WiFi, UbiComp, & Smart Mobs
4.12.2005
Knowledge Management Systems
Lorrie Ensley
Overview
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Smart Mobs
Vision of the Future
Cooperation Theory
Computation
Communication
Reputation
Location Awareness
UbiComp
WiFi
Issues to Consider
Maneki Neko
Smart Mobs
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The new social form made possible by the
combination of computation,
communication, reputation, and location
awareness (p.169-170)
aka Mobile ad hoc social network (p.170)
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Mobile: able to move freely or easily
Ad hoc: organizing among people and their
devices is done informally and on the fly
Social network: every individual is a “node” in
the jargon of social analysis, with social “links”
(channels of communication and social bonds)
to other individuals
Smart Mobs Website
Vision of the Future
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Rheingold’s Shibuya Epiphany
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Generation Text
Social Networking
Rheingold’s Goal – learn about the “social
forms that could grow out of today’s roving
bands of mobile texters”
Mobile Communication Devices
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NTT DoCoMo and I-mode – first commercial
success of G3 service
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G1 – portable analog telephones
G2 – digital telephones that make use of
Internet-like services like short text messages
G3 – wireless Internet in real time to mobile
devices
Inexpensive
Privacy and space reasons for success
Vision 2010 and Looking for the Future Society
Likely evolution of mobile devices
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More transaction functions - “M-commerce”
Pervasive Computing
Cooperation Theory
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Cooperation
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Pros – foundation of finest creations of human civilizations
Cons – free riding, terrorism, and organized crime
Does a new medium change the way people cooperate?
History of civilization “More people pooling resources in new ways”
Tragedy of the Commons
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Collective action dilemmas – balancing of self-interest and public resources
Free riders – people who enjoy the public resource without contributing to it
Solution of the managed commons
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Coping with free-riding and cheating
Creating a commitment to cooperate
Monitoring compliance with sets of rules
Authority Issues
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Centralized authority vs. decentralized authority (rules vs. social pressure)
Cooperation Theory
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Game Theory
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Collective Actions that are part of Smart Mobs
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Reciprocity
Cooperation
Reputation
Social Grooming
Social Dilemmas
Examples of Modern Public Goods
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Tit for Tat – most successful scheme
Internet
Open Source Software
Laws of Social Networks
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Sarnoff’s Law – the value of broadcast networks is proportionate to the number of
viewers
Moore’s Law – the amount of elements that can be packed into the same amount of
space on a microchip will double every eighteen months
Metcalfe’s Law – the value of a network grows proportionately to the square of its nodes
(# of nodes squared)
Reed’s Law – the value of a network grows exponentially to the increase in its nodes
(2^number of nodes)
Computation
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Community Supercomputing
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P2P Computing (aka Distributed Processing or Community Computation)
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Collective supercomputer spread all over the Net
Members share their central processing unit computation cycles when they aren’t using their
computers
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P2P and file sharing
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Centralized – ex Napster
Decentralized – every client is a server
Problems - voluntary cooperation of users leads to free riding
Solutions
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Mojo Nation
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Users required to contribute as much as they take away
Anonymity
“Swarm distribution” – files broken up and distributed over the network
P2P Collaborative Filtering Systems
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Ex: SETI@home
OpenCOLA
Designate things you like in your network folder
Network fills the rest of your folder with things you’ll probably like
Grid Computing
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Communities of networked computers can provide computing resources on demand
Communication
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Information Exchange
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Social Changes
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Bypassing the broadcasting media with
blogs, mobile phones, and email
P2P Journalism
Communities
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News
Gossip
Social
Political
Commercial
Swarming
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Power of many
Cooperation for organized movements:
flocking behavior
Reputation
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Blogging
Collaborative Filtering
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Recommender Communities
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Ex: Epinions.com
Reputation Systems
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Recommender systems
Users post comments to advise other
users
Social Filtering Services: collaborative
filtering by groups to match interests
eBay’s reputation system
Slashdot’s Karma system
Are universal reputation systems
possible?
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Remember Tit for Tat
Fraud
Local Awareness
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Computation Pervaded environments
Information and Communications Technologies in the
Real World (p.84-85)
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Information in places
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Sentient Things
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Adding information capabilities to urban places
HP’s Cooltown
Tangible bits
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Adding information and communication to physical objects
Digital Cities
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Media linked to place
Smart rooms
Manipulating the virtual world by manipulating physical objects
Wearable computers
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Sensing, computing, and communicating gear worn as clothing
Cyborg communities
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Control their presence in the technological world
Local Awareness
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Computer chips infiltrating buildings,
furniture, and even clothing
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Geographic Location Devices
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Radio frequency identity tags as
successors to the barcode
Leads to pervasive surveillance
questions
WorldBoard – proposed global
infrastructure to associate information
with places
GPS
E-squirting
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Using radio frequencies to transmit
information between devices
Bluetooth
UbiComp
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Ubiquitous Computing theory developed by
Mark Weiser
The “invisible, everywhere computing that
does not live on a personal device of any
sort but is built in the woodwork everywhere”
(p.87)
Opposite of Virtual Reality – not reality built
into computers but computers built into
reality
Many computers serve each person
WiFi
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Wireless Quilts
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Grassroots Wireless Networks
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History of radio wave regulation
Open Spectrum Argument: regulate the devices, not the
waves
Telecommunications Industry issues
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Mesh technologies
Using mobile devices to swap data, games, and music
without telecommunication networks
Regulation Issues
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Cost Effective
Easy to Install
Wireless City Projects: Austin
Ad Hoc P2P Networks
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War driving
Grassroots networks are like stealing cable
Profitability – Wireless Internet Business Model
Potential problems
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Security
Radiation
Interference
Issues to Consider
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Loss of Privacy
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In order to cooperate with more people, you need
to know more about them, and they in turn will
know more about you
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Smart Mobs reduces to issues of trust and
privacy
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Personal agents to go-between, filter, and shield
Who are the users
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Big Everybody
Good users
Bad users
Incompetent users
Legal & Regulatory Battles
Threats created by Smart Mobs
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Liberty
Quality of life
Dignity
Maneki Neko
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Welcoming good luck cat in
Japanese culture
Story of future technology
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Future communication capabilities
How life could change
Issues of non-adoption
Smart Mobs concepts
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Video Mobile Devices
Reciprocal Social Networks
Swarming
Squirting
WiFi, UbiComp, & Smart Mobs
4.12.2005
Knowledge Management Systems
Lorrie Ensley