minus zero

I'm going to Singapore in September! The paper I co-authored was accepted to MobileHCI 2007!

Have been super busy since last I last blogged, will post a proper update soon.

Reading a paper today, I came across the following usage scenario:

"You are a commuter walking through Euston station in London and your train has been delayed. You suddenly receive a challenge on your mobile phone informing you that there are 40 Green UrbanSwarmers and 25 Red UrbanSwarmers distributed nearby. You have already signed up as a Red player, so you decide to take up the challenge and participate even though you are outnumbered this time. Using the awareness features on your device and carefully observing the people around you, you manage to find another four Reds. You team up to follow unsuspecting Greens and spread Red around. Then a large group of people emerges from the crowd walking quickly in your direction: they are Greens! Instinctively, you all run to avoid them and rush towards the Underground to 'hide' in the wireless signal-free area. The Green swarm won't follow you there. You relax and chat with the people you just played with, exchanging your UrbanSwarmer details. Two of them are taking the same train as you and it is now time to go!"

While this is a nice idea, and would be fun, in today's climate of fear a group of people chasing each other around a station are likely to be arrested, or worse, shot.