My final project is likely to use some AJAX style code, so I’ve started experimenting with the technology. As my project will be handling image uploads and social navigation, I’ll be setting up a template RPC to manage those operations.
A prototyping page is at http://www.chrisblunt.com/ajax/ex2/ to play around with (try searching for ‘mouse’ or ‘chris’ in Images and User respectively)
The XML processing is handled by the sarissa script library.
While carrying out some research for my project and dissertation, I came across this excellent social soft-tool. Wayfaring.com lets you annotate Google Maps with any information you fancy (e.g. ‘Places I like to drink beer’, ‘Things todo while visiting NYC’, etc.) and share those maps with others.
My first prototype applet for the Production of Space Practice is now working. Currently, the J2ME applet connects to surrounding devices (via Bluetooth). These connections are then visualised to show your social connection; your presence in the social space. As you move around the physical world, your social connectivity changes, morphing the visual connections.
Admittedly, the graphics of the applet are rudimentary in its current guise. More important for now is the critical foundation upon which the idea is built. As part of the PoS module, I shall be giving a lecture on the Practice development and my rationale of it in a couple of weeks.
Having discussed the idea at length with Chris Speed, this initial project ’snippet’ also holds several potential directions for my final project. As I continue to build the technology behind the applet, I shall be looking to incorporate active (rather than passive) social connectivity, in a similar manner to the Jambo app mentioned below.
Through the active connections, one is socially connected to an event; in time and space. By harnessing this instant and fusing it to the digital, a repository of social connections emerges. My final project harnesses this ability to capture moments as and in socially connective space.
As a side-note, and something that will probably make it into a version of my final project, it would also be interesting to build a social connective map of Plymouth based on a time-splice of various people’s travels through the city.
I’ll be writing a full critical and technical proposal for my next meeting with Chris, and by then will also have a phase 2 prototype up and running.
Hopefully the phase 2 development will be available for download pretty soon… it needs to be tested on as many platforms (J2ME devices support JSR-82 Bluetooth) and in use as quickly as possible! Anyone interested in helping or joining, please drop me an email and I’ll keep you informed!
tags: social space connection j2me bluetooth university project mobile technology programming critical
Recently, I’ve spent some time brushing up my Java code to play around with wireless technologies based on the concept of social hotspots. In a couple of weeks I will be presenting my theoretical framework for the Production of Space module.
Interestingly, as my understanding of the concept deepens around this subject, I am reiterating my final project design. I’ll be looking into some various visualisation techniques for social data this week, which I hope to post at the time of the presentation.
My dissertation is moving along nicely, and I’ve now written a near-finished introduction and outline. Whilst there are several key texts that form the basis of my research, it seems a lot of the subject will be based on cutting edge developments, particularly in the realms of social software.
tags: university ideas space project sound dissertation java wireless technology electric social software
Whilst clarifying my idea of social hotspots, it occurred that they represent a social subversion of corporate space. The identity of a brand (of a corporation) is subject to the experiences of the consumer. It is important to think of the coffee-symbol - the Costa experience appearing in our local bank - not as just a meeting place, but as the actual manifestation of corporate identity theft.
This bank is no longer selling us its services (in the age of the digital economy, money has no physical relevance, and thus a bank has no functional need to be on our high street), but it must find a way to entice us into its brand. This social hotspot then is a ploy to disarm the consumer, to attract them on the premise of social experience to be victim to corporate invasion. By violating their space with supplementary concession, they are actually extending that space - their space - into our social existence. Our visit to the bank no longer is just one of financial subjection, but also subjection to social power. We are socially disarmed such that we may become influenced to corporate desire.
Of course, there is a reaction to this in the form of social space: reputation. Whilst social hotspots may work for the corporate brand, they can also work against it. The hotspot becomes a hotbed of reason and experience, both good and bad.
Virtually, we see this in sites such as epinions.com and reviewcentre.com, and physically we see it (sometimes) in news articles and financial markets.
tags: university space social hotspot coffee culture ideas