lift09 – Climb to the Stars

Lift09 — Vint Cerf [en]

Story of the talking dog. Excitement, but nobody is paying attention to what the dog is saying.

Vint feels like the talking dinosaur.

(haha)

The Internet works because there are standards, and people cooperate to work together around those standards.

Jan 1983, 400 computers, official launch of the Internet.

Now: 542 mio hosts, 1.464 mio users. Doesn’t count computers behind firewalls.

Other relevant phenomenon: 3.5 bio mobiles have come into the system. The first experience of the internet for many people in the world is going to be through mobile.

More internet users in China than in the US

Asia biggest number of users, then Europe. Hard to make predictions about Europe as it keeps adding countries.

Astonishing: the kinds of things that people put on the net! Fridges and picture-frames! (Sounded about as useful as an electric fork…)

steph-note: internet-enabled picture frames sound cool, to share photos with family around the world

Internet-enabled surfboard. Surf the internet while waiting to surf the next wave, with wifi hotspot on the beach 🙂

Vint seems to have the house of the future: sensors all over the place, network, monitors temperature of the wine cellar for example, and sends and SMS when something is wrong (happened to him when nobody was home, so got one SMS for every five minutes for the next three days of his trip, and when he got back the cellar was a bit warm…)

For the moment, all Vint can tell is that the lights have been on in the wine cellar, but not if somebody took wine. RFID: could put a chip on the bottle, so would know if it walks away. But you could drink it and leave the bottle! So put something in the cork… steph-note: wild!

This year is a significant year of change for the internet. moving to run in parallel with the IPv6 something or other (steph-note: fuzzy for me)

In the seventies, nobody could decide how much address space was needed for this “experiment”. Someone wanted variable length fields, too much computing power. 128-bit addresses (3.4 X 10^38 sounded like a preposterous number of addresses to ask for for an experiment).

The experiment never ended… we’re living in it.

Non-latin characters in domain names — that’s happening now. Hard to integrate that in the current domain name system without disrupting it.

Multi-core chips. (steph-note: technical stuff I’m not following, about clock speeds and chips and stuff and how this relates to the internet)

Conventional relational databases are not scaling up to the sizes people are looking at today. Petabytes of data…

Bit-rot problem: it’s 3000, can you interpret a 1997 Powerpoint? Big big problem. Application software needed to interpret our bits not available anymore. Need to maintain access to application software after support is dropped.

Before: computing utility = big building. Today, big buildings with lots of computers and people use the internet to access it = Clouds. Cloud makers don’t usually worry about dealing without other clouds. No vocabulary to talk about other clouds. How does one cloud communicate with the other? How do you tell Cloud B to protect the data that’s just been copied to it in the way that Cloud A was protecting it?

Privacy and acceptable behavior: how will we agree on what privacy is online, and what is acceptable or not there?

Big clash between copyright policies and the structure of the internet. Legislators and technologists will have to come together to figure out stuff that will hold in a world built by copying.

Digital libraries. Most works will hopefully be available in online form.

In 100 years we’re going to say “can you imagine that at some point, we had books that did not talk to each other?” How do you navigate a dynamic world of books.

Non-Google project here: Interplanatary stuff. Point-to-point transmission is ok if you don’t have to talk to too many devices or spacecraft. Design a space communication system that is as rich as the internet. Why not use TCP/IP? doesn’t work because the distance between planets is astronomical… it takes 3.5 minutes for a signal to propagate to mars (20 minutes at the furthest). TCP/IP is not designed for 40 minute delays. Other problem: celestial motion. Planets have the nasty habit of rotating and we haven’t figured out how to stop that yet.

Disruptive and highly delayed environment. Devised new protocols. Went to test them in tactical military communications because it’s also a highly disrupted environment. DTN.

DTN transfered way more data than TCP/IP, and the marine corps ran away with it. Where is my experiment?

NASA: Deep Impact Testing. launch a probe and get data, but the spacecraft is still going round the sun, so they used it to test data transmission from and to it. Neat!

This summer they upload the protocols to the space station. August, another craft. October, another, so three nodes. By the end of the year, will have formally qualified the interplanatary protocols, and they’ll be able to offer them to standardize communication in space. => interoperability between space missions, if desired!

Next step: interstellar network. But… today it takes long to get over there to the other stars. So need to work on a propulsion system to fix that. Lot of work to be done!

Questions:

Are you happy? Yes, internet shows people are willing to come together and collaborate. And the WWW has demonstrated that sharing information is power. Happy to be at Google, because they’re too young to know “you can’t do that” and so they just go and do it. The reason things didn’t work out 25 years ago might not be true anymore.
Can we keep the internet open? Amazing pressures in the network today. At the time, academic geeks who were happy to work together. Pressures to try and control the network and the way people use it. Not necessarily all bad. Privacy questions. Protecting people. Legal system needs to be adapted. Tension between the open internet and being so shut down that nothing is possible. Somewhere in between the network is openly accessible, things can be tried out. Committed to keeping it as open as possibly.
Semantic Web, will it become reality? You should ask TBL… Was feeling sorry for TBL because the idea of the semantic web was moving as quickly as IPv6 into the public internet… Link = “something over there that is of interest”. What if we could add a “semantic hyperlink”? Jaguar can be a car, operating system, animal… (steph-note: this is what wikipedia disambiguation pages do) More hopeful.
Is Google the real Big Brother? Doesn’t think so and hopes it never does become it. Helping people manage their information. How well is the information managed and protected? Google recognizes that separate access and privacy is important. E-mail is always read by programmes. The one that puts ads in Gmail just does pattern matching.

Lift09 — Melanie Rieback — RFID and Security [en]

Whitehat hacker.

RFID uses radio waves to identify things. Shows much of a promise for breaking (?) into things. Next low-end of computing.

You have to bring virtual attacks into the physical domain, when it comes to RFID.

Some security problems:

– Unauthorized tag reading
– eavesdropping
– tracking
– tag cloning
– denial of service

Wardriving for passports. Skimming credit cards from a distance.

Low-level misuse of improperly formatted RFID tag data.

Three main kinds of RFID Malware:

– RFID exploits
– RFID worms
– RFID viruses

“Is your cat infected with a computer virus?” (pet tagging *steph-note: Bagha has one!*)

Google trends for RFID: biggest peak just after Melanie published her paper.

2 bio public transportation system was hacked in and 8-week project by students. Amsterdam.

Issues: same company designing and auditing the back-end security of the system. *steph-booth: gosh, what do people imagine?*

People in charge don’t listen about these issues until they’re demonstrated.

Melanie has worked on a device that does penetration tests and acts as a firewall for RFID.

Can spoof and jam RFID tags.

Listens to the first part of the query trying to figure out what it wants to do, and if it’s something not allowed, it sends out random noise (selective jamming). Filter inbound and outbound queries.

Security: RFID fuzzing.

All the hard work for cloning public transport passes has been done. Just needs to be put together.

The RFID Guardian is being commercialised now (so it’s not just students who are dangerous now).

Companies and governments assume that these attacks are going to stay in labs. They need to wake up. Why put the tools into the hands of the bad guys? The bad guys are going to have the tools any way, it’s time for the good guys to have access (full disclosure). If computer scientists have the right tools they might be able to prevent lots of these attacks. We need an RFID security industry.

The whole project is open source. Hardware and software.

Lift09 — Frank Beau — Métromantiques [fr]

Notes prises à l’occasion de la conférence Lift09. Bla-bla habituel de prise de notes: je fais de mon mieux, mais ce ne sont que des notes, qui peuvent contenir des erreurs et inexactitudes.

Coup de foudre dans le métro. Comment sera le métro du XXe siècle? A la fois un moyen de transport et d’échanges.

Paradoxal! Un véhicule qui circule, qui voudrait organiser la circulation interne des “particules” qui l’habitent.

Est-ce qu’internet permet d’éclairer cette question?

En France, sites de “retrouvailles” pour personnes qui se sont croisées furtivement dans le métro. Bouteille à la mer pour retrouver la personne qu’on a croisée. 600 annonces en un an. 600 histoires. => quelques pistes.

Matrice commune du récit: montés ensemble, tu es sortie à l’arrêt X, nos regards se sont croisés… plusieurs fois… => bouteille à la mer.

– la connexion s’établit avec le regard (dans le métro, on cherche une ligne de regard où on croise personne, et quand on croise… en même temps on n’arrête pas de regarder les autres. “L’électricité du regard.” => comment on passe au sourire?
– sourire
– contact des corps (le Tetris des corps… uniquement dans le métro) — typologie des contacts corporels dans le métro
– on partage le même temps — pour les pendulaires
– accélérateurs du contact: écouter de la musique, même si on est dans sa bulle; livres!; téléphones portables;

Romantisme urbain de la mobilité. Tutoiement.

Anti-internet par certains aspects:

Co-présence, force du hasard, non verbal, zone temporairement autonome, on est tous acteurs et spectateurs, le métro est un théâtre.

Espace public qui a des propriétés qu’on ne trouve nulle part d’autre. Ces propriétés expliquent la quantité de coups de foudre dans le métro. *steph-note: comme sur internet.*

Culture de l’ephémère.

Le métro, c’est pas un espace si terrible que ça. Internet est une caméra du réel, et un excellent lieux pour les bouteilles à la mer du XXIe siècle.

L’amour existe toujours!

=> mobile dating, rencontre à travers le téléphone portable, bluetooth, wifi, culture de 15 mètres. Phéromones?

3 approches:

– laissez faire! l’amour n’est pas de maths!
– technophéromonisons le métro et voyons ce qui se passe
– le sujet est en fait les codes sociaux de l’amour

Scénario de SF:

Edit, 8 mars 2009: à la demande expresse de Frank Beau, les photos que j’ai prises de son “scénario de SF” ont été retirées de cet article. J’avoue avoir été très surprise et déçue par cette demande (faire une présentation en public, devant 800 personnes munies d’appareils photos et de connexions wifi, et espérer pouvoir “contrôler” la diffusion des visuels utilisés lors de celle-ci, cela dénote à mon sens d’une assez grande naïveté et d’une incompréhension de comment fonctionnent les nouveaux médias — cf. Streisand Effect.) Ceci dit, je ne suis pas là pour chercher querelle, donc je m’exécute, mais à regret. Si j’en ai le courage, je reproduirai le contenu de ces slides ici (ça allait trop vite pour prendre des notes) — mais ne retenez pas trop votre souffle, j’en ai assez sur mon assiette ces temps, comme on dit.

Lift09 — Baba Wamé — L'appropriation de l'Internet par les femmes camerounaises [fr]

Remerciements.

Cameroun: petit pays d’Afrique Centrale (11 fois plus gros que la Suisse). 18mio d’habitants. Langues officielles: anglais et français. Villes: Yaoundé, Douala, Bafoussam, Garoua, Maroua, Bamenda.

Internet dès 1997, 400000 utilisateurs internet, dont 50000 en connexion directe. 2500 cybercafés dont 500 à Yaoundé.

Chatteuses camerounaises: sur internet pour chercher un mari. Profil bien défini. Entre 18 et 34 ans, niveau scolaire assez bas, élèves/étudiantes. Parfois inscrites comme célibataires alors qu’elles sont mariées (mari peut-être d’accord). Sud = chrétien, Nord musulman. Chatteuses plutôt du sud.

Motivations. Que font-elles sur internet, que cherchent-elles en ligne, et quels sont les facteurs qui les font revenir?

changer sa vie et celle de sa famille par le mariage
avoir des enfants métis, prestige du mariage avec un blanc (métisses privilégiés dans la société camerounaise)
facilité d’utilisation d’internet
amélioration des lieux de connexion.

Difficultés socio-économiques au Cameroun, peut-être 50% de taux de chômage => dur de trouver un travail, donc possibilité de changement et d’amélioration en partant à l’étranger.

Vision négative de l’homme camerounais (irresponsable, voleur, menteur — Baba Yamé nous précise qu’il ne correspond à aucune des ces descriptions!)

Les sites de rencontre sont beaucoup plus ergonomiques qu’avant. Aussi, Photoshop, c’est extraordinaire. La webcam facilite la communication entre personnes éloignées. Les sites de rencontre sont gratuits pour les femmes aussi, pas pour les hommes.

Cybercafés climatisés, avec boxes privés à l’abri des regards… Fibre optique. “Connexion haricot” — le haricot doit cuire longtemps, donc on utilise cette expression pour parler d’une connexion très lente, genre 10 minutes pour ouvrir Google. Avec la fibre optique, plus de ça.

Techniques pour approcher les hommes sur internet? Pour que ça marche, il faut de la technique!

choix judicieux des fiches (âge, pays, race) — les camerounaises sont très pointilleuses (dans quel pays veux-je vivre? en première position: la Suisse!) et elles ne veulent pas des jeunes, au moins 35-55 ans. Les jeunes sont exigeants et barbants! Puis, bon, il faut être blanc.
bons rapports avec les moniteurs de cybercafés (apprendre à surfer sur le net, si on n’est jamais allé à l’école… il y a des moniteurs qui tapent pour elles!)
régularité dans les échanges, au moins 4-5 fois dans la semaine, ça prend du temps et de l’argent (par mois, 150€ alors qu’on vit là-bas avec moins de 2$ par jour — la famille participe, elles ont des sponsors!)
le mystique: marabouts (ne pas boire ceci, aller à tel jour à telle heure…) — catastrophe à Yaoundé (?) le marabout est mort… obsèques avec des tonnes de jeunes filles, incroyable (Baba y est allé)
Le coût de la recherche: 8€ par jour
l’apport de l’entourage (famille, groupe de monitrices qui animent des groupes — elles sont organisées)

Les valeurs chrétiennes (affichées sur le profil):

fidélité (“si vous êtes marié, passez votre chemin”)
Dieu (“je suis croyante” — “si vous croyez en Dieu comme moi, vous êtes l’homme de ma vie”)
la prose (textes très bien écrits: du Voltaire, Montesquieu, René Char)

Résultats:

entre 10 et 15% se marient
60% de celles-ci se retrouvent se retrouvent dans un réseau de prostitution! (et ne rentrent jamais en Afrique — rentrer pauvre en Afrique, c’est impensable, on est un paria)

Vocabulaire:

une Suissesse est une camerounaise qui s’est installée en Suisse et revient montrer ses bijoux et sa rolex
chercher son Blanc
Mon Western Union (l’échange a commencé, on teste en demandant de l’argent pour l’école et ça arrive par Western Union)
Couple Internet (couple qu’on voit passé dont le mari est blanc et la femme noire)
Mariage affection.org (mariage fait par le biais d’internet)

Immeubles des “Suissesses” (qui sont rentrées et ont construit): “elles ont construit ces immeubles à la sueur de leurs fesses”

Les femmes qui se tournent vers internet pour tenter d’arriver en Europe, plutôt que par bateau (90% de morts!), c’est une très bonne chose.

Lift09 — James Gillies — How the Web awas Born: Stories from a scribe [en]

Was in the right place at the right time to write the story, says he.

1995: “we must write the story before everyone forgets…”

James expected it to be a dull boring story. Big surprise! You can’t just tell the story of the Web, because you have to tell the story of hypertext, and the story of computing networks, personal computing… it’s all linked.

Back to July 1945: Vannevar Bush, calculating machine. Was frustrated with the way human mind associated things, randomly. Machines might be able to select by association… “As we may think”. Hypertext.

Doug Engelbart. Screenshot! 60’s, personal computing.

1960’s: packet switching, ARPANET (world’s first LAN).

Other things need to happen before somebody could build the web on top of them.

Louis Pouzin, 70s. Network + network + network = network. That was in fact the definition of an internet.

Sam Fedida. 80s: Viewdata — Prestel, CEEFAX, Minitel. (Historical dead-en.)

Big impact in France through the Minitel. Surrounding countries got the drift. The web, however, took some time to pick up in France, because it had to displace the Minitel. First e-mail sent by a head of state, Queen of England.

Where does the CERN fit in?

70s: CERNET; 80s: the Internet.

A place established to bring people together. TCP/IP. To communicate with the american government, had to network with them in the way they wanted (=>TCP/IP).

Magic ingredient: a consultant noticed there was a lot of information on lots of computers which weren’t talking to each other. The idea of the web is to try to emulate the way we think with a computer platform.

TBL (Tim Berners-Lee): 1989-1991, from vague to less vague, but always exciting.

Web 1.0 or Web 2.0? First browser was a browser/editor.

Next step: get it noticed out there. Students. Nicola Pellow: Web 1.1. Then around the world. 90s.

1993: the web is put in the public domain. The single thing that explains that we are using “world web” today.

Not an accident!

Lift09 — Jörg Jelden — Fakesumption [en]

Unauthorized products. Office in Beijing, was shocked by the importance of fakes over there. Talked to his manager “let’s do something about it”. So started talking to fakesters, those who track them down, lawyers.

Disclaimer: not making fun of a serious challenge… want to offer a new way of thinking about this problem.

Fakes have been around for a very long time. As things were done, they’ve been copied. Also a learning strategy. The US was well-known in the early 20thC for ripping off European patterns and re-using them. *(steph-note: did I get that?)*

Hollywood: desire to move as far away from NY as possible.

Some facts: survey in the last weeks in Germany.

2 out of 3 Germans have heard of seen fakes in the last 3 years; other numbers I didn’t get: => fakes are socially accepted. Quality is very similar to the originals (50%: we can’t tell the difference). One reason? Many fakes are produced in the same factory. 15-20% of all goods produced in China are fakes. 35 mio jobs directly created by fake industry.

Generating jobs for the masses remains the focus of the Chinese government.

Connected to organized crime. Has gone global. Big business. Fakes: twice as big as Walmart. Illegal and shady, connected to crime, stealing, cheating, lying.

But if these people are so successful, they must be doing something right. So looking at it as a success story, what can we learn from them?

Fakes do something for consumers that the originals don’t — many people buy the fakes on purpose. Consumers need *good enough* solutions. Many fake buyers are your brand customers — they consider themselves to be. => it might not be the best idea to spy on them, sue them, punish them.

So how about finding news ways to integrate this customer base? Find a way to get them to commit to paying more for the real brand.

Fakes truly expose the brand gap. Brand bubble. Overvaluation of brands, and loss of trust in them on the other side. Declined 50% in 10 years.

Brands rely too much on their products, and products can easily be cloned these days (particularly in the digital world). What makes the difference: relations. One way to deal with that is better bonding with the customer. But what companies do is invest in brand protection. Very cost-intensive, particularly in the digital world. Can’t control anymore. Money short these days: many companies will have to reconsider these strategies.

The more they criminalize fakes, the more fakers become criminals. The more fakers become criminals, the more they connect to organized crime. Instead of buying bigger arms, how can brands win over and connect better with their customers?

And what can brands offer to those who can’t afford the premium?

Let’s talk about the fakers. In the brands’ shadow initially, but now have started to live on their own. Business is very demand driven and highly competitive. “We fake on demand and only that what we can sell.” Retail-driven.

Brands are busy running their empires, and fakers adapt products to local needs. New features, bigger variety of styles. In return brands begin to watch the fake industry to learn what customers might need.

Chinese middle class emerging: fakers go upscale. High-class fakes where you really can’t tell the difference. Just price difference, but not as cheap as you might expect. Premium quality, boutique stores, warranties, services => higher prices.

Fakers will develop retail brands and become the H&Ms of emerging markets. It’s still early days though. Real threat that competitors will emerge from this initially shady business.

Fakes attack prices — mix fakes with originals, sell fake parts to manufacturers… One container: big percentage of fakes amongst the originals. Makes it very difficult for customs. Sell directly through online stores.

So how much further will we let them take over?

To sum up: if you have a problem, you fight it. If you can’t fight, you criminalize. When you can’t do that anymore, you need to integrate. What do brands have to offer aside from their logo? Why don’t brands collaborate with the best fakers?

One last thought: the way the US dealt with alcohol in the 30s.

Not to say fakes are good, but the way we deal with them needs to be looked at.

Lift09 — Matt Webb — Scientific Fiction and Design [en]

Book: Cusp, Robert A. Metzger. SF *(steph-note: sounds like a crazy story, need to read it!)*

This is not the SF we’re talking about here. No flying cars, silver skullcaps… Here: Scientific Fiction (World War Z — zombie story; the book unfolds, and “it makes sense”). This is what Matt wants to talk about — this kind of book.

Taking pleasure in watching things unfold. (Shows us videos of marbles in “mazes”.) Human nature: it’s almost compulsive, we want to watch things happen.

The impossible triangle: Human nature, Society, Things. How do SF stories read through this triangle? One thing changes, other things have to change too.

Cf law of perfect gasses, linking pressure, volume, temperature. Linked. SF is walking the landscape of possible future worlds.

Problem? inventing, imagining the future: hard.

Which products work in the landscapes of possible worlds? Discover it through:

– market research
– economics
– evolution (start with something that you know works, and change it very slowly)

*steph-note: making good note of this for my fiction writing*

In the process of invention: prototypes. Process?

Middle of the paper, draw your new invented radio. At the corners, contexts => you evolve your radio, create hybrids, cross-breeds. *steph-note: some kind of visual/drawing braingstorming!* Matt: not a storming, random process. It’s very methodical, process of deconstruction. What emerges is the discovery of what it is about that original radio that persists.

The process continues to physical objects.

History: the past is another set of possible worlds, just like the future. One process of fictionalizing these worlds is to change one important event *(steph-note: didn’t get the term for that… counter-fractures??)* — What if Kennedy wasn’t shot? What if the war of Independance had been lost?

Prototype phone for Nokia, made of metal that melts at 47°C. Good for redoing it, but don’t keep it too close to your ear (contains lead ;-))

Materials. Soft furry phone. Soft on your face, and can stroke it when on the table. Hair you have to tie up to see the screen. Patchwork phones.

“Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order.” Victor Papanek

Scientific Fiction:

The story is the laboratory. Reading is your research. Writing is your experiment.

*steph-note: this is giving me food for thought, about my difficulties in creating stories and worlds and my incapacity to design anything graphically.*

Lift09 — Sarah Marquis [fr]

*Laurent: extraordinary stand-in speaker Sarah Marquis, an adventurer who goes off for months on end, walking across Australia for example.*

Est-il possible aujourd’hui d’imaginer se retrouver dans la nature sans aide technologique? On est des mammifères après tout. Pas d’électricité, d’eau, de nourriture? Avec des habits quand même…

Sarah a décidé de faire ce pas… retrouver des instincts d’animal, en sorte. Elle a fait le tour de l’Australie, 17 mois de marche.

Comment fait-on un voyage comme ça? Avec les pieds, d’abord, mais surtout dans la tête.

Difficulté: eau et nourriture… On n’a pas appris à chasser le lézard! Il faut devenir le lézard pour le chasser, le comprendre. Eau à travers la sudation des arbres.

Gérer sa propre consommation d’eau. Respirer que par le nez pour éviter de perdre de l’eau. Marcher de nuit. Survie. Conditions animales. C’est rassurant à quelque part de voir à quel point on est animal.

Sarah n’est pas sur Facebook… envie d’un retour à la terre. Retrouver la source de la vie.

Pendant le voyage il arrive des tas de choses. Raconte comment elle a “adopté” Joe — elle a volé le chien au fermier qui allait l’abattre. Chien qui l’a accompagnée et vit maintenant se retraite bien méritée à Verbier avec elle.

Technologie? Une appareil photo et un enregistreur vidéo. GPS pour retrouver son frère pour les points de ravitaillement (7 paires de chaussures).

Sarah avait pris 15kg avant de partir, histoire d’avoir des réserves. Le corps s’use, aussi. Il s’adapte à l’effort. Sac à dos de 30kg!

Rencontre avec des aborigènes. A passé un peu de temps avec eux. La chasse: une des femmes aborigènes attrape une proie à la main (le choc! comment elle a fait?)

Se déconnecter.

Deux ans plus tard, repartie en Amérique du Sud. 8 mois de marche. Le froid. Seul repère: monter. C’est important d’avoir des repères. Peut-on trouver ce qui va nous combler dans le monde actuel, là où on le cherche?

Sans ressources d’énergie, on peut en tant qu’être humain bipède, se retrouver dans un élément inconnu et survivre.

Chose intéressante: retour à la civilisation après 17 mois dans un pays désert et hostile… Quand on survit on vit au jour le jour — comment préparer l’arrivée? Dans les 300 dernier mètres seulement, Sarah réalise que le lendemain, c’est le retour à la civilisation, qu’elle va ouvrir son frigo, pouvoir prendre un bain…

Lift09 — Envisioning the Future City — Anne Galloway [en]

Expectations, promises and hopes are things that we do.

Anne looks at what people do, make, say. Tries to figure out why we don’t do, make, say other things.

To make certain futures happen: broken relationships between certain groups of people.

*steph-note: missing a lot here, having trouble seeing where we’re going*

So, city of the future. Hybrid cities, real-time, sensor, read-write, mobile, adaptive… cities.

Attention: not to ignore what’s happening now.

“What if we imagine the future city as a gift we want to give people.” Through all these projects, everybody had the best of intentions. Want to give people good things. Make lives better. In five years, Anne has never talked to anyone who has anything but good intentions. The people who do make things want to give people good things.

Gifts are powerful. Show that we love, care, or have obligations to each other. Different gifts for different people. Usually put energy in choosing gifts for some people — but not all of them.

Even the good intentions end up being a little off sometimes. Superhero superpowers. Example of Superuseless Superpower: Lati-dude and Longi-dude. Transport yourself to the same point on the other side of the earth. (haha!)

Gifting is a tricky business. there is always some tension at some point. Some people are better at it than others (giving and receiving gifts well).

So, what does it mean to give people new cities or technologies? What is the gift doing?

What is the relationship between the gifter and the “user”? What can we expect of the other? Eg. gifts between colleages at X-mas, we have different expectations than from family, lovers, grandparents.

When we give someone a gift, how do we even know they want it? Could a gift be damaging? cause stress, upset, anger? How do you know if they appreciate it? (“thank you very much, that’s a lovely gift”) What do you do if they dislike it? How do you act if they misuse it? (the project has failed…)

Did you ever get a gift that you didn’t use? Or “what in god’s name do you think of me to give me this?” (Head-massaging helmet… “everyone likes a good head massage!” => you become an anomaly.)

“Oh, it’s not so difficult, let me show you how it works!! It wasn’t meant to make you feel stupid!”

Until you get into the process, you have no idea how to interact.

Back to the gifted city. Gifted in the superhero sense: look, it can do all that!!!

Examples of future cities we’ve seen: many people in the room probably went “oh cool!”, but certainly some also went “cool, but what am i going to do with it?”

We gift opportunities with these cities. Citizen engagement projects. Data to take political action. New technologies => act in new ways.

Projects which allow people to map environmental issues.

But not everyone wants to be a data collector, or cares about the data. Many kinds of publics. Not everyone will be interested in doing certain parts of the “job”. Public science: challenge = getting people to do science work, sometimes people don’t want to be scientists, not interested in the labour, or lack the capacity to do it.

=> fragmented public. The gift needs us to want to act as data collectors and it needs us to have the ability to make sense of the data we collect.

Gifted risks. With these expectations etc, we can start thinking of the risks associated to those gifts. If citizenship requires technology, non-techies start feeling like non-citizens. Not everyone has a cellphone! Lots of people share cellphones! Or own multiple mobile phones… Locking out people…

Giving access to information that people didn’t use to have. They still don’t usually have the possibility to generate certain sets of data. Someone has decided what will be sensed (what the sensors capture). Assumption, also, that scientific data is more important/true than other emotional, affective, subjective… data.

When you’re building the future city:

– What kind of future city do you hope to give?
– What kind of future city do you expect to receive?

Without asking those questions, risks much higher than possible opportunities.

Lift09 — Dan Hill — Soft Infrastructure Superpowers [en]

Has been travelling since Monday, arrived from Australia 3 hours ago. Poor Dan!

How to re-route 400 passengers?

Soft infrastructure, bits of paper with numbers on. In Hong Kong, malfunctioning aircrafts *(steph-note: not sure I’m understanding all this.)*

Hotel Smart Card keys not working (soft infrastructure fail #59)

=> no matter how good the hard infrastructure is, it’s the soft infrastructure fails that define the experience.

Soft infrastructure:

– interaction design
– software design
– information architecture
– service design
– urban design
– urban informatics

And…

– business models
– legal and political context
– belief systems
– social and cultural fabric

Infrastructure futures…?

In 1939: the “green new city” in the forest (understandable, industrial cities at the time were pretty horrific). Scaling the city from how far you can travel on foot, to tram, train, car…

1966, “New Movement in Cities”

*(steph-note: missed a bit here, I think my brain needed a rest)*

Map showing the shape of wifi around a building (wow).

Projecting the inside of a building on the outside (what’s going on in there? how full is it?)