A recurring topic here, as seen in Zürich yesterday: what it takes to support urban computing: infrastructures and configuration issues.

The recent story of Google cars causing stir in Rome still makes me wondering about the perception of so-called “urban computing” and citizens. To put it shortly, the problem was basic: Google recently brought in black cars in Rome that take pictures for the Google Streetview project (yes at some point you have to physical artifacts taking PICTURES of streetviews, it’s not just virtual). BernhardWarner for the timesonline hence reports the following people’s reaction to these black cars:

“On cue, pedestrians shuffled off the street and into bars, out of sight of the offending vehicle, no doubt wondering if these are the new intrusions that must be endured after a sudden shift to the right. Your correspondent managed to snake through a queue of cars at a traffic light to get a better look at the vehicle that upset so many mid-afternoon espressos.
(…)
Just then the Google car swung left and I followed, in a very slow pursuit. The identical scene unfolded before me: Romans stumbling into shops and bars, hoping to be out of view of the camera’s lens“

In a sense, they perceived it as “a new type of video surveillance vehicle”. I won’t enter into the details of the explanation provided by the timesonline (the election of a right-wing mayor… who wants to promote tough-on-crime platforms) but this situation seems certainly revealing of a troublesome relationship between technological assemblage.

The picture of the google cars in the Netherlands made by Lars van de Goor shows how the whole pack can be intimidating:

Why do I blog this? what I find interesting here is less the perception of a service (that can be articulated as “urban computing”) but instead the sort of experience of the infrastructure needed to provide a service. A flock of all-similar black cars wandering around the city with huge camera-devices may indeed by an intriguing experience as it may came out from the blue. Will we see more of this sort of encounters in the city of the near future?

Btw, Mauro were in you in Rome? have you seen this?

Pneumatic tubes and networks (as the one described in Boris Vian’s novels) have always fascinated me. The name itself is gorgeous and it really looks like a strange vehicle. Although there are sometimes still use to transport cash and documents (transparent supermarkets pneumatics are intriguing), their usage has often stop or led to new possibilities: using tubes to put optic fibers to serve as internet infrastructure OR use both technology and pneumatic to vehicle paper documents which still matters in the 21st century.

Also of interest is the mapping of pneumatic networks, see for instance the Paris network as shown in this article:

Why do I blog this? What is interesting here is not that you can get web-based remote control of an electro-pneumatic (nor the impact on net neutrality) but rather the existence and sometimes the resilience of this communication network. An old version of the “city of flow” sort-of.

Different ways to protect one’s source of electricity:

Well covered in a french train:

With duct tape at the airport in Brussels:

Why do I blog this? in a time where we have our pockets full of mobile devices that require electricity, it’s always an issue to find a power plug. This is even more important when you hang out in Marc Augé’s “non-places”. Most of time, it’s in these areas that owners of the infrastructures are trying to design different ways to prevent you from accessing it. Even when there are still plugs for vacuum cleaners or christmas trees, there are always some possibilities to show you that you’re not welcome to steal a bit of volts.

A bench in Zürich, conspicuously rubbed with wax by skateboarders… reduced friction, makes is easier to grind the bench.

Why do I blog this? The tweaking of urban elements in an interesting practice to observe. What does that say about urban computing? possibly that a certain audience can modify the infrastructure they need to operate with regards to their needs. At the social level, the presence of wax on curbs/bench is also a trace of people activity, a social navigation indicator that skateboard hang out there. I recently wrote a short article about that topic for a trend book for JCDecaux (the street billboard/furniture/toilet/biking company) on cities, mobility and new media.