“Urban Tapestries”, part of the ongoing research programme “Social Tapestries”, is a software platform for knowledge mapping and sharing – public authoring. People can associate information, pictures, sound scapes, videos, stories with places and share with each other. It is calles an authoring system because it wants to enable people to become authors of their environment and to develop new social and creative practices based around place, identity and community.

This software could be well used for urban bitLife’s visualisation part. The first interface screenshots let us assume, that the our little urban bitLife avatars can well be placed on the virtual maps of “Urban Tapestries”, easily available and viewable for other users. Also a network link to google Earth is already taken into account.

It only remains to be seen when the software is made accessible for public use. On the website it is promised, however, that a new public interface is coming soon: “In early 2006 Proboscis hopes to release a series of interfaces to the new Urban Tapestries system (v2.0) beginning with a web client, followed by a WAP text-only interface for older mobile phones and a downloadable Java mobile client for more recent and advanced devices.” [1]

For further information check
[1] Urban/Social Tapestries
Urban/Social Tapestries Weblog

Tying in with Jeremijenkos robotics project Feral Robotic Dogs, “Robotic Feral Public Authoring” combines the two aspects hobbyist robotics and public authoring (mapping and sharing of knowledge), which “both enable people to use emerging technologies in dynamic and exciting new ways. Brought together they open up whole vistas of possibilities for exploring our local environments with electronic sensors to detect all kinds of phenomena and map them using online tools.” [1]

Sensors are used to measure environmental influences (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, solvent vapours, electro-magnetic emissions (mobile phone masts, electricity generators etc), light and noise pollution) and are combined with a robotic vehicle, in this case a remote-controlled toy-car. The data gained by the sensors are visualised online by the “Urban Tapestries” tool and thus enables people to perceive their environment and shows them that they can interfere with it.

“Our aim is to design and create practical applications of such ‘creative misuse’ of commercially available technologies for social and cultural public benefit.” [2]

For more information check
[1],[2] Robotic Feral Public Authoring at Urban Tapestries
Documentation booklet (Pdf, 821kb)
Public Authoring and Feral Robotics (Detailed Project Description, Pdf, 454kb)
Project Film (3min Qt Movie 8.1mb March 2006)

“Feral Robotic Dogs” or “Feral Robotics ” is an experimental robotics project by Natalie Jeremijenko in which low cost robots are hacked and turned into driving vehicles to inspect their surroundings. Released in a pack, they take notice of each other and together explore visible and invisble parts of their surroundings: Webcams on their behinds document visual information about the environment, sensors measure chemical pollution and radiation. “Participants can watch and try to make sense of this data without the technical or scientific training required to be comfortable interpreting a EPA document on the same material” (comment: EPA is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).

Feral Robotic Dogs

Plazes is a free webapplication and the “first global location-aware interaction and geo-information system, connecting you with the people and Plazes in your area and all over the world” [quote:We-make-money-not-art]. It detects your location and makes you see people in your area, discover other Plazes nearby and keep an eye on the whereabouts of your friends.

Plazes

An interesting project on pollution detection and monitoring: mobile devices are used to measure pollution in a city. The data is later on visualised in serveral ways, all visible for people passing by. The other option is realised by fix stations, which send bluetooth messages to passers-by and inform them about the current pollution level on their current location.

The Urban Pollution Monitoring Project