While attending The Mobile City, panelist Nicolas Nova wandered through Rotterdam and made some interesting observations: Beyond “urban computing” notions such as location-based services or touch-interactions, it’s rather when I encounter street signage about “automation” that I feel the digital city. In film theory there is a term called ‘foregrounding’ – this means that the…

This post at Pasta and Vinegar got me wondering. Some pizza delivery companies are starting to let you track the delivery of your pizza online, giving you up-to-date information on the location, and thus arrival time, of your pizza. I personally try not to think about the status of a pizza I ordered because it…

In the weeks leading up to The Mobile City Conference, we will feature a number of art works, research projects and (commercial) applications created and carried out by some of the participants of The Mobile City. Today: Eco-Pet is a research project developed at the MIT Mobile Experience Lab, in collaboration with the Province of…

In the weeks leading up to The Mobile City Conference, we will feature a number of art works, research projects and (commercial) applications created and carried out by some of the participants of The Mobile City. Today: Twan Eikelenboom. He is a New Media writer with a specific research interest in locative media, currently active…

In the weeks leading up to The Mobile City Conference, we will feature a number of art works, research projects and (commercial) applications created and carried out by some of the participants of The Mobile City. Today: the work of Christoph Emenlauer, architecture student at the University of Stuttgart and author of Derwohnblog. Currently he…

City of Sound is one of my favourite blogs on Urban Culture. This week blog-author Dan Hilll ponders about the future of the street. In fact, this article comes very close to addressing the main theme of our conference: what happens to urban culture when physical and digital spaces merge? It’s recommended reading for anyone…

In the next two weeks before The Mobile City Conference starts on February 27th, we will feature a number of art works, research projects and (commercial) applications created and carried out by some of the participants of The Mobile City. Today we start this series with Stalkshow, an art project by Karen Lancel and Hermen…

On Adam Greenfield’s excellent blog, an interesting discussion has risen on urban culture, public sphere, design and so called third spaces. In a reaction to the growing number of laptop nomads colonizing neighborhood cafes, using wifi networks to turn these convivial places into boring office spaces (ok, I am exaggerating), Adam revives his idea for…

The BBC website has a read-worthy article called “Smart tags hail the web of things“. Not only are RFID (radio frequency identification) chips unique identifiers of the object/animal/person they are attached/inserted/injected into. The article explains that radio tags are becoming smarter and more communicative, by networking with other objects. “We are trying to embed a…

Dear all, the call for participants (workshop day 27 Feb.) and presentations (main day 28 Feb.) has closed today (31 Jan.). We have received a high number of interesting proposals for both the workshops and the main day. This means – unfortunately – that we have to say no to many, as slots and seats…

(image source) A recent report by Berg Insight says GPS-enabled handset shipments will reach 560 million units in 2012: According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global shipments of GPS-enabled handsets is expected to grow from 175 million units in 2007 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.2 percent to reach…