The Way New Urbanism | Alex Steffen

Some see mobile phones, embedded computers, wireless computing and cheap cameras combining to eliminate both privacy and shared experiences of public space, to, in short, undermine urban life.

But such erosion of city life isn't the only possibility. Others see new technologies as restoring the ability of highly mobile and atomized 21st Century city-dwellers to connect to one another, to become better citizens, and to recreate communities.

A whole mess of technologies need to be considered, but it's widely agreed that there are at least six to watch:

1) Mobile phones (which are increasingly mobile computers connected to the Internet, often with cameras) and other wireless technologies;

2) GPS devices (which tell you precisely where you are);

3) GIS programs (which allow you to overlay data onto maps of the landscape);

4) Social software programs and models of cooperation (which allow large numbers of people to socialize and create information collaboratively).

5) Better databases and ever-lower-cost computing;

6) Ubiquitous computing, cheap sensors, and RFID "smart dust."

Put these together and what we get are some novel, potentially revolutionary new ways to inhabit space.

The first is the making of what have been called smart places: neighborhoods where information is tied to places, and accessible through your mobile. In the imaginatively-dwarfed standard iteration, this means your phone will tell you when the store you pass has a sale on, but it might just as well warn you when you start down a street with a high crime-rate, or buzz you when a critical mass of friends are at a nearby coffee shop.

The second is the layering of reputation capital over smart places. It's one thing to have a store invade your phone with ads for its sales. It's another altogether to be able to see what people in your online community think of the service and prices there. It's still a third to be able to access a layer of citizen-created civic data, so that when you walk by your favorite historic building you can find out where the renovation plans stand.

A third is the illumination of flows -- the making visible of the invisible. Cities are, after all, essentially giant engines sucking in materials on the one end and spewing out waste on the other: cheap sensors and digital maps can let us see those materials and wastes as they flow by, helping us mitigate our own ecological wake, certainly, but also helping us protect ourselves from pollution and other health risks.

Smart places: Intelligent environments and location-based services could be the next big step forward for computing, reports Jack Schofield

March 25, 2004, The Guardian

…"intelligent environments" could be the next big thing. Instead of being mute, your surroundings will tell you about themselves, and what they offer. Tourist spots will want to trumpet their attractions, and places such as the Tower of London will be ideal for hosting "located plays". Advertising hoardings will offer one-click ordering: you will be able to buy things, pay by phone, and have them delivered to your home.

All this started to become a reality with location-based services, or LBS for short. The most obvious are "finder applications" - where is the nearest pub, bank etc - and "navigation applications", which offer driving or walking directions. These typically use location information derived from cellular phone networks, which is not very precise. However, they could use more accurate GPS…

RFID chips will become very important because they are small, don't need a power supply, and can be read at a distance. Today, RFID chips are mainly used for transport cards (eg bus passes) and for tagging goods on their way to supermarkets. However, they could easily be used to tag buildings, advertising hoardings, paintings in art galleries, almost anything.