Urban computing and shared encounters
Here are two great-sounding workshops that will be taking place at CHI 2007, 28 April - 3 May, 2007, in San Jose, California, USA. Be sure to get your submissions in by January 12th.
“Recent technological developments mark the city as a central and perhaps special space for human-computer interaction research and practice. Visions of ubiquitous computing, the resonance of the ‘urban probe’, and the proliferation of interactive mapping services speak to the significance of the urban landscape to studies of Human-Computer Interaction. But such visions and technologies require, produce and reproduce images of urban space that influence what these systems, and our interactions with them, are and might be. Developing and employing technologies for the urban environment requires visualization techniques that both reflect and challenge how we image, and consequently imagine, the city.
This one-day workshop will explore the practices and technologies of imaging the urban environment, bringing together an interdisciplinary array of designers, HCI experts, urban planners and technologists to investigate such issues as:
* How do we represent the city in HCI, and how do these representations inform HCI research and practice?
* What kinds of technological devices, services, and platforms support imaging the city now and might be created in the near future?
* How are and might these new representations of the city and urban imaging technologies be used for social and political ends?
* What new methods are required for developing technologies that image the city in new ways?
* What can we learn from the urban experience to design stronger representations and interfaces within HCI research and practice?”“Our everyday lives are characterised by encounters, some are fleeting and ephemeral and others are more enduring and meaningful exchanges. Shared encounters are the glue of social networks and have a socializing effect in terms of mutual understanding, empathy, respect and thus tolerance towards others. The quality and characteristics of such encounters are affected by the setting, or situation in which they occur. In a world shaped by communication technologies, non-place-based networks often coexist alongside to the traditional local face-to-face social networks. As these multiple and distinct on and off-line communities tend to carry out their activities in more and more distinct and sophisticated spaces, a lack of coherency and fragmentation emerges in the sense of a shared space of community. Open public space with its streets, parks and squares plays an important role in providing space for shared encounters among and between these coexisting networks. Mobile and ubiquitous technologies enable social encounters located in public space, albeit not confined to fixed settings, whilst also offering sharing of experiences from non-place based networks. We will look at how to create or support the conditions for meaningful and persisting shared encounters. In particular we propose to explore how technologies can be appropriated for shared interactions that can occur spontaneously and playfully and in doing so re-inhabit and connect place-based social networks.
The workshop will investigate the following issues:
* identify the different types of encounters, and the characteristics which make an encounter a rich experience.
* understand the qualities of situations which can sustain shared encounters.
* investigate how sharing through personal media and mass media provide ways for people to communicate and engage with others.
* differentiate the relationships between the types of social groups in networked communities.
* determine the components and affordances of situated computing which enable them to act as key enabling platforms.”
Other approaching deadlines
IEEE Pervasive Computing invites articles about urban computing: the integration of computing, sensing, and actuation technologies into our everyday urban settings and lifestyles. Papers due January 15, 2007.