We are currently at the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science in Manchester listening to a talk by Alex Voss entitled ‘Widening Uptake of e-Infrastructure Services’. The worrying thing is that the majority of the people in the room are using their laptops to check email/surf the web/write blog posts (like us) rather than listen to the presentation.

This poses the questions whether laptops should be banned from such conferences during presentations? It would mean less blog posts etc but as a presenter myself it can be disheartening to look up only to view a sea of laptops and people typing.

Ok time to stop typing and to listen….

Mainstream electronic devices such as the iPhone and the iPod Touch have finally introduced web browsing on the move. With this has come a rise in demand for increasingly location based information, linked to a map with pointers to what’s currently around us. Perhaps more than any other time we feel connected wherever we go in the city.

Being truly connected for the first time using a device that also allows us to play our albums, watch the BBC show we recorded the night before while sitting on the 168 from Camden Town is a good thing but to be honest its not enough. Although connected to the world via a web browser we feel strangely disconnected from the city itself.

This lack of connection to the city around us is disconcerting, where are the hotspots in shops offering details on the goods in-store or the latest offers? Why at the bus stop can’t we access a feed detailing the time before the ride is due? Why when entering a department store is it not possible to download a floor plan and check the stock, or finally, when viewing a planning permission on the lamp post why are we unable to pull up an augmented view of the site as planned along with a comment form. The questions are endless and ultimately the conclusion is that we are merely at the start of a connected city.

The problem is not of course WiFi coverage, most large urban areas have their own providers with costs increasingly being kept down by a crowded market. At the moment perhaps it is a lack of foresight on the retailer’s part or a lack of demand. Of note is Apple’s free Internet access in their stores, this should be celebrated but in reality results in users popping in to check their email or their bid status on eBay rather than a ability to access information about the locality.

At the heart of the argument is the desire for information, to be part of a wired society and to feel connected to the city not only on social and retail level but also architecturally. We want to be able to walk past listed buildings and to tap into local information existing at that location. It comes down to not connecting to the globe or even connecting to information via RFID tags or Bluetooth but local clouds of information.

Technology moves on at an ever increasing rate, the new iPhone is due to be announced imminently with rumors of included GPS and 3G capabilities. GPS in a mobile device changes things considerably as the device knows where I am and this is crucial to location based information. The Nokia N95 was the first on the market with a GPS enabled phone but with its small screen and slightly clunky interface it didn’t quite make it in the usability stakes.

The ability to stream in information on a GPS enabled phone would mean being able to finally connect to the city. It would enable access to spatial information at a sub meter scale and that must be something to look forward to – or is it just me?

Over the last few weeks Radio 4’s PM show has been carrying out a survey on the UK’s fears on the Credit Crunch. In association with CASA, University College London, and our new site known as ‘MapTube’ listeners were asked for the first part of their postcode and to answer the following question:

*What single factor is hurting you most about the credit crunch?

Please select one of the answers below:

Mortgage or Rent
Fuel
Food Prices
Holidays
Other
The Credit Crunch is not affecting me*

Using a custom made service we generated a new map every 30 minutes, providing an up to date view of the nations mood.

The results are fascinating, with over 22,000 responses 49% were most worried about fuel price with food running in second at 19%. The interesting part for us is to view these results both statistically and geographically as the results come in, to date the breakdown is as follows:

In addition to mapping the data it can also be analysed over time, the image below represents the percentage of answers on May 1st:

On May 1st the nations biggest concern was the price of food, yet by May 3rd fuel had taken over with food slipping back down in terms of overall percentage:

The nations mood over the last few weeks has been changing quite notably over time, perhaps in relations to the amount of media coverage any single topic has received. Food prices were in the news earlier in the month and now fuel prices are hitting the headlines with the current blockage of London by lorry drivers.

The project runs until June 27th on Radio 4’s PM show, with over 23,000 inputs of data so far we view it as an interesting test in near real-time geographic data polling.

You can view the map at http://www.maptube.org with full details on the BBC’s iPM page – of note is the rural/urban split with urban areas being notably more worried about mortgage or rent payments compared to other areas of the UK.

Also just arrived in our in-box and worth looking at is a report from GLA Economics on the credit crunch and the property market.

The report provides an assessment of the consequences of the credit crunch for the property market in London and the implications that has for policy. It finds the credit crunch is having a far-reaching impact on investment, development and occupational markets.

You can read the full report from here.

Finally, more on mapping the credit crunch including an interactive ‘Motion Graph’ can be found at http://www.digitalurban.blogspot.com

More on this in future posts :)

Andy

Blogging research thoughts and outcomes to me at least seems the most natural thing in the world, after all the current buzz around Universities is outreach and breaking down silos. As such Web 2.0 with its shared videos via services such as YouTube, its virtual environments ala Second Life and real-time research updates via Twitter have all been welcomed and indeed become central to my work. The embracing of Web 2.0 by academics is not however universal and by many it can be viewed as trivialising research.