SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[The Era of Sentient Things]

Rheingold introduces Scott Fisher, who, while working at Atari Research Laboratory, was working on augmented reality. He designed a system where information content could be added to physical objects and retrieved using head mounted displays or glasses. the directions of this approach includes:
1. Information in places: media linked to location
2. smart rooms: environments that sense inhabitants and respond to them
3. digital cities. adding information capabilities to urban places
4. sentient objects: adding information and communication to physical objects
5. tangible bits. manipulating the virtual world by manipulating physical objects
6. wearable computers: sensing, computing, and communicating gear worn as clothing

Will you be able to use the capabilities of smart mob technologies to know everything you need to know about the world you walk through and to connect with those groups of who could benefit you?
Will you be allowed to cooperate with anyone your wearable device helps you choose?
will others know everything they need to know about you through the sensors you encounter and information you broadcast?

Another approach consists in let the computer disappear. Mark wiser at NASA was one of the pioneer of ubiquitous computers. The direction taken vary from responsive environments to extended senses (Smart rooms and Smart Clotes). GeoNotes, on the other hand, enables people to annotate physical locations with virtual notes: a way to link information and places. This approach differentiate from CoolTown where researcher use barcode readers, radio frequency identity tags and wireless internet links to create an ecology of Web-present objects.

_______ | -person- | -environment- |
-virtual- | GeoNotes | CoolTown |
________|____________|_______________|
-physical- | Smart Clotes | Smart Rooms |

Who owns access to your devices, either to push information at you or to pull information from you?
Some of the answers will emerge from political processes, but many are sensitive from technical decisions, like the infrastructure for connecting devices which, as HP asserts, should be the Web, as standard fro maintaining open and affordable access.
A form of location awareness is already built into your mobile phone. By triangulating signals from nearby cells, it is possible to locate a telephone within few hundred feet.
Digital annotations of physical objects and places could catalyse interconnections between groups of people within a locality. Neil Gershenfeld predicted the merging of bits and atoms in. When Things Start to Think.
Most of the proposed approaches, such as virtual Helsinki, are very expensive because requires a complete new infrastructure, object tagging or systems which relates physical content to some form of virtual interaction. In addition, most of the emphasis is placed on the hardware intelligence. On the contrary I privilege the Human Intelligence as one of the design focus for the new smart mob technologies. In the same thread Steve Mann like to say:
“Rather than smart rooms, smart cars, smart toilets, etc., I would like to put forward the notion of smart people. In a HI [humanistic intelligence] framework, the goal is to enhance the intelligence of the race, not just its tools. Smart people means, simply, that we should rely on human intelligence. in our development of technological infrastructure rather than attempt to take the human being out of the equation. An important goal of HI is to take a first step toward a foremost principle of the Enlightenment, that of the dignity of the individual. … one of the founding principles of developing technology under the Hi system is that the user must be an integral part of the discourse loop. The wearable computer allows for new ways to be, not just do.

SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Technologies of Co-operation] – continued…

On the game theory:
< http://www.gametheory.net/ > and < http://www.rand.org/ >
Game of Chicken: two opponents rush toward. The one who stops or swerves first loses.
Robert Axelrod < http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/ > The Evolution of Cooperation

Rheingold traces a route through reciprocity, co-operation, reputation, social grooming, and social dilemmas as fundamental pieces of the smart mob puzzle. He sees CPR theory, game-theoretic and other computer-modelling approach into kinds of group behaviour that might emerge using smart mobs. I see these approaches able to describe every social interaction in human groups.
SmartMobs can contribute to create innovative common grounds, inventing innovation commons, new artificial public goods. He reflects on the role hackers had in the creation of the modern internet, creating tools and the Os which propelled the net. ken Thompson -> Unix. Richard Stallman -> GNU. Linus Torvalds -> Linux. Tim Berners-Lee -> WWW. Marc Andersen -> Mosaic. Brian Behlendorf -> Apache. This brought Rheinold to ask himself if the Internet is going to remain a decentralised, self-organised commons as the fixed network infrastructure upgrades to wireless connections. Lawrence Lessing in the Future of Ideas says that the resouce that was held in commons was the right to innovate. Anybody could take advantage of the commons created by connecting all these computers togethers to develop new ideas and applications that everybody could have access to.
the next step Rehingold undertake is the definition of Social Networks as per Barry Wellman master of Social Network analysis): Most people operate in multiple, thinly connected, partial communities as they deal with networks of kin, neighbours, friends, workmates and organizational ties. when computer-mediated communication networks link people, institution and knowledge, they are computer-supported social network. A community is a networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information and a sense of belonging and social identity.

Reed’s law: “When a network is aimed at broadcasting something of value to individuals, like a television network, the value of services is linear. When the network enables transactions between the individual nodes, the value is squared. When the same networks includes ways for the individuals to form groups, the value is exponential.”
This generates what Reed define: jointly constructed value.

— a system in which users defines rules, a community, where creation is enabled and allowed, where relationships are mapped and gave back as feedback in the network. There an activity is purposed, a game among the peers which reflect latest discoveries of the game theory. Nobody has to decide for everyone what the technology can and cannot be used for.—
— the difference between a network of computers and a network of mobiles is that there is no share in the network is a point-to-point private communication—
—can we envision a group-oriented phone Operating System?—

SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Computation Nation and Swarm Supercomputers]

Cory Doctrow in “The Gnomes of San Jose” wrote: …Peer-to-peer networks are not owned by any central authority, nor can they be controlled, killed, or broken by a central authority. Companies and concerns may program and release software for peer-to-peer networking, but the networks that emerge are owned by everyone and no one. They are a faery infrastructure, networks whose maps from weird n-dimensional topologies of surpassing beauty and chaos, mad technological hairballs run by ad-hocracies whose members each act in their own best interests. In a nutshell, peer-to-peer technology is goddamn wicked. It’s esoteric. It’s unstoppable. It’s way, way cool.

Why people should share their resources? Robert Wright: “non-zero-sumness”: the unique human power and pleasure that comes from doing something that enriches everyone, a game where nobody has to to lose for everyone to win.

One of the subsequent application is the swarm computing or the distributed processing like in the Zilla search for prime numbers by Richard Crandhall. P2P is not just about the quantity of computer disk space, but about the social arrangments that enable the members of a p2p community to copublish and share information. What will be the Killer App of the Mob community? Most of the applications for p2p just point out the computational features of the terminal of the network, without taking into account that the intelligence which drives the network is human. What can human add to the value of a p2p network? What are the feature a computer will never handle in human networks? Dan Bricklin: “the genius of Napster is that increasing the value of the database by adding more information is a natural by-product of each person using the tool for his or her own benefit.” The limit of Napster was that it had to go through a centralised server. The solution came from Tom Pepper and Justin Frankel who designed Gnutella. In “Gnutella and the Transient Web,” Kelly Truelove describes the Gnutella’s effect as: “The Gnutella protocol restores the Web’s original symmetry, enabling even transient computers to effectively participate as servers.” The problem with the Gnutella network is that there is no control on the bad usage of the network. One of the solution came from Mojo Nation, Jim McCoy. Mojo Nation incorporates an economy of incentives, using micropayments called “Mojo” to reward users.
Maybe, Rheingold concludes, the next generations of p2p sociotechnology include p2p systems that share decisions and judgements.
OpenCOLA moves toward this direction enabling people to share their interests: you have a folder on your desktop, you put things in it that you like and it will fill up with things you will probably like. This is called “Relevance Switching” is a way to create you own self-updating map of the network.
< www.opencola.com >

—Most of the design for technology for p2p relies on intelligent software agent, I argue that the intelligence in the system resides in the people who use technology. —

SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Technologies of Co-operation]

Mark Smith so defines the social network capital: social network capital is when people put a little of what they know and how they feel into the online network and draw out larger amounts of knowledge and opportunities for sociabilities than they put in.

Rheingold tries to define how collective actions may be influenced so he argued that competition is one of the possible dynamics in group and more so one of the major propeller of the human dynamics. Citing Tomas Hobbes (1660), he argued that humans are so competitive and the only way we can cooperage is for a more powerful competitor to impose a truce. Hobbes called this coercive authority Leviathan. Another approach to the problem is that there is collaboration till the numbers of people in the group is small (olson, 1982). In another theory Elinor Ostrom, in 1990, argued that external authorities are necessary to govern the common pool resources (CPRs). Ostrom found that group that are able to organise and govern themselves are marked by the following principles:
1. group boundaries are clearly defined
2. rules governing the use of collective goods are well matched to local needs and conditions
3. most individuals affected by these rules can participate in modifying the rules
4. the rights of community members to devise their own rules is respected by external authorities
5. community members monitor user’s behaviour (punishing rule breakers and verifying that people are doing their part)
6. a graduated system of sanctions are used
7. community members have access to low cost conflict resolution
8. for cpr that are part of larger systems, appropriation, provision, … are organised by nested layers
Charlotte Hess pointed out the significance of a cross-disciplinary convergence < paper >.
Smith: reputation and peer-to-peer social pressure pay a key role in maintaining CPRs.
Rheingold continues citing other theories about human group. Kropotkin wrote, for example, Mutual aid: A Factor of Evolution, where he stated his theory: A centralised government, he insisted, is not needed to set an example or to make people do the right thing. On the opposite direction Richard Dawkins wrote a book: The Selfish Gene, where he stated that we are survival machines , blindly programmed to preserve the genes.
Game theory is based on several assumption:
1. the players are in conflict
2. they must take action
3. the results of the actions will determine which player wins according to definite rules
4. all players are expected to always act rationally by choosing the strategy that will maximise their gain regardless of the consequences of others.
Chicken –

SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Shibuya Epiphany] –continued

The term “swarming” is used to define a network-negotiated public flocking behaviour of texting adolescents. This mobile technology gives the users the freedom to aggregate in ad-hoc networks.

Internet Relay Chat was invented by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988; Linux; SMS… The source of the power of these new mediums relays in the support and propagation of social networks. Pirjo Rautianen started collecting data about SMS : he thinks that SMS are the backdoors for communication. Then Rheingold reports on a Finnish project trying to build a “shared urban living space” that combines physical location, virtual communities, mobile social network and a co-operative organisation (CL?). (An example is the It’s Alive project: a location-based mobile game.) Approaching the study of the impact of mobiles on groups, some issues emerge: 1. the level of the individual personality, where cognitive and identity related issues; 2. the level of the immediate social network where place and community related issues; 3. the level of the society, where emergent effects of individual usage may influence.
Social theorist Erving Goffman says that using SMS, teen can choose who to send and how to respond, and this is raw material for identity and group shaping activities. Using the mobile phones they can differentiate themselves from family or household relations, and contribute to a growing sense of independence and collectivity. In addition, when I am on the phone I am simultaneously in two places: the space of the conversation (virtual) and the physical space which I occupy (physical). Mizuko ITO talks about identity construction.

“Draw your own conclusions, but draw them in pencil so you can go back and change them later.”

-Jon Welte

SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Shibuya Epiphany]

“…people expect the mobile internet to be the same as the wired version, only mobile, but they are wrong.” —Tom Standage, “The Internet Untethered”

Rheingold define his vision of “immersive” as a physical environment in which you are in but in which something of your virtual presence is also incorporated. Mizuko Ito is an anthropologist interested in the ways Tokyo’s teeenagers use keitai. She is studying how identity and place are produced (defined?) through and within digital media infostructures. The author suggest how, in his opinion, SMS and mobiles offer the teenagers a way around the parents’ control, making a contrast between private and public functions. He says also that the mobile construct a portable and localised place for intimacy, an open channel of contact with generally three to five others.

—[ Is it possible to build around this concept of 3-5 people? What do they do? What can they do? How do we develop a sense of community? How do we develop trust among them? How do we initiate a collaborative exchange?]—

—[Mixing disciplines: psychology – antropology – social psychology – CSCL – mobile learning – economics [3-9] ]—
—[icons for each participant. 3D interface where the participants move, interactions between them, activities among them, location, context aware signalling, new way of beeping, pinging them: are they thinking about me? what’s my reputation in the group; inclusion/exclusion; MOO; what’s next??]—

The presence and availability of mobile phones grants teenagers a degree of privacy and the right to assembly/aggregate which was not available previously, and which is used to construct a networked space which is available from anywhere they are. There is also the issue of control. Having this communication channel always ready means being able to control what’s going on and change your lifestyle according with this new power/extension of your body (hand…). In this sense they can be late to an appointment because they have a way to communicate; they can change their lifestyle and programming much less than what we used to do: instead of dividing the day in time slots they can take decisions on the edge. Finally the definition of presence which is loosing the spatial context to a reassigned social network environment which extends beyond any single location (presence seems to mean participation into the group activity). Mari Matsunaka -> Takeshi Natsuno: “mobiles are completely useless unless you know the right mobile number. The distribution of data via phone, however, would make possible for users to search for the right number… The mobility add a completely brand new dimension: position! What does it mean to have a certain information everywhere or at particular place? The mobile is the bridge between the virtual and the physical space. Is the virtual adding more details to the physical? Is the virtual a way to transfer information/bits where atoms cannot be transferred. But also, atoms gives substance to information, the tangibility. One of the point of strength of the i-mode is the easy of use: a carefully selected menu of contents which allow the user to access useful information without any notions on how the system works. Is therefore interesting the function to download content into the mobile phone. Downloading this content can mean adding functions, expanding features, of the mobile.

Kenny Hirshhorn (Orange): a mobile is the remote control of your life.

Managing Director, i-mode Strategy NTT DoCoMo. Inc.

Graduated from the School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University. Went to the U.S. after working for Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. to acquire an MBA in 1995 at the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. Became Vice President of an Internet-related venture business in 1996. Since 1997 involved in initiating the i-mode project, which has grown to involve more than 26 million contracts (as of the end of July 2001) and is considered a social phenomenon. Addresses strategies to provide i-mode service, and cooperates with other companies by making use of his broad knowledge, sensitivity and international perspectives acquired by having studied abroad and engagement in the management of a venture business. His main works include i-Mode Strategy (Nikkei BP Inc.).

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SmartMobs (The next social revolution)
\cite{Rheingold02}

[Introduction]

“Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they do not know each other.”

The author sustains that new Mob devices will be able to link objects, places and peoples, and people to online content and processes, highlighting how getting this connection is not just an extra communication channel but it can contain new forms of communication. Rheingold states strongly how the way to do things will be incredible changed by these media because these will add new capabilities to human potential: “These separate upgrades (of Mobs capabilities, n.d.r.) in capabilities don’t just add to each other; mobile, multimedia, location-sensitive characteristics multiply each other’s usefulness.” The following steps the author introduce is how to track what people are going to do with this technology, what accepted social code will arise from their social life, how this code will expand through different communities. Rheingold says that how the graphical user interface enable non-programmers to operate computers, so these SmartMobs will enable people to do other things which were not possible before: “They enable people to act together in new ways and in situations where collective action was not possible before.” This kind of technology will enable us to know who in our vicinity is likely to buy what we have to sell, sell what we want to buy, know what we need to know, want the kind of sexual or political encounter we also want. Question are still open on how to establish a sense of community, how to create trust among the participants and how to promote collaboration. Rheingold suggest a king of autocracy where people behaviour is evaluated by the community itself. Other questions raised regards the impact of these technologies on communication in the family and societal life.

Moore’s Law: technology gets cheaper as it grows more powerful
Meltcafe’s Law: the useful power of a network multiplies rapidly as the number of the nodes in the network increases
Reed’s Law: the power of a network, especially one that enhances social networks, multiplies even more rapidly as the number of different human groups that can use the network increases

Examples: www.upoc.com
Seti@home

http://www.nooper.co.jp/showcase/gallery.php?s=4&l=en

The Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, Japan has the highest mobile phone density in the world. On weekdays average 190,000 and on weekends average 250,000 people pass this crossing per day (Source: CCC, Tsutaya), around 1500 people traverse at each light change, while 80% of them carry a mobile phone.

In the future, the way we think about computers will change. Some features will always be useful, but certain content and applications make sense only in specific physical locations. Devices and networks will become smart enough to identify those locations and change accordingly, and location-based computing will grow beyond the city guides and mapping services available today. Now is the time for software and hardware developers to think about the new applications and interfaces this shift makes possible.

Companies covered include:

GeoDiscovery (services leveraging automatic position identification)
Vindigo and CitiKey (mobile city guides)
Airflash (location-based information and commerce)
GeePS (location-sensitive commerce for merchants)
GeoTouch (next-generation online mapping)
Scout Electromedia (location-specific wireless devices)
GeoVector (interfaces incorporating direction and motion)
InfoMove (car-based services)
TeleVend (wireless transactions for vending machines and other locations

Check also Marie Curie Grants and Swiss Science Fundation

Today we have been discussing the changes that are prompted by technology in Education, Media, Healthcare. Our paradigm privileges the shift from the traditional style of schooling to a lifelong learning process. People are in charge of their own development. The strategy will be in creating new community of interests to broader the access to knowledge.

One of the possible setting of the Biosphera system is a close visual proximity between the virtual character, the actual plant under controlled conditions and the actual plant in the room environment.