Jason Hong's Confabulations

Just finished a meeting with some visitors from Nokia. It looks like they are launching a very ambitious program called Sensor Planet, leverage mobile phones as a large scale sensor platform. I have to say it looks pretty exciting! SensorPlanet is a Nokia-initiated cooperation, a global research framework, on mobile device-centric large-scale Wireless Sensor Networks. The results of SensorPlanet are 1) a test platform that enables the collection of sensor data on a never seen scale, and 2) a central repository for sharing the collected sensor data for research purposes.

http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/June/june18_datatruck.shtml Carnegie Mellon University will demonstrate its new Data Truck, a 36-foot mobile social science laboratory that will allow the university to conduct research involving groups of people, such as senior citizens, who cannot readily come to campus. The Data Truck can be used to interview people engaged in real-life situations to study events as they unfold — for example, the effect of exhaustion on marathon runners crossing the finishing line or the effects of alcohol on the judgment of people tailgating outside Heinz Field before a Steelers game . I like this last example of a study. :)

Here's something that is heavy on the creativity scale: TeamAwear is a next-generation basketball jersey which allows players to 'wear their performance' in order to enhance the awareness of information during game-play for all stakeholders, including: athletes, coaches, referees, and spectators. http://www.mitchellpage.com.au/teamawear/

The Economist has a special issue on ubiquitous computing, looking at such topics as different wireless technologies, sensors, and wireless energy. The articles look like a good overview of the current state of the art, I think it's likely I'll use these the next time I teach a course on ubicomp. http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9032088 So far, my favorite new insight from the articles: MANY companies claim to have built a better mousetrap. Rentokil has actually done so. The British building-services firm added a small sensor and a wireless module to its traps so that they notify the building staff when a rodent is caught. This is a big improvement on traps that need to be regularly inspected. A large building might contain hundreds of them, and a few are bound to be forgotten.