Ambient Informatics in Urban Cafes, a CoCollage presentation at the Digital Cities 6 workshop - "Concepts, Methods and Systems of Urban Informatics" - at the 4th International Conference on Communities & Technologies (C&T 2009). Notes from the workshop can be found here: http://gumption.typepad.com/blog/2009/06/digital-cities-6.html
1. Ambient Informatics in Urban Cafés Joe McCarthy Principal Instigator Strands Labs Seattle
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5. Perils of [technology in] Third Places Cyber-nomads are “ hollowing out ” cafés that offer WiFi, rendering them “ physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated” leaving people “ more isolated than they would be if the café were merely empty.” -- James E. Katz, Professor of Communications, Rutgers University
6. Challenge: [how] can technology enhance community within cafés? Three observations … and a solution
11. The Strands Community Collage (CoCollage) A large computer display showing a collage of photos and quotes uploaded to a special web site by patrons and staff in a café or other community-oriented place.
12. CoCollage features People Stuff (photos & quotes) Commenting, voting Uploading Messaging The big screen
13. Sharing your stuff Facebook photos Quotes Flickr photos Photos from your computer Photos via email
Cafés often already have technology in them: many, if not most, cafés offer wireless Internet access. Unfortunately, many people use this WiFi access to “tunnel out” to their online communities while ignoring the physical community around them. James Katz, Professor of Communications at Rutgers University, had a great way of expressing this phenomenon in a recent article appearing in The Economist: “physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated”. Our goal is to counteract that tendency by designing social technology that reflects the richness of people’s online lives within the coffeehouse, offering a new proactive display application that enables people to share some of that richness with their neighbors in physical space.