–lettera inviata il 28 ottobre 2008 alle 20:00 —

Ciao Beppe,

seguo sempre il tuo blog e sono da sempre tuo sostenitore. Oggi ho avuto modo di leggere l’articolo pubblicato al seguente indirizzo:

http://www.disinformazione.it/beppe_grillo.htm

Come dici sempre tu: internet é assolutamente democratica perché se fai una stronzata ti sputtanano subito. Nei prossimi giorni mi piacerebbe leggere un post nel quale spieghi che relazione hai con la Casaleggio Associati, se é vero quello che Marcello Pamio scrive, e quali sono i rapporti della Casaleggio con le orribili corporations menzionate nell’articolo, e contro cui ti sei sempre schierato.

Grazie,

Mauro

Kjeldskov, J. and Graham, C. (2003). A review of mobile hci research methods. Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, pages 317–335. [PDF]

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This paper reviews 102 publications on mobile human-computer interaction research. The authors describe the the different publications using a number of categories describing the theoretical approach followed by the authors. The paper describes a number of challenges for Mobile HCI research.

This paper examines and reviews research methods applied within the field of mobile human-computer interaction. The purpose is to provide a snapshot of current practice for studying mobile HCI to identify shortcomings in the way research is conducted and to propose opportunities for future approaches. 102 publications on mobile human-computer interaction research were categorized in a matrix relating their research methods and purpose. The matrix revealed a number of significant trends with a clear bias towards building systems and evaluating them only in laboratory settings, if at all. Also, gaps in the distribution of research approaches and purposes were identified; action research, case studies, field studies and basic research being applied very infrequently. Consequently, we argue that the bias towards building systems and a lack of research for understanding design and use limits the development of cumulative knowledge on mobile human computer interaction. This in turn inhibits future development of the research field as a whole.

http://labs.mozilla.com/geode_welcome/#content

Thansk for installing Geode, an experimental Firefox add-on to explore geolocation in Firefox ahead of its implementation in a future product release. Geode provides a rudimentary implementation of geolocation for the current version of Firefox uses a single hard-coded location provider to enable Wifi-based positioning conforming to the W3C Geolocation specification so that developers can begin experimenting with enabling location-aware experiences today.

Roto, V., Oulasvirta, A., Haikarainene, T., Kuorelahti, J., Lehmuskallio, H., and Nyyssönen, T. (2004). Examining mobile phone use in the wild with quasi-experimentation. HIIT Technical Report 2004-1, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Helsinky, Finland. [PDF]

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This paper describes a methodology for conducting controlled experiments in the wild. The authors describe the limitation of many methodologies for conducting research with mobile technology. Their initial argument is that currently it is not possible to conduct controlled experiments in the wild because the difficulty of controlling nuisance variables and because it is difficult to record comprensively user’s data while on the move. They propose a technique to overcome many of these limitations with micro-cameras mounted on the device and on the body of the subject which record continuously what is happening around the user.

This methodology was proven to be effective to conduct reseach on how users assign attentional resources between the different elements of the environment while on the move (Oulasvirta et al., 2005). This paper discuss the pros and cons of this quasi-experimental methodology.

Blom, J., Chipchase, J., and Lehikoinen, J. (2005). Contextual and cultural challenges for user mobility research. Commun. ACM, 48(7):37–41. [PDF]

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This article describes contextual and cultural challenges while conducting qualitative field studies. The author participated in several field study using a technique called “shadowing” which consists in following people with their permission and recodring salient fact of their interaction with people, objects, or the environment. These techniques are widely used to collect user data and to inform the design of mobile technology. However, this technique has several limitation that the author describe in details.

Additionally, as they conducted similar research in different geographical regions of the world, they draw conclusions on how conducting mobility research poses cultural challenges. They define three particular challenges: a) anticipating the technological climate; b) dealing with the social acceptance; and c) meta-reflection on the research process.

a) The risk here is that isufficient market insight can lead to the adoption of inappropriate methodological tools; b) Blending in is easier when a researcher is condidered “local,” but outsiders tend to have more leeway in what is socially acceptable; c) conducting cross-cultural reseach leads to vast amount of data and to development of new research methodologies that can be perfectioned through reflection and proper dissemination.

On Saturday, I participated in a public protest against the law which was voted on July this year which gives our prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, immunity against justice prosecution (here an article on the issue, in Spanish).

Italian political situation is in immense crisis. Opposition is inexistent and Berlusconi controls the majority of journals and broadcast channels. As a citizen I feel really depressed as I am not represented by this current government. Additionally, my options to protest are minimal.

Luckily, there are still Italians like Beppe Grillo, Marco Travaglio, and Antonio DiPietro to cheer me up. DiPietro organized a referendum against this horrible law. On Saturday I signed. Actually, many people signed: 250000 signatures in one day. This gives me hope that there are many Italians like me who do not like to be manipulated and who are able to circumvent the mainstream propaganda.

This is the democracy we have left. It is real democracy because it comes directly from people.

Language class. Once again starting from scratch, but I do agree with the following: “creo que aprender idiomas ayuda a ser m?s tolerante con gente de otras culturas”.

This week end, I was playing with a map visualization. I wanted to show the difference between the penetration of internet and mobile phones for the Mediterranean area. The easiest way to do it is to use a vector-based drawing of Europe. In my case, I started from a free shapefile of the world (ESRI standard for Geographical Information Systems). Then, I used uDIG, an open source GIS, for removing all the unwanted countries. The next step required the conversion of the ShapeFile into a vector drawing. To this end, I used ScapeToad, transforming the GIS file into a Scalable Vector Graphic (.svg). This format can be imported in most vector-based drawing program. I used CorelDraw. In the drawing, I created a color gradient with 10 different levels. I used a gray-scale palette as I felt that was simple enough for communicating the differences between the countries.

The second element that is required to build these visualizations is a good source of data. For this exercise, I used the Internet Usage World Stats, edited by the Miniwatts Marketing Group. The second source is the International Telecommunication Union, ITU.

The result can be seen in the two pictures below. While for Internet penetration we can see a huge difference between Northern Africa and Europe, the same difference is not visible in the number of mobile subscribers. In other words, while Northern African countries are still catching up to provide electricity and internet access to their populations, Cellular technology is almost available to every citizen. These two visualizations are going to be presented in the Global Information Society meeting, held in Marseille, France, next week.

“When anyone says the word ‘nature’, we should ask the question, ‘Which nature?’ Naturally fertilized cabbage? Nature as it is, industrially lacerated? Country life during the 1950s (as it is represented in retrospect today, or as it was represented in days gone by to country folk, or to those who dreamed of country life)? Mountain solitude before the publication of hikers’ guides to deserted valleys? Nature as conceived by natural science? Nature without chemicals? The polished ecological models of interconnectedness? Nature as it is depicted in gardening manuals? Such nature as one years for (peace, a mountain stream, profound contemplation)? As it is praised and priced in the supermarkets of world solitude? Nature as a sight for sore eyes? The beauty of a Tuscan landscape — in other words, a highly cultivated art of nature? Or nature in the wild? The volcano before it erupts? The nature of early cultures, invested with demonic power, subjectivity and the living gods of religion? The primeval forest? Nature conceived as a zoo without cages? As it roars and rages in the cigarette advertisements of the city’s cinemas?”

–Ulrich Beck, “Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk“

Chipchase, J., Persson, P., Piippo, P., Aarras, M., and Yamamoto, T. (2005). Mobile essentials: field study and concepting. In DUX ’05: Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Designing for User eXperience, page 57, New York, NY, USA. AIGA: American Institute of Graphic Arts. [PDF]

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This paper dscribe a field study of Mobile essentials, which the authors define as the objects most people consider essisntial and carry most of the time whilst out and about. They conducted ‘shadowing’ observations in four different cities in different countries. The research team spent one day with each of the 17 subjects. First they followed the individual during 3-6 hours then withdrew for a couple of hours to adapt predefined questions, and finally interviewed the participant.

They found that three objects can be considered essentials irrespective of culture or genger: keys, cashm and phone. Then they identified nine categories of peripheral MEs: travel support, identification, medical, addition, emotional & spiritual, appearence, entertainement, contact & other information, and payment.

They also identified a number of general strategies people adopt to support carrying: containment, for instance, reduces the mental and physical workload of bringing and remembering multiple MEs. Also connectors cluster small-scale objects (e.g., keychains).

They observed a number of interesting phenomena, like the distance and position of ME objects in relation to the user, defined as range of distribution. E.g., in public transport MEs are kept within line of sight. They also found that MEs are usually forgot because they are not left in the immediate line of sight during the transition phase (e.g., leaving home for work). The primary strategy that people use to stay alert during a transition phase is called the point of reflection, involving the user pausing other activities in order to be able to reflect on what to bring.