[wsfii-discuss] hacking the built city

Wed Nov 2 09:42:57 UTC 2005

On Tue, Nov 01, 2005 at 11:09:22PM -0500, Michael Lenczner wrote:
> this smells of ego-posting.  sorry -  but I really want to make sure
> that the wireless community is exposed to this idea.  If i'm wrong - i
> would rather know sooner rather than later.
> 
> http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003701.html
> 
> Michael Lenczner wrote to me suggesting that I check out a recent post
> on his weblog about some of the larger issues raised by his work at
> Ile Sans Fil, a Montreal community wireless project. It's a

"that we have 55 hotspots and 9000 users"

Prague is said to have 2500 hotspots and 15000 users

There is somewhere a layer for GRASS GIS published with the network link data
I saw it but I can't now find the link... If anyone wants to verify
the number, I can try to find it...

>     This statement is based on the idea that as wireless devices and
> services proliferate and ubiquitous computing becomes a reality, the
> physical environment (especially the built city) is rapidly becoming

...as wireless devices and services proliferate and ubiquitous computing
becomes a reality, the physical environment (especially the radio
spectrum) becomes one chunk of white noise and the wireless network
starts to be unusable. At least this was the situation in Prague.

Ile Sans Fill can see what it's future is ;-) Radio networks are not
scalable.

> enhanced space or mixed-reality. The supposedly seperate existences of
> off-line and on-line are intersecting and overlapping - most rapidly
> in cities. [...]
> 
>     To be sure, we have constraints on how much we can hack the city -
> it's not as if we can easily directly confront the power of the the
> police or building developpers. But we can work to allow spaces to
> better retain memories, to promote both stronger and a larger number

example?

> of looser associations between individual, to increase valuing of art
> and artists, or to help people get laid (more) on the basis of shared

example?

> This is a fascinating transformation to watch. When public wireless
> Internet spots first popped up, there was a distinct geeky edge to
> them, which soon broadened into the perception that they were really
> only for students and knowledge workers still on the clock on
> weekends. But while this latter concept remains the dominant one in
> mainstream advertising and news reports, the growing integration of
> wireless tools into the every day lives of creative communities means
> that these networks are no longer just the province of people who
> "have to" be online. Projects such as Dencity, Neighborhood
> Satellites, and other smart environment efforts are only possible when
> a wireless infrastructure is not just present, but expected.
> 
> This is already true, to an extent, with mobile phone networks,
> although in this case the carrier-driven limitations of the services
> militate against taking full advantage of their potential. Projects

I think it's rather technical limitation of the network itself. Try
GPRS and you'll understand ;-)

> like a Placeopedia/Location-based Wikipedia mashup are really only
> possible with an open Internet connection.

I would add "broadband and reliable" to prevent disappointment of the
users in the future. It's nice if it's open but it's useless when it has
throughput in orders of tens kbps, 15% packet loss, 3000ms roundtrip and
MTBF of 5 minutes (a situation common in CZFree.NET Prague)

CL<
> When the mass of people come to expect the presence of open wireless
> networks, and are willing to participate in both the creation and the
> use of information that is only relevant in the context of physical
> location, the transformation will be compete. The overlay of
> information and connection the technology enables will no longer have
> to suffer geeky labels like "augmented reality." Instead, we'll just
> call it community
> 
> _______________________________________________
> wsfii-discuss mailing list
> wsfii-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss