positioning technologies

Software-sorted geographies

Jess Hemerly — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:12:05 -0800

Description

Abstract:

This paper explores the central role of computerised code in shaping the social and geographical politics of inequality in advanced societies. Arguing that ‘software-sorting’ techniques are now being widely applied in efforts to try and separate privileged and marginalised groups and places across a wide range of sectors and domains, the paper analyses recent research addressing three examples of software-sorting in practice. These address physical and electronic mobility systems, online Geographical Information Systems (GISs), and face-recognition Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems covering city streets. The paper finishes by identifying research and policy implications of the diffusion of software-sorted geographies within which computerised code continually orchestrates inequality through technological systems embedded within urban environments.

Source

Graham, S. (2005). "Software-sorted geographies." Progress in Human Geography 29 (5):562-580.

Bruce Sterling SIGGRAPH 2004 speech "When Blobjects Rule the Earth"

Jess Hemerly — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:58:32 -0800

Description

From the spech:

So what's a Blobject? And why might they rule the Earth?

Since I write about design quite a lot, sometimes people think I made up that word, "blobject". If you Google it, my name pops right up, but I didn't coin the term. A famous industrial designer named Karim Rashid made it up, and he wrote about it in a book aptly called "I Want to Change the World." A good book, very educational, you should buy it and read it. I did. Karim's not kidding.

A Blobject is commonly defined as "an object with a curvilinear, flowing design, such as the Apple iMac computer and the Volkswagen Beetle." But computers and cars are just end products, they're not the process. The truth about a blobject is that is a physical object that has suffered a remake through computer graphics. It was designed on a screen with a graphics program. A blobject is what a standard 20th century industrial product, a consumer item, looks like after your crowd has beaten it into shape with a mouse.

Source

Sterling, Bruce (2004). “When Blobjects Rule the Earth”, SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles, August, 2004

Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography

Jess Hemerly — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:48:32 -0800

Description

Abstract:

In recent months there has been an explosion of interest in using the Web to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic information provided voluntarily by individuals. Sites such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap are empowering citizens to create a global patchwork of geographic information, while Google Earth and other virtual globes are encouraging volunteers to develop interesting applications using their own data. I review this phenomenon, and examine associated issues: what drives people to do this, how accurate are the results, will they threaten individual privacy, and how can they augment more conventional sources? I compare this new phenomenon to science and the role of the amateur in geographic observation.

Amateur, DIY, and citizen science

Source

Goodchild, Michael F. (2007). “Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography”, GeoJournal 69: 211-221