PG01 - Research A Catlyst & Inspirations Creative problem solving with technology, by responding to immediate situations and things of real life, what challenges lie in front of me – being in the moment - and with the motivation of creating a better world. Moments of clarity A weekend at a festival – tracking my child Taking the bus – tapping into GPS of London Buses Stolen bicycle – need for a simple low cost transmitter Where to begin ? Historical and Broader issues Where are we at this point in history, Are we in the midst of a digital revolution, and if so, how does this relate to past technological revolutions ? Is the ‘digital revolution’, rhetorical, mythical or fact – Initially, it would appear that there is little doubt that we are in the midst of a huge cultural shift with regards to how we use technology and that is largely due to digital processes.

B Context – Research text to define the historical context “Today we are witnessing the early turbulent days of a revolution as significant as any other in human history. A new medium of human communications is emerging, one that may prove to surpass all previous revolutions – the printing press, the telephone, the television, the computer – in it’s impact on our economic and social life.” [1] “This book argues that one cannot understand the place of computer communication technology without taking into account of some of the central myths about the rise of global computer communications systems, particularly those identified with the internet, the World Wide Web, and cyberspace. It maintains that myths are important both for the way that they reveal (including a genuine desire for community and democracy) and for what they conceal (including the growing concentration of communication

power in a handful of transntional media businesses). Focusing on myths about technology, it suggests that by understanding the myths that animated the spread of earlier technologies, such as electrification, broadcasting, and telecommunications systems, we can deepen our understanding abut cyberspace. ‘The Digital sublime’ - Vincent Mosco MIT press 2004 p. 18-19

C Some broader contemporary issues What is different about this age of ‘now’, that distinguishes it from technological revolutions of the past, and what are commonly held beliefs and the underlying the myths associated - to start let’s look at some of the broader issues. 1 Globalisation and the ‘Cloud’.

D 2 Convergence The Black Box VS theory Divergence

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Significant points of View through the research of others

Henry Jenkins

F Convergence captures the imagination, but divergence captures the market…. Why divergence and not convergence? Because convergence requires compromise and divergence satisfies the evolving needs of different market segments…. Irreconcilable differences will always doom such convergence concepts. Television is a “passive” medium; the Internet is an “active” medium. A couch potato will never put up with the complexities of interactive TV and an Internet junkie will never surf the Net with an awkward box designed for another purpose. Like automobiles, different market segments demand different products… Companies today are pouring billions of dollars into such convergence concepts as smart phones, smart gas pumps, smart homes, smart watches, smart clothing, smart refrigerators, smart toilets and smart appliances. This is a tragic waste of time and money. Companies would be more innovative, more profitable and more successful if they would focus on the opposite idea: divergence. http://henryjenkins.org/2006/06/convergence_and_divergence_two.html

G Patrick Dixon who says that they are occurring simultaneously. British Sugar, who use so much energy producing their sugar that they decided to generate their own power to drive their factory. Using a turbine much the same as a jet engine. They then funnel the exhaust, water and carbon dioxide, through a 2.5 km pipe down the road to the largest greenhouse in Europe which produces 35 000 000 tomatoes per year. The result was an exposion of growth, now producing 70 000 000 tomatoes per year. So a sugar producer’s technological innovation takes a divergent path that leads them into not only efficiently generatering power, but also their own waste management system and increased universal food productivity. 10m:45s http://www.globalchange.com/clean-power-green-tech-new-world-innovation-to-protect-future-environment-futurist-keynote.htm http://www.globalchange.com/convergence.htm

H John Martin http://www.jamesmartin.com/film/ Observations / Fact finding research as it relates to the practical issue. What was the catalyst to thinking seriously about the future of mobile devices ?

BVE 2012 discussion with a Sony corporation researcher developing strategies for asset and product distribution through mobile devices in the furure.

Their will be approximately 50 000 000 000 mobile devices by 2020, at least 5 for every person on the planet.

Proliferation of mobile devices and associated digital media, social

networking, blogging etc – contribute to real world and revolution action for example how in recent times these technologies supported and catalysed events like the Arab spring / London riots.

Questions So now everyone with a mobile phone is or will be a receiver and potentially a transmitter for Global positioning ? Perhaps there is nothing new to this idea, but what are the considerations for us once we have downloaded that app and opted into the GPS net by ‘allowing’ the Location Based Service permissions attached to the app ?

Mini mind map

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J Moral and Ethical issues surrounding the networks that LOCATION BASED SERVICES are dependent upon

Location Based Services work hand in hand with GPS per se, however, of the positioning systems in existence only two are currently

available - one is American and one is Russian. For the moment we are subscribers to the Us State government’s network system.

a GPS is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.

b GLONASS – Russia's global navigation system. Fully operational worldwide.

These are some of the options we can hope to have access to in the near future.

C Galileo – a global system being developed by the European Union and other partner countries, planned to be fully operational by 2014. d BeiDou-2, the Chinese system currently under construction. e Space India recently announced that it is going to have its very own Global Positioning System (GPS) by 2014

Monoplositation of the networks This brings me to the questions that surround monopolisation. With regards to the networks, currently GPS is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.

What about the future, will they be open or closed networks, will the territories and coverage be broad and how available will the infrastructure and data be ?

How is GPS used and can it be abused ? There are many arguments for the ethical use of GPS tracking such as find your missing pets, young children, older and vulnerable people such as alzheimers sufferers and people with dementia. It is very commonly used for tracking criminals, for evidence corroboration in courts of law and for tracking criminals and for the corroboration of evidence in courts of law. American companies True Position, Xora and Time track are a few who offer these services, particularly within industry for tracking employees and is justified by users in that it is cosensual and under the employees contractual obligation to the company an furthermore that -

a tracking fleets and vehicles improves time and energy saving’s through route optimisation

b it improves worker efficiency

c it can be used to recover stolen vehicles

d it helps with maintenance schedules

K So there is a need for an ethical framework Presumably within the wider context technology isn’t good or evil, however can significantly empower forces of good and evil. Considerations 1 accuracy - As it not always reliable can it be viewed as truly viable. 2 accessability - technology gaps between the have’s and have not’s

- third poor and marginalised will be excluded

- cultures in which women are heavily restricted 3 ownership - who owns the data

- how can third parties that hold the aggregate data use this data.

4 privacy Privacy isn’t threatened buy the collection of data but by the centralisation of the collected information which can be a combination of your location and personal information. - The potential for use / abuse within advertising and

marketing industries is massive. As if it isn’t bad enough that they call me on a Sunday evening at home, now they could know where I am at all times of the day and night.

- It could be a particularly dangerous threat to people who are at serious risk of human rights violations in politically unstable regions and totalitarian states. - information misuse by ‘black hat hackers’ and criminals who can rob your home while you are away.

- ‘geoslavery’ where one entity exerts control over

another. - GPS location data can be correlated with wider data collections such as your credit card history from which your consumer habits and wealth status can be determined. More locally, this can be correlated with collected data from oyster cards and retail data collections such as Tesco’s club card, Nectar cards etc.

Possible legal issues of the future will we have any choices ?

Currently in the US citizens with passports which have RFID (radio frequency identification) chips inserted carry a risk of 25 year imprisonment for their removal.

New threats stealth wind [2] and big data collection [3]

Palantir [4] leads to probalility algorithms that predict your next location

[2] Bamford J. Wired May 2012 p139-145 [3] [4] Harris S. Wired Sept 2012 p110-117