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Living for the Global City: Mobile Kits, Urban Interfaces, and Ubicomp

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UbiComp 2005: Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3660))

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Abstract

Using ethnographic methods, 28 young professionals across the global cities of London, Los Angeles, and Tokyo were studied to understand in some detail what items they carried with them (their mobile kits) and how they used these items to access people, places, and services (through various urban interfaces). The findings are analyzed in terms of these cities as existing sites of ubiquitous information and communication technology (ICT) use. More specifically, findings are considered with respect to the prospects in these cities for ubicomp as a paradigm of trusted, environmentally embedded computing, as opposed to a wearable computing paradigm of individual self-sufficiency. Overall, at least for the young professional class studied, practices of urban interfacing were remarkably similar across all three cities studied, suggesting that ubicomp systems might be developed to address the range of urban concerns and to unburden and empower urbanites.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. People and Practices Research Lab, Intel Corporation, 2111 NE 25th Ave, JF3-377, Hillsboro, OR, 97124, USA

    Scott D. Mainwaring, Ken Anderson & Michele F. Chang

Authors
  1. Scott D. Mainwaring
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  2. Ken Anderson
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  3. Michele F. Chang
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Distributed and Ubiquitous Systems, Muehlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Michael Beigl

  2. House_n, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, One Cambridge Center, 4FL, 02142, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Stephen Intille

  3. Interaction Laboratory, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., 3-14-13 Higashigotanda, Shinagawa-ku, 141-0022, Tokyo, Japan

    Jun Rekimoto

  4. Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, 5322, Endo, Fujisawa, 252-8520, Kanagawa, Japan

    Hideyuki Tokuda

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Mainwaring, S.D., Anderson, K., Chang, M.F. (2005). Living for the Global City: Mobile Kits, Urban Interfaces, and Ubicomp. In: Beigl, M., Intille, S., Rekimoto, J., Tokuda, H. (eds) UbiComp 2005: Ubiquitous Computing. UbiComp 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3660. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11551201_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11551201_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28760-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31941-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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