From September 2005 to June 2006 a team of thirteen scholars at the The University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication explored how new and maturing networking technologies are transforming the way in which we interact with content, media sources, other individuals and groups, and the world that surrounds us.
This site documents the process and the results.
I posted my remarks on Michael Liebhold's talk on The Geospatial Web here
Service Ecologies and The Geospatial Web
Mike Liebhold is here today to talk on the topic of the Geospatial web.
What does the IFTF do?Brainstorm through possible, plausible, probable and preferred futures. Present a context for understanding the future. Up to clients to develop insights based on the foresights. Foresight to insight actions is the operating principle of the company.
Research areas are sociological impacts of technology.
Some IFTF clients: AMA, Johnson & Johnson, Alstate, Intel, Pepsico, Lego, Kraft, Kodak, Honda, McDonalds.
Methodologies: Mapping, Ethnographic, Expert workshops & interview; Scenario development & analysis; Surveys & quantitative analysis (sort of..); content facilitation; prototyping/artifacts (building objects from the future.)
What happens if the US holds onto ICANN and others want to split off the root server infrastructure?
What is the lesson here? Chinese are buying lots and lots of Nextel, etc., so they can influence technology design by virtue of their force in the economics of design — they can say what they'll buy and when they're buying lots of something, they can shape design and thereby create protocols or variations of protocols independent of task forces.
Platforms: P2P Networks
* Mesh Networks
* Automotive Nets
* Sensor Nets
* Self-configuring Nets
Trend in the future for web-like experiences out in the world. Leads to the Geospatial Web.
What is interesting here? Imaginary world draped over physical world. Long standing area of interest for Mike. Profound new kind of world wide web, hypermedia objects are not just identified by URI or URL but by spatial coordinates — lat/lon/elevation. What are these? Text objects; sounds; images. Enormous amount of cartographic data that should be viewed in situ. Invisible attributes become visible. Sentient landscapes. Context-aware computing. Geoweb Geospatial EcosystemUsage: Computational Grids
* health mappingTechnorati Tags: geospatial web, locative media, Service Ecology
This is a pretty important netpublics theory object, I think. Discussed more fully here:
Royal Grand Prix Derby Racing (On Air) theory object.
The New York Times carries an an article on how repressive regimes such as the military-run state of Myanmar use off-the-shelf technology from Sunnyvale, California based Fortinet to filter out dissenting Internet content.
What are the consequences of Web 2.0 for Networked Publics—not this academic group but rather our object of study? Web 2.0 is based around the model of consumers becoming active producers, not only creating their own content but actively remixing content themselves. In that, Web 2.0 splendidly embodies Roland Barthes's concept of the writerly text replacing the readerly text. Depending on your epistemological paradigm, the web has moved from the classical era to the modern era, or from the modern to the postmodern. But the jury is still out on Web 2.0's consequence to social structures. In a response to an essay by danah boyd, I suggest that if Web 2.0 will lead to greater bonds between dispersed localities based on interest and lifestyle communities, it may well also lead to a greater disconnect between individuals in close physical proximity.
“The Network City: Emergent Urbanism in Contemporary Life
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