ELI2007: First-Generation Ubiquitious Computing

Bryan Alexander - NITLE

{My comments in brackets.}

{First slide has screen shot of Get A First Life!}

La Jetee - art film, web presence ex of social computing in action

*social (web 2.0) - microcontent leads of distributed conversations, US citizens minority on flickr, 1/3 of s koreans use Cyworld

*mobile - ambient (exposed to info and do stuff to it), info on demand, archives/ annotations thru tags, use web 2.0 tech for learning/ student projects (blogs, flickr, video)

*gaming - game to stop from playing games so much (cdc), lots of study of gaming in terms of learning, games increasingly spacialized {reading paper very quickly, hard to follow}, increase of pranks and hoaxes in online gaming (2nd life millionaire press conference)

*mixes - weak augmented reality (geotagging in flickr), placeblooger, google earth api

web 2.0 looks at past - uploading video of old tv etc to YT {punk rock / garage/ r&b videos folks post to goner}, digitizing of old photos, shared past, mario brothers opera (people like old stuff!)

privacy has changed and we haven't protested! {plenty of library folks protest, but collection of info prob not issue for most in general public} tech makes it easier to erode privacy (video of lectures taken w/o permission and posted), students have developed mechanisms for coping w/ privacy issues (66% of teens dont make online presence available to all - pew)

web 2.0 tools/ open web can reopen educational institutions to the public

Q: Can we believe stats about web 2 usage?
A: Things like Technorati blog tracking stats are looked at and debated. Same with many other usage tracking systems. Give general trends.

Q: How many people are really participating (submit content)?
A: Pew Project good place to look for numbers. Even smallish numbers/ percents are huge deal in terms of new tech. Participation growing.

Q: Students in focus group didn't want adults in their space online (MS 2nd life etc). Change profiles when know adults will be looking.
A: Mistake to generalize from small sample. But kids do want some sort of privacy. May change what they put online when looking for jobs.

Q: Wither universities?
A: We can certainly skip new tech. Been done in the past.