Alfredo Covaleda,
Bogota, Colombia
Stephen Guerin,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
James A. Trostle,
Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
Assoc. Prof. Paul M. Torrens, at Arizona State University's School of Geographical Sciences (torrens at geosimulation dot com) continues to turn out interesting simulation models. Most recently they are about crowd movement, but the methods are applicable to many venues. See his work at Geosimulation.org
Yet another interesting innovation of mapping. Imagine what this might mean for analysis of tourism sites or crowd control? From O'Reilly Radar (http://radar.oreilly.com/)
Bio Mapping Project in Stockport This Weekend Posted: 20 Jul 2007 01:04 PM CDT By Brady Forrest The Bio Mapping project sponsors people to walk around an area with a GPS and a Galvanic Skin Response sensor and logger. The emotional responses of the participants are then mapped. The map of San Francisco (pdf) was recently completely. They had previously developed a beautiful map of Greenwich (viewable via Flash viewer or Google Earth). The project has been run by Christian Nold for several years now. Here's how he describes the project in an interview: You ask people to go out into the streets and take an emotion walk. Can you explain? Bio Mapping is a participatory methodology for people to talk about their immediate environment, locality and communal space. I'm trying to use 3D visualisation as a way of talking about the space. It's not representational. As part of this method I have developed a device, which can be used by lots of people. It consists of a lie detector connected to a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit, which measures your location and your physiological arousal at the same time. By combining the two I can talk about physiological arousal in certain locations. A Galvanic Skin Response sensor in the form of finger cuffs measures the sweat level. Fitted out with this device, people go for a walk and when they return their data is visualised and annotated. How? By downloading data onto my laptop data it is then transformed by my software and then projected onto Google Earth. The Galvanic Skin Response sensor measures the amount of skin conductivity. I'm suggesting that a change in skin conductivity not only tells something about your body, but also suggests an emotive event. I'm plotting the amount of change in the skin resistance level versus location. There are various technical transformations and averaging I have to do to the data. I'm sampling once every four seconds, because I found this optimal for this kind of spatial representation. This weekend they are biomapping Stockport. If you happen to be in the UK you can participate — I know that I would. I would love to set this up at one of our conferences to watch the emotional response of attendees throughout the day and at different sessions. Did the keynote speaker or product launch really get people excited? What about that debate?
Bio Mapping Project in Stockport This Weekend
Posted: 20 Jul 2007 01:04 PM CDT
By Brady Forrest
The Bio Mapping project sponsors people to walk around an area with a GPS and a Galvanic Skin Response sensor and logger. The emotional responses of the participants are then mapped. The map of San Francisco (pdf) was recently completely. They had previously developed a beautiful map of Greenwich (viewable via Flash viewer or Google Earth).
The project has been run by Christian Nold for several years now. Here's how he describes the project in an interview:
You ask people to go out into the streets and take an emotion walk. Can you explain? Bio Mapping is a participatory methodology for people to talk about their immediate environment, locality and communal space. I'm trying to use 3D visualisation as a way of talking about the space. It's not representational. As part of this method I have developed a device, which can be used by lots of people. It consists of a lie detector connected to a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit, which measures your location and your physiological arousal at the same time. By combining the two I can talk about physiological arousal in certain locations. A Galvanic Skin Response sensor in the form of finger cuffs measures the sweat level. Fitted out with this device, people go for a walk and when they return their data is visualised and annotated. How? By downloading data onto my laptop data it is then transformed by my software and then projected onto Google Earth. The Galvanic Skin Response sensor measures the amount of skin conductivity. I'm suggesting that a change in skin conductivity not only tells something about your body, but also suggests an emotive event. I'm plotting the amount of change in the skin resistance level versus location. There are various technical transformations and averaging I have to do to the data. I'm sampling once every four seconds, because I found this optimal for this kind of spatial representation.
You ask people to go out into the streets and take an emotion walk. Can you explain? Bio Mapping is a participatory methodology for people to talk about their immediate environment, locality and communal space. I'm trying to use 3D visualisation as a way of talking about the space. It's not representational. As part of this method I have developed a device, which can be used by lots of people. It consists of a lie detector connected to a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit, which measures your location and your physiological arousal at the same time. By combining the two I can talk about physiological arousal in certain locations. A Galvanic Skin Response sensor in the form of finger cuffs measures the sweat level. Fitted out with this device, people go for a walk and when they return their data is visualised and annotated.
How? By downloading data onto my laptop data it is then transformed by my software and then projected onto Google Earth. The Galvanic Skin Response sensor measures the amount of skin conductivity. I'm suggesting that a change in skin conductivity not only tells something about your body, but also suggests an emotive event. I'm plotting the amount of change in the skin resistance level versus location. There are various technical transformations and averaging I have to do to the data. I'm sampling once every four seconds, because I found this optimal for this kind of spatial representation.
This weekend they are biomapping Stockport. If you happen to be in the UK you can participate — I know that I would. I would love to set this up at one of our conferences to watch the emotional response of attendees throughout the day and at different sessions. Did the keynote speaker or product launch really get people excited? What about that debate?
Our long-time friend Marylaine Block has again served up some good librarian-centric material on her blog/newsletter “Neat New Stuff” and “Exlibrius”. This time it's a fine essay — with links to pertinent sites — on one of our favorite topics, visualization. Here's the top, but go to ExLibris #301 Archive: for the complete package.
VISUALIZING INFORMATION by Marylaine Block On several occasions librarians have asked me to speak about the future of reference service – if, indeed, there IS a future for reference service. I think librarians are worried that the simple delivery of information is not a growth area for libraries because that's where our primary competitor, the internet, excels, with its search engines and resources like Wikipedia. Helping people make sense of the information they've retrieved is something else again, and that, I believe, is where the future of reference service lies. After all, who is dying to compete with librarians in explaining to people how to fill out online FAFSA and FEMA applications? Who is fighting librarians for the opportunity to show people how to select, combine, and chart a variety of data points in government data sets? Who else wants to help students analyze and retrieve the kinds of information needed to solve a problem or research a topic? Who else worries about making sure the information retrieved matches the user's purposes and level of knowledge and sophistication? Who else is interested in providing context for the information? One of the most effective tools we can use to help people make sense of information is visualization.
VISUALIZING INFORMATION by Marylaine Block
On several occasions librarians have asked me to speak about the future of reference service – if, indeed, there IS a future for reference service. I think librarians are worried that the simple delivery of information is not a growth area for libraries because that's where our primary competitor, the internet, excels, with its search engines and resources like Wikipedia. Helping people make sense of the information they've retrieved is something else again, and that, I believe, is where the future of reference service lies. After all, who is dying to compete with librarians in explaining to people how to fill out online FAFSA and FEMA applications? Who is fighting librarians for the opportunity to show people how to select, combine, and chart a variety of data points in government data sets? Who else wants to help students analyze and retrieve the kinds of information needed to solve a problem or research a topic? Who else worries about making sure the information retrieved matches the user's purposes and level of knowledge and sophistication? Who else is interested in providing context for the information? One of the most effective tools we can use to help people make sense of information is visualization.
An interesting conference just completed in the UK. Be sure to scroll down to listen to the presentations and, in some cases, see the slides. Go to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/State_of_the_map
State Of The Map
The State Of The Map is the name of our OpenStreetMap conference(s). However, as there has only been one so far, all the information below refers to the State of the Map conference in 2007, held at the University of Manchester, UK.
OpenStreetMap's first conference was at the centre of the geographical industry universe on the weekend of 14/15 July 2007, supported by Manchester University's School of Environment and Development.
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FYI: From the O'Reilly Radar
Unveiling the Beauty of Statistics Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:01 AM CDT By Jesse Robbins I presented last week at the OECD World Forum in Istanbul along with Professor Hans Rosling, Mike Arrington, John Gage and teams from MappingWorlds, Swivel (disclosure: I am an adviser to Swivel) and Many Eyes. We were the “Web2.0 Delegation” and it was an incredible experience. The Istanbul Declaration signed at the conference calls for governments to make their statistical data freely available online as a “public good.” The declaration also calls for new measures of happiness and well-being, going beyond just economic output and GDP. This requires the creation of new tools, which the OECD envisions will be “wiki for progress.” Expect to hear more about these initiatives soon. This data combined with new tools like Swivel and MappingWorlds is powerful. Previously this information was hard to acquire and the tools to analyze it were expensive and hard to use, which limited it's usefulness. Now, regular people can access, visualize and discuss this data. Creating an environment where knowledge can be shared and explored. H.G. Wells predicted that “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read or write.” Proponents of specific public policies often use statistics to support their view. They have the ability to select the data to fit with the policy. Democratization of statistics allows citizens to see the data that doesn't fit the policy, giving the public the power to challenge policymakers with new interpretations. I highly recommend you watch Professor Rosling's exceptional summary of these exciting changes (where I got the title for this post), as well as his talks at TED.”
Unveiling the Beauty of Statistics
Posted: 11 Jul 2007 03:01 AM CDT
By Jesse Robbins
I presented last week at the OECD World Forum in Istanbul along with Professor Hans Rosling, Mike Arrington, John Gage and teams from MappingWorlds, Swivel (disclosure: I am an adviser to Swivel) and Many Eyes. We were the “Web2.0 Delegation” and it was an incredible experience.
The Istanbul Declaration signed at the conference calls for governments to make their statistical data freely available online as a “public good.” The declaration also calls for new measures of happiness and well-being, going beyond just economic output and GDP. This requires the creation of new tools, which the OECD envisions will be “wiki for progress.” Expect to hear more about these initiatives soon.
This data combined with new tools like Swivel and MappingWorlds is powerful. Previously this information was hard to acquire and the tools to analyze it were expensive and hard to use, which limited it's usefulness. Now, regular people can access, visualize and discuss this data. Creating an environment where knowledge can be shared and explored.
H.G. Wells predicted that “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read or write.” Proponents of specific public policies often use statistics to support their view. They have the ability to select the data to fit with the policy. Democratization of statistics allows citizens to see the data that doesn't fit the policy, giving the public the power to challenge policymakers with new interpretations.
I highly recommend you watch Professor Rosling's exceptional summary of these exciting changes (where I got the title for this post), as well as his talks at TED.”
From the Directions Magazine “All Points Blog” …..
A map of O'Hara Corporation's proposed project site in Rockland. (Photo by MapQuest.com)
I'm sure that was a cut and paste error, but I do have a point. As more citizen journalism and more students use the Web to search for and use content, they (and others) need guidance in how to cite such references. Let's assume the map was used under “fair use” (I'm not sure it was). How is it to be cited? Must it include the copyright info for the data? (It does not.) Must it include a link? What do Manuals of Style say? What does MapQuest say?
Author or statement of responsibility. Map Title [map]. Data date if known. Scale; Name of person who generated map; Name of software used to generate the map or “Title of the Complete Document or Site”. (date generated).
Delaware, Ohio [map]. 2001. Scale undetermined; generated by Deb Peoples; using “MapQuest.com, Inc”. (2 May 2005)
The following website offers additional examples: http://library.owu.edu/citing222.html, and a websearch for the phrase “citing maps” yields numerous results.
Concerning copyright, the United States authority has many useful papers demystifying the topic: http://www.copyright.gov/. Another serious examination comes from J.B. Post of the New York Map Society, who has collected map copyright case law from 1789-1998; see: http://www.nymapsociety.org/FEATURES/POST.HTM
#1 Alan Glennon (Link) on 2007-07-09 11:39 (Reply)
Once again, O'Reilly's Radar tips us to an interesting application of cell phone GPS data, this time to illustrate daily traffic activity in Rome.
Real Time Rome: Using Cellphones To Model a City's Movements
Posted: 02 Jul 2007 01:14 PM CDT
MIT's Senseable City Lab is using cellphone data to model Rome's populations. The project is called Real Time Rome. It is an exhibit at architecture conference La Biennale di Venezia's show Global Cities (shown Sept 10 – Nov 19 2006).
There are descriptions about the exhibit from an MIT article about the exhibit:
Real Time Rome features seven large animations, projected on transparent plexiglass screens. One screen shows traffic congestion around the city, while another screen shows the exact movements of all the city's buses and taxis. Another screen is able to track Romans celebrating major events like the World Cup or the city's annual White Nights festival (Notte Bianca, which will happen on Sept. 9, the evening before the Biennale's architecture exhibition opening). Additional screens show how tourists use urban spaces and how cars and pedestrians move about the city.
and how the data was collected:
Ratti's team obtains its data anonymously from cell phones, GPS devices on buses and taxis, and other wireless mobile devices, using advanced algorithms developed by Telecom Italia, the principal sponsor of the project. These algorithms are able to discern the difference between, say, a mobile phone signal from a user who is stuck in traffic and one that is sitting in the pocket of a pedestrian wandering down the street. Data are made anonymous and aggregated from the beginning, so there are no implications for individual privacy.
This certainly would be a more cost-effective method of gathering traffic data for determining commute times. Imagine if predictive systems could prepare us for the onslaught of traffic from a baseball game just letting out by watching the fans head towards there care. Or let us know that a highway is about to be flooded by traffic from a side road. Would you put up with your location being (formally) tracked in exchange for this service?
[BBC via Data Mining]
A recent article worth a look over by the journalism community. What we do DOES have impact.
Juan Carlos González-Avella, Mario G. Cosenza, Konstantin Klemm, Víctor M. Eguíluz and Maxi San Miguel (2007) “Information Feedback and Mass Media Effects in Cultural Dynamics” Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 10, no. 3 9 PDF at http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/10/3/9.html Received: 11-Jan-2007 Accepted: 18-May-2007 Published: 30-Jun-2007 ________________________________ Abstract We study the effects of different forms of information feedback associated with mass media on an agent-agent based model of the dynamics of cultural dissemination. In addition to some processes previously considered, we also examine a model of local mass media influence in cultural dynamics. Two mechanisms of information feedback are investigated: (i) direct mass media influence, where local or global mass media act as an additional element in the network of interactions of each agent, and (ii) indirect mass media influence, where global media acts as a filter of the influence of the existing network of interactions of each agent. Our results generalize previous findings showing that cultural diversity builds up by increasing the strength of the mass media influence. We find that this occurs independently of the mechanisms of action (direct or indirect) of the mass media message. However, through an analysis of the full range of parameters measuring cultural diversity, we establish that the enhancement of cultural diversity produced by interaction with mass media only occurs for strong enough mass media messages. In comparison with previous studies a main different result is that weak mass media messages, in combination with agent-agent interaction, are efficient in producing cultural homogeneity. Moreover, the homogenizing effect of weak mass media messages is more efficient for direct local mass media messages than for global mass media messages or indirect global mass media influences. Keywords: Agent Based Model, Culture, Dissemination, Mass Media
Steve Bass, a columnist at PC World, points us to this fascinating exhibit of the work of “statistical artist” (Is that a term of art?) Chris Jordan.
“Running the Numbers An American Self-Portrait This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so. The series is a work in progress, and new images will be posted as they are completed, so please stay tuned. ~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007 This series will be exhibited at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York from June 14th to the end of July. Opening reception on June 14th. More info at www.vonlintel.com.”
From Ian Bogost's site, Watercooler Games: http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000794.shtml
The New York Times Publishes Our Newsgames May 24, 2007 – by Ian Bogost
Today, one of my videogames is on the front page of the Gray Lady.
Almost four years ago, Gonzalo suggested “newsgames” as a genre that intersects videogames and political cartoons. Last year, my studio Persuasive Games took our own take on this genre with The Arcade Wire series (Airport Security, Oil God, Bacteria Salad, Xtreme Xmas Shopping), published by AddictingGames.com/Shockwave.com. Those games enjoyed considerable success, tallying at least 10 million plays or so. But Shockwave is still a gaming site, reaching gamers, not necessarily reaching ordinary citizens more broadly. And that's what news and editorial should do.
Today, I'm excited to announce that Persuasive Games has a new publishing relationship with The New York Times, in which they will be publishing newsgames we create on their op-ed page, as editorial content, not just as games. This is unprecedented, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it represents another important shift in videogames as a medium. This is news/editorial in videogame form, rather than videogames trying to make news fun. The fact that the Times is often considered the national newspaper of record makes this moment even more notable, and gratifying.
The first game is Food Import Folly. The game is about the experience of extremely limited FDA inspection on food imports, and just what that scarcity of resources actually feels like. To play, you have to be a paid TimesSelect subscriber (NY Times puts all their editorial content behind the TimesSelect subscription wall). There's more info and screenshots on the Persuasive Games website.
Like most of our newsgames, timeliness was an important consideration. Food Import Folly was created in a week's time. Congrats to my team at Persuasive Games for their hard work. And look for more of our newsgames in the newspaper, in the near future.
