IEEE Pervasive Computing on Urban Computing

IEEE Pervasive Computing special issue on Urban Computing is out. The guest editors Tim Kindberg, Matthew Chalmers, and Eric Paulos define urban computing as “the integration of computing, sensing, and actuation technologies in everyday urban settings and lifestyles“. The urban space is a recent ground of investigation because it poses many specific research and deployment challenges: as ownership issues are complex as are the dynamics and density of system participation. Successful integration requires taking several facets of the environment into account at once. Urban settings frame social behaviors. They encompass architectural forms and features that might not be harmonious with given technologies, and they’re variably permeated by wireless networks and fixed and mobile devices.

Urban computing research is still at an early stage with a wide range of opportunities. They range from understanding urban appropriation of pervasive technologies, to producing fully integrated designs specifically for urban settings, and taking advantage of the deployed technologies to augment the understanding of the urban environment. My contribution (in collaboration with Nicolas) to this issue lies in the last category. We briefly describe as a Work in Progress the Tracing the Visitor’s Eye project in which we collect Flickr photos to reveal the movements of people in cities.

Tracing the Visitor’s Eye in Rome

Relation to my thesis: Urban computing is an emerging research avenue at the crossroad of ubiquitous computing and HCI. Definitively a sweet spot of my research focus.