mobility

Rocking the Vote: Web 2.0 Style

Jerry Sheehan — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:57:54 -0700

Description

The U.S. Presidential election is less then 30 days away and new technologies look poised to have a demonstrable impact on young voter registration and also how many citizens turn out to the polls.

On-line voter registration is not a new phenomenon but appears for the first time to bring substantial new young voters to the electorate. Rock the Vote, one of the leading sites targeting first time voters, has registered 2.3 million voters in the last 15 months, roughly twice as many as they registered in 2004. [1]

Rock the Vote began in 1992 with public service announcements (PSA) aimed at raising awareness among young voters of the importance of voting initially registered 350,000 new voters. This presidential election, in addition to producing their standard PSAs, they are also experimenting with social networking technologies and most importantly allowing users to register on-line. Users complete a web-based form compliant with the National Voter Registration Application Form, download and print the completed form, and are given the appropriate address for their Secretary of State to submit their registration. Currently all states but North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Wyoming, accept the PDF signed form. [2]

Apart from the Web site, Rock the Vote has also partnered with Microsoft to allow the approximately 12 million users of Xbox Live to potentially register through their video gaming console. As Heather Smith, Rock the Vote Director noted, “To realize our goal of registering 2 million young Americans by this fall, we need to go where young Americans are, and there's no doubt in our minds that many are on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.”[3]

Social networking techniques are also being used to help drive voter registration. Perhaps the largest of these is the Ultimate College Bowl (http://ultimatecollegebowl.com) which tracks how many voters are registering from America’s college campuses and provides a widget that can be embedded in web pages to help motivate classmates to help push their University registration numbers higher. The University with the top number of new registered votes will be awarded a free concert while individual students who register the most students are eligible for scholarships and video games.[4]

Social sites are also offering users the options of sending text messages to their phones reminding them to vote. Research conducted during the 2006 election shows the powerful impact of this reminder. In 2006, 4000 mobile phone users were chosen at random from a new voter registration pool and sent voting reminders. They were then asked to gauge the impact of that reminder. The research reported that:
“• Across the board, text message reminders increased the likelihood of an individual voting by 4.2 percentage points.
• Of the different messages tested, a short, to-the-point reminder was most effective, with a boost of nearly 5 percentage points.
• In a follow up survey, 59% of recipients reported that the reminder was helpful, versus only 23% who found it bothersome.
• Hispanics had especially positive feelings about the reminders.
• At just $1.56 per additional vote generated, text messaging was extremely cost effective.”[5]

It seems likely that this is the first major Presidential election where the maturation of legal changes, spread of on-line technologies, and convergence of mobile devices (cell phones) may have their first major impact. It will be important to analyze how these trends impact the participation of the young voter in the upcoming election.

Computer & Information Science

Source

[1] “Time's running out: So to register youth, they're depending on technology's speed” Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-registration9-2008oct09,0,2184723.story
[2]”History of Rock the Vote” and “Rock the Vote Voter Registration FAQ”, http://www.rockthevote.com/about/history-rock-the-vote/
http://www.registrationbyworkingassets.com//site/faq/
[3]”Xbox 360 Gets Political, Providing Voter Registration via Xbox Live”, Chris Faylor, Shacknews, August 21, 2008, http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54325
[4]”Ultimate College Bowl Prizes”, http://ultimatecollegebowl.com/canvas/?appParams={%22tab%22%3A%22prizes%22}
[5]”Fact Sheet on Youth Vote and Text Messaging” New Voters Project, http://www.newvotersproject.org/text-messaging

Chrome and Gears: The Web Gets a New Engine

Jerry Sheehan — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:09:45 -0700

Description

The primary technology used by individuals to access the Web, the Web Browser, has not undergone substantial transformation since the creation of the first browser (Mosaic) by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 1992. At that time, the web was primarily a document repository without the rich media types, interactivity, or proliferation of social information that is the foundation of our Web 2.0 ecosystem. While browsers have certainly improved in speed and features, the underlying document-centric mindset has dominated the browser paradigm.

Last week Google announced the release of their first browser, code named Chrome. Chrome takes a very different approach to the Web, one that is built not only on the current foundation of web technologies, but is built in recognition of the importance of javascript to the modern web experience and the emergence of web applications as a way of working. In this sense, one of the most important components of Chrome may well be the extension of Google Gears and an embrace of cloud computing. Google has a great illustrated "comic book" that explains some of the underlying philosophy and technologies used in Chrome.[1]

The first version of Chrome is a windows-only application but ports to other operating systems are under active development. Importantly, all of the underlying source code for the browser has been made open source and is available for the worldwide network of software developers to hack, improve, and test. Within the first day of its availability on the Web, Chrome had risen to being 1.7% of the global browser market.

What might be the underlying impact of Chrome:

1) A Substantial New Software Project for Google: Clearly Chrome is a cornerstone of the web experience that Google wants to develop and exploit. The highest levels of Google have publicly stated that this is a major project and Google's creators being on hand for the software announcement and confirm this fact.

2) Wither Mozilla? Google has been a primary supporter of Mozilla and was a critical ally in the fight to keep the browser viable when its market share was being attacked by Microsoft's Internet Explorer. While Google still talks the Mozilla talk, it is clear to most analyst that Chrome poses a threat to Mozilla. This will come about in likely one of two ways: 1) Google will likely explicitly decrease their support of Mozilla as they make a greater resource investment in Chrome. It is questionable who will step into the void left. 2) Since the Chrome code base is open source the legions of mozilla developers may begin to invest their time on Chrome as opposed to continued work on the Mozilla code-base. This attention deficit could decrease new releases effectively killing the browser in the uber-comeptitive mindshare battle.[4]

[3] The Mobile Browser Battle Will Heat Up: Chrome is likely part of a multi-platform campaign by Google with an increasing emphasis on the mobile device needs. The Google investment in Android provides a hardware platform on which Chrome may be optimized, and from the discussion of the motivation for Chrome by Google, they both use the same underlying software architecture (webkit). This common starting point will allow Google to place significant pressure, if they choose, on other mobile software providers. [5] This is a critical battleground. Remember that while today's Web is built around desktop personal computers the future is a billion mobile devices accessing global information.

[4] It's About the Gears, Stupid: It would be a mistake to look at the Google effort as being primarily about an effort to win the browser wars dominated by Internet Explorer (72.15% of global use).6 Instead, Chrome is likely focused in large part on trying to spread the adoption of Google Gears. Gears is Google's approach to distributed "cloud based" applications. Imagine a world in which Google provides not your browser, but your mail, your word processor, your spreadsheet, your contacts, and your slides.[4]

Computer & Information Science

Source

[1]http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/big_00.html
[2]"A week of Chrome: Google's browser gets 7% share at Ars", Ryan Paul, Published: September 10, 2008, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080910-aweek-of-chrome-googles-browser-gets-7-share-at-ars.html
[3]"Google brings out big guns in support of Chrome",Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service, MacWorld, September 2, 2008, http://www.macworld.com/article/135341/2008/09/chrome.html
[4] "The Importance of Chrome", Alex Russel, September 1, 2008, http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/2008/09/the-importance-of-chrome/
[5] "How Chrome Puts the Skids under Nokia", Twm Davies, The Register, September 5, 2008, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/05/chrome_mobile_analysis/
[6]Market Share by Net Applications, http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0

World's largest broadband launched in India

Mani Pande — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:09:44 -0700

Description

India's new star, Tata (the maker of Tata Nano) is going to roll out a nationwide WIMAX network in India this year. It will be the largest high speed broadband network anywhere in the world.

The network is functional in 10 cities already in India. It will cover 115 cities by next year.

This has brought new opportunities to chip makers like Intel because Intel's silicon chips power WIMAX.

India provides the perfect conditions for launching broadband. As Businessweek magazine stated: "It's in emerging economies like India, where there is little connectivity and where mobile usage is soaring because of the difficulty in getting broadband wires to homes and offices, that WiMax is likely to see its full potential as a commercially viable technology."

Source

http://businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2008/gb20080312_479990.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business

Multiple desktops on the cell phone

Mani Pande — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:28:53 -0700

Description

Virtualization for the computer has changed how many users use their computers -- running multiple servers or operating systems on a single machine. It has brought down the demand for computers as users are able to run multiple servers and operating systems on a single machine. The success of virtualization led to one of the biggest IPOs after Google in the Silicon Valley when VM Ware decided to go public.

Virtualization is soon coming to the mobile phone. VirtualLogix, Green Hill Software, Open Kernel Labs and Wind River Systems are building virtualization software to the mobile phone. For example, tt would bring some of the functionality of the iphone toa Blackberry.

It would make design for phones easier. As Businessweek pointed out: "Currently, programmers have to rewrite every application—be it a game, social networking service, or other feature—for each of the various operating systems, including Symbian, Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile, or Google's (GOOG) Android. The tinkering can take months. But virtualization software would enable a mobile-phone maker to add features regardless of the operating system. So Motorola could grab a Web-browsing application written for one system, an e-mail application for another, and calling features designed for a third OS, and elegantly integrate them onto one phone. That could significantly speed up the phone-design process."

It will enable phones run on smaller number of chips.

Source

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080421_235517.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology

Ambient Displays at the Human-Computer Interface

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:30 -0700

Description

Developments in display technology may increase the repertoire of interactions between users and digital media by increasing the number of sites for "ambient" displays.

Today, interaction with digital displays is a deskbound or device-dependent experience. However, developments in display technology may enable a new form of interaction with digital media: "ubiquitous computing". In ubiquitous computing, the physical location of data and processing power is not apparent to the user. Rather, information is made available to the user in a transparent and contextually relevant manner. A single display device restricts the repertoire of interactions between the user and digital media, so ubiquitous computing requires displays wherever the user might need one, in appliances, tabletops public transport, walls, etc. "Ambient" displays communicate on the periphery of human perception, requiring minimal attention and cognitive load.

Sites for ambient display technologies include:

Tabletop workspaces, horizontal flat displays that support multiple users moving around a common work surface
Smart walls, large-format screens that seamlessly display users' personal work environments over broadband wireless connections
Chairtop work surfaces / control pads, seating with embedded digital controls for interacting with ambient displays
Web signs, digital signs that are actually flexibly programmable Web displays for specific purposes
Public display boards, displays similar to Web signs that serve a more general function as displays for news and mobile workers" transitory interactions as they pass by
Floating augmented reality, personal information artefacts eventually viewable through lightweight head-mounted displays or perhaps in the far future through direct neural connections
Paper-thin digital displays, e-paper, and textile displays enabled by OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) and OLEPs (organic light-emitting polymers)

In developed countries, ambient displays may appear within 5 years in high-end speciality applications. Within 10 to 20 years they may find broader worldwide consumer applications as economies of scale drive manufacturing costs down."

This will be enabled by:

Decrease in OLED manufacturing costs
Introduction of new flat screen form factors
Adoption by consumers of new applications

Early indicators include:

"Universal Display Corporation's licencing of their OLED flexible display technology to Samsung
Mitsubishi Labs' prototyping of a wide range of novel ambient displays
Devotion of an entire issue (March 2005) of the Journal of the Communications of the ACM to applications and technologies of 'the disappearing computer'
The Fraunhofer Institute's research on 'roomware®' ('computer-augmented room elements like doors, walls, furniture with integrated information and communication technology')
UC Berkeley's formation of the Ambient Display Research Group to explore human factors of ambient displays
Shipment of about 31 million OLED panels in 2004, double the number shipped in 2003, according to the market research firm DisplaySearch"

What to watch:

"New display technologies and new applications are demonstrated at annual conferences such as SIGCHI (the conference of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) and SIGGRAPH, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
OLED display shipments double and triple as OLEDs take even more market share for MP3 players and as main displays in mobile phones.

Signals

The End of Cyberspace

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:10:29 -0700

Description

The concept of cyberspace as a distinct geographical entity has influenced the way we think about information technology, e-commerce, copyright, and high-tech products. New technologies are revealing a more complex relation between data-space and the real world, with consequences in all these areas.

The concept of cyberspace has been (to quote George Lakoff and Mark Johnson) a "metaphor we live by," a conceptual framework for making sense of the Internet. For the past twenty years, the Internet has been described as a kind of alternate dimension or place, separate from and in some ways superior to general life and physical reality.

The metaphor has had several sources. Science fiction and video games offered some of the earliest articulations of the idea of computers and networks as places. Arguments for and against the regulation of online speech and commerce both appealed to the notion of the Internet as a place. Software developers instantiated the metaphor of computers as places in the design of graphical user interfaces, Web browsers, and massive multiplayer online games. Finally, the social and psychological experience of using personal computers, usually in computer labs, workplaces, or home offices, reinforced the sense of the Internet as separate from real life: going online required tuning out the real world.

However, the underlying geographical assumption in the concept of "cyberspace" is that computing environments are necessarily distinct from physical reality. Inspired partly by the notion of "virtual reality", many commentators on computing in the recent past perceived an inexorable path towards "immersive" computing in which users inhabit the same 'space" as their data rather than data inhabiting users' spaces. The development of "pervasive computing" (also known as "ubiquitous computing") has revealed alternatives to immersive computing. Cyberspace is still a valid geographical concept, but its relation with "real" (physical and social) space is complex.

Pervasive computing technologies like flexible displays, smart dust, sensors, and wireless offer an alternative to immersion. The experience of using devices designed to be socially unobtrusive, to require little of a user's attention, and to operate anywhere will change the experience of being online. Users capable of accessing the Internet anywhere will discover "real space" information-- information about the places that they are, accessed in that space-- that complements "real time" information. Rather than requiring users to focus exclusively on either the digital or physical, new devices will allow users to attend to both simultaneously.

A comparison can be made with "virtual reality". (In the popular imagination, cyberspace and virtual reality are closely enmeshed.) When the concept was popularised in the early 1990s, commentators imagined that, as more applications were found for virtual reality technology, we would spend less time in real-space and more time in "virtual" space. It was assumed that as virtual spaces grew in sophistication, they would also become increasingly divorced from "reality", that virtual spaces would provide an alternative space to inhabit. Though the technology has developed apace, we have not seen the emergence of totally immersive alternate realities to the extent that was predicted. "Augmented reality", which maps digital media to the physical world, has proved to be more useful than fully immersive virtual reality.

Similarly, cyberspace is not as distinct from "real" space as it was imagined it would be. Geographically, it is not a separate world or a new frontier, but rather a layer atop (or beneath?) the everyday world. We inhabit both cyberspace and physical space at the same time."

This will be enabled by:

"Pervasive computing technologies: flexible displays, smart dust, sensors, and wireless."

Early indicators include:

"Mobile devices like cell phones and Web-enabled PDAs, especially in Asia and Europe, have already become leading-- if not primary-- devices for young people to access the Internet."

What to watch:

"Emerging mobile and pervasive computing technologies.

The use of language, particularly by youth, describing their online interactions.

Signals

Book sales creating new audiences, communities online