Dear all,

Sorry for short notice, Sripatum University Computing Colloquium is hosting a free seminar on the topic of Urban Computing. Details are as below. If interested, please come to the venue (no registration needed).

• Date: Wednesday July 18, 2007 (TOMORROW)
• Time: 18.30-20.30
• Venue: room 5-901, Sripatum University (Bangkean)
• Cost: Free
• Registration: Not required

Regards

Michael / Charng

*Abstract :*
Cities have a long association with technology, from agriculture and centralized government, to automobiles, telephones and skyscrapers. The latest incarnation of this relationship involves information and computational technologies. The project of ubiquitous computing proposes to embed computation into everyday practices and environments. In this sense, ubicomp implies more than simply computing "off the desktop" and out of the office, but also studying, deploying, and evaluating technologies in diverse social, cultural, political, geographic, and economic settings. "Urban computing" in particular exhibits a concern with the spaces where computation might be deployed, with an explicit focus on public spaces and the social life of cities.
Much urban computing research and development draws explicitly and implicitly on themes in social and anthropological accounts of the city. I will discuss how notions of urban sociality, mobility, and infrastructure influence the design of urban computing applications, and the ways in which these notions have been situated in the histories of specifically European and North American cities. I end the talk with a question rather than a conclusion: What would an "urban computing" application designed by, for and in Bangkok look like?

*Speaker :*
Amanda Williams is a PhD candidate in her third year of study in the Informatics Department at the University of California, Irvine, and a member of the Lab for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction. Her research has included human‐computer interaction, tangible user interfaces, and ubiquitous computing in urban environments.