. Heinitsch is the Chief Technical Officer for Pittsburgh's 3 Rivers, a non-profit group of civic and business leaders interested in using information technology to accelerate "economic, social and educational development" through the use of information technology. 3 Rivers, along with area wireless firm Grok Technology created Grok Secure Connect in the city's Oakland area.

Heinitsch says 3 Rivers is "a little disappointed" by the hotzone's low usage rate. He believes a cold winter may have reduced the number of users and is eagerly awaiting the return of warmer weather. The hotzone extends two mile and includes a college campus and many commercial venues.

How is the public responding to the new hotzone? "The public loves hotspots," says Heinitsch. "As long as they don't have to pay for them."

Stop me before I become a Wi-Fi evangelist

Paul Boutin has a nice piece in Slate about the new Centrino, and the rise of Wi-Fi. Partly to see what all the fuss was about, partly to do a little technological ethnography myself, and partly because I sometimes just need to geek out, a couple weeks ago I set up a base station in my office, and bought a card for my laptop. Since my office looks out over a couple picnic tables, this means that I can go outside and still be online-- an appealing prospect here in California. Last week, I got a new PDA, and chose it largely on the basis of it having WiFi capability. (It also plays MP3s.) So what's my experience?

The short answer is that I love it, and am already frustrated by its limitations.

First of all, WiFi feels like a clunky prototype of the future. Not the technology itself, but rather the practices it enables. Being able to access the Web, or your e-mail, on the road will change social practices as much as cell phones have. The most important thing is that it'll enable all manner of real-time, place-specific forms of information retrieval and creation: we're already starting to see this with moblogging, but it's got huge implications for travel (what's that plant? what's that painting?), shopping, emergency services, etc.. WiFi offers a tiny sense of what ubiquity is going to feel like, and it's going to be cool. (Another way of putting it is that WiFi will create a level of familiarity with wireless Internet access that will raise the demand for mobile services and content.)

It's also going to drive Internet access off the desktop, and onto other devices, like my PDA. This in turn will increase the pressure on the WIMP interface, and encourage people to develop new kinds of interfaces that you can access while walking down the street, or operate on the margins of your awareness.

The fact that Wifi is available only in highly localized areas-- there's a reason they call it "hot spots"-- is rapidly becoming a real irritation. Why can't I get online at [insert random location], I grouse, even when I've never EVER needed to check my e-mail, much less surf the Web, at that location. It also makes me appreciate those places that do have WiFi access even more.

Then there's the problem that even if you have the technology, access isn't particularly easy to set up: everyone has proprietary systems that require different setups, passwords, accounts, etc.. Thus Starbucks teams up with T-Mobile to offer WiFi in its cafes, Wayport partners with a different set of cafes, etc.. Clearly the idea at present is to use hotspot access to build loyalty to particular franchises or places: once you've got a T-Mobile account, you're less likely to stray to Le Boulanger. A sensible idea from the providers' point of view, but a terrible one from the users': even a very big network is still restrictive, and it dims the appeal of WiFi to have to stay in particular places to use it.

If the technology is really going to take off, we need a different access model: one in which, say, services allow for roaming onto each others' networks, with some additional charge (like getting money from another banks' ATM machine). Better yet would be for stores to treat WiFi like the bathroom or overhead lights: something that you just provide for customers' convenience, with the understanding that customers will buy something for the privilege of use.

Milestones

End of week: Get blog up and running
Next week: Finalize the sites we're working on; finalize research instrument
Later: Interview 3-4 people per site

Also: Graphics department is creating a postcard with information about the project, and an invitation to participate. We'll have this going shortly.

Maybe: We've talked about doing an online survey on wifi/third place use, but haven't decided whether to do it or not.

Monday morning meeting

Notes from the Monday meeting.

Attendees: Marina Gorbis, Rod Falcon, Alex Pang (IFTF), Jokko Korhonen (Satama Interactive), Regine Buschauer (Swisscom Innovations), Mimi Ito (USC/Keio University).

Agenda

9:00-10:00 Welcome and introductions
10:00-10:30 Criteria for site selection
10:30-11:00 Site assignments
11:00-12:00 Research methodology
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:00 Research instrument
2:00-3:00 Practice
3:00-3:15 Break
3:15-4:15 Blogging

Ideas behind this project

• Spaces change when they're blanketed with connectivity. "Third spaces" are changing the most, so they're most interesting for our purposes.
• Social networks research shows that even for highly networked kids, real space still matters.

Infrastructure

• Ad hoc vs. built-in
• Free vs. for pay
• Technical specs: WiFI vs. cellular or combination

Setting

• Urban vs. suburban (e.g., compare Starbucks in urban vs. suburban areas)
• Public vs. private (IT allows us to change public space into private spaces)
• Surrounding spaces, environment (proximity to other kinds of spaces)

MI: Even in Japan, where there is heavy mobile phone use, there are regulations that affect connectivity. RB: Theatres and hospitals are two good examples of spaces that are supposed to be cell-phone free: the first for social reasons, the second for technical ones. Near always-on: Text messaging has emerged as a practice on trains, because it allows communication without annoying neighbors. MI and JK: Trains in Japan and Finland have (or will have) no-phone areas, akin to non-smoking trains. RF: Events are temporary spaces in which social norms may encourage or discourage use of these tools. A tech conference on blogging is an example of an event that encourages people to create and use an ad-hoc network; a concert, on the other hand, use is discouraged.

Observation Points

• Events: Burning Man, conferences, sports events, public concert series and festivals, open air cinema (Mimi talks about an idea for a place-based, temporary system supporting these events; Satama has been doing electronic bulletin boards that show SMS or MMS at trade shows, concerts)
• Through Points: Train stations, airports
• Generic/franchise spaces (e.g. chain stores, McDonalds, Starbucks)-- places that are socially anonymous, standardized, and ubiquitous
• Lounges: airport lounges, school lounges
• Cars (which increasingly are connected, and people spend lots of time in)

MI: In Japan, commitment to specific meeting places is eroding: kids flock to highly generic spaces, but what matters is being together, not being in a cool place-- they're attractive because they're places where you're anonymous. RF: This is something new: communities have usually been grounded in a particular place. MG: Connectivity may make an anonymous space more appealing: I'll go to Starbucks rather than my local cafe because the former has WiFi; but this could be a temporary thing. RF: This anonymity also connects to standardization: anonymous places are often corporate franchises, which means that if they're connected down the street, they'll be connected everywhere. JK: McDonalds has become a meeting place for Somali men. RB: It might be useful to think of "publicity" in public spaces, not just as a communitarian phenomenon. The term has a certain idealistic image that may distract from an important reality of public spaces, which is that they're spaces for social display and public consumption. MG/AP: Does the existence of for-pay access change the social rules regarding use of places like cafes? Is it okay to stop and check my e-mail at Starbucks, and NOT buy anything? MI: Connectivity looks like its clustering around two poles: spaces that are highly meaningful and have content associated with the space (conferences, concerts), and spaces that are anonymous and subject to appropriation (trains, Starbucks).

Choosing sites

MI: Our group has already done Starbucks and trains.
RB: Swisscom is working with school-age kids, and I'll figure out how to piggyback on top of that.
JK: Weather is an element that will affect use of public spaces: outdoor spaces in Helsinki comes alive during the summer.
RF: Two cafes near my house.
AP: Assuming I do some more travel, I'm going to take some time to hang out in the airport lounge. I'm also interested in campus wifi networks.

Project members

Peter Barkman [bio]
Regine Buschauer [bio] [mail]
Renee Chin [bio] [mail]
Bill Cockayne
Rod Falcon [bio] [mail]
Marina Gorbis [bio] [mail]
Mizuko Ito [bio] [mail]
Lyn Jeffery [mail]
Jokko Korhonen [bio] [mail]
Maria Koskijoki [bio] [mail]
Pia Mero [mail]
Daisuke Okabe [bio]
Alex Soojung-Kim Pang [bio] [mail]
Andrea Saveri [bio] [mail]
Maria Savolainen [bio]

Peter Barkman is the head of international operations for Satama Interactive, a Finnish Internet consultancy specializing in mobility and user understanding. Peter holds a MSc in Business Administration from the Helsinki Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration and has also completed various business related courses at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Regine Buschauer is a project leader, specialized in HCI and social aspects of communication and information technology, at Swisscom Innovations, the research unit of the Swiss national telecom in Berne, Switzerland. Regine is also pursuing her PhD at the Institute of Media Sciences, at the University of Basle. For the project she is conducting research at different places in Switzerland.

Renee J. Chin is an organizational and research consultant. I received an interdisciplinary social science Ph.D from the Maxwell Graduate School at Syracuse University. Formerly with the Institute for Research on Learning, my research interests are and absolutely not limited to organizational change, narrative analysis, technology, and social capital. I have an MPA in public administration with an emphasis in organizational theory and public policy and a BA in psychology.

Rod Falcon is a director at the Institute for the Future. He works across the Institute for the Future's research program areas, conducting research in emerging technologies, technology adoption and diffusion, the connected home, social networks and consumer segmentation. Much of this work has been comparative and global, looking closely at consumers and the technology infrastructure in Nordic Europe, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Silicon Valley. Rod holds an M.A. in Public Policy from UC Berkeley.

Marina Gorbis leads the Technology Horizons Program at IFTF, focusing on innovation at the intersection of new technologies and social organization, and leads the "Reinvention of Place and Space" project. She is conducting observations and interviews in cafes, schools, and other public spaces in Silicon Valley. Marina's academic background is in Public Policy and regional economic development. Her previous research on international development, and her current Institute research on technology adoption and usage patterns, have taken her to Russia, Eastern Europe, India, China, Japan, and Nordic Europe.

Mizuko Ito is a cultural anthropologist of technology use, focusing on children and youth culture's changing relationships to media and communications. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in Education and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University and has worked at Tokyo University, Stanford University, The Institute for Research on Learning, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Apple Computer, the National Institute for Educational Policy Research of Japan, and Keio University. She is working with Daisuke Okabe in studying mobile phone and Wi-Fi use in the Tokyo area.

Maria Koskijoki is a researcher and course leader at the Media Lab of the University of Art and Design, Helsinki. She also conducts research in Finland on behalf of Sitra, the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development. She has a MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Helsinki and is completing a Ph.D. dissertation on personal possessions in modern society.

Daisuke Okabe is a cognitive psychologist specializing in situated learning theory, with an emphasis on interactional studies of learning and education in relation to new media technologies. His fieldwork has taken him into classrooms, television production studios, workplaces, and most recently, to the street to observe mobile phone use. He received a Ph.D. in Education from Yokohama National University, and is currently is an assistant professor at Yokohama National University, and a visiting scholar at Keio University in Japan. He is conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Tokyo on mobile phone and Wi-Fi use with Mizuko Ito.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is a research director at the Institute for the Future. He holds a Ph.D. in history of science from the University of Pennsylvania, and is the author of Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions and numerous articles. At the Institute he conducts research in emerging technologies and their social and cultural impacts. He is also an avid blogger.

Andrea Saveri is a director at the Institute for the Future. Andrea's research focuses on technology diffusion and adoption in the home and workplace, and the social innovations that result from the integration of new technologies into people's lives. She is currently working on a study of household life in the sensor-based / wireless / P2P world, and the emergence of a new nomadic lifestyle and culture.

Maria Savolainen is a usability consultant at Satama Interactive. Maria holds an MSc in Marketing from Manchester School of Management (UMIST) and has a background in qualitative market research. In this project Maria is conducting observations and interviews in Helsinki.

About the project and blog

As technologies such as wireless, sensors, digital displays, and others diffuse into physical environments, distinctions between physical and virtual spaces, experiences, and interactions will fade. In the process, many spaces will be re-invented, acquiring new social meanings and serving as focal points for new types of interactions.

The IFTF team and our affiliates are conducting in-depth observations and interviews in several global hotspots—Silicon Valley, Finland, Switzerland, Japan—to identify shifts in the evolution of physical spaces and to understand the new social meaning of such spaces and their usage.

By conducting observations in technology-enabled cafes, trains, workplaces and various public spaces as we are trying to answer some of the following questions:

• What are these spaces evolving into? How is their meaning changing?
• How are the social interactions being reinvented in such spaces?
• What are the new types of communities being created?
• How does the evolution of physical spaces transform entertainment and work patterns? What are the emerging opportunities for new products and services?

We welcome your participation and feedback.