Professor Martin Rieser at Vision 2020 Conference Leicester 2010

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The Future of Mobile
Technologies
Professor Martin Rieser
De Montfort University
2020
VISION

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
The convergence of mobile technologies and ubiquitous
computing have created a world where information-rich
environments may be mapped directly onto urban spaces.
My interest in dispersed forms of interaction focuses on the
way they raises a whole new series of intriguing questions on
the nature of narrative and communication, particularly in
relation to an audience’s modes of participation and
reception.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative media is closely related to augmented reality (reality
overlaid with virtual reality) and to pervasive or ubiquitous
computing, Locative media concentrates on social
interaction with a specific place through mobile technology.
Many locative media art projects have a background in social,
critical or personal memory. I will describe attempts to use
location-specific media in the context of spatialised
interaction.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
Locative technology blurs the borders between physical and
virtual space, leading to the redefinition of the concept of the
virtual from that of simulation to that of augmentation.
Emergent Technologies

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Locative Media and Pervasive Media
Locative technology blurs the borders between physical and
virtual space, leading to the redefinition of the concept of the
virtual from that of simulation to that of augmentation.
Emergent Technologies

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+ Emergent Behaviours
 How is pervasive technology changing public behaviour?
 Clearly the boundary between the private and the public is
altering and the merging of the two is accelerating through
augmented mobile reality etc.
 Public conversations sometimes appear performative. Often
phones in public are an intrusive technology and the tracking
of individuals by social media is often a questionable
practice.
 How therefore do services re-frame ideas of privacy in public
space to take account of these new pervasive technologies?

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+ Natural Interfaces: Natal
 How do you believe that both individuals and businesses in
Leicester will be using technology in ten years time? What do
you predict?
 Business and the individual will both find mobile and pervasive
technologies integrated in every aspect of their lives-all
services will be mobile cloud computing and wide area
networks will ensure reception is good across the city space

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+ Impacts
 Our attitude to the city has changed- now which tends to re-
imagine it as an unwritten slate. Our trajectory through it and
our sense of place seems to be altering from that of perceived
fixed nodes to a more fluid experience- constantly diverted
by location-based hyperlinked information.
 We also have a changed relation to synchronicity. Mapping
technologies and push media accelerate this changing sense of
place as no longer a fixed terrain, but an amorphous space
of potential.

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+ Place and Space and Art
 Can Pervasive Media successfully create place out of space, or
even from Marc Auge’s “non-places”- those transferable spaces of
alienation? How can these non-places be transformed by locative
media?
 Artists tend to experiment in memory-rich spaces, rather than
those urban deserts. Accessibility is also a major issue-not
everyone has the latest iphone.
 In experiencing this new public space- how can the past and the
present, public and private- be brought together by the new
technologies in ways that enrich our lives?

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+ Place and Space and Art
 We live in a world of lost histories-how can we reframe these
successfully for the public?
 If pervasive media allows the enrichment of place, how can we
also enable the public to do this for themselves?
 Now that such located rich media is emerging, how can this be
filtered to ensure quality of experience and safety for the user?

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+ Future sensing: Songlines

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+ Future sensing:Songlines
Using image and
object sensing via
mobiles for
Songlines

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Riverains: London
Empedia for Riverains: QR Codes

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Emotion sensing: Christian NoldFilm
Structure

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Emotion sensing: Third WomanFilm
Structure
The scenarios of
the drama are
constructed in
three differently
versioned forms to
reflect subtle
changes in
emotional
emphasis-designed
to be driven by
emotion sensing
technology

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+ Hybrid Place and Space

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+ Hybridity
 Our ability to conceptualise the world and filter our sensory
inputs makes “reality” a construction of the brain-there
seems to be no such thing as direct perception. It seems likely
that the brain does not differentiate between the real and
virtual.
 For example, those blind from birth, who recover their sight,
have not developed the neurones for facial recognition-our
sense of reality therefore seems to depend on our internal
wiring

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+ Hybridity
 In Hybrid spaces, material and immaterial space are
merging. There is no longer a clear line between them. We
need to examine and understand this in relation to theories of
the mind.
 A key question derived from our various project user-
evaluations is do we actually process a mixed reality
experience? It is very difficult to examine cognitive mapping
in a mobile experience. Techniques such as mobile eye
tracking can help (RetailLab)

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+ Hybridity
 In Hybrid spaces, material and immaterial space are
merging. There is no longer a clear line between them. We
need to examine and understand this in relation to theories of
the mind.
 A key question derived from our various project user-
evaluations is do we actually process a mixed reality
experience? It is very difficult to examine cognitive mapping in
a mobile experience. Techniques such as mobile eye tracking
can help (RetailLab)

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+ Projection
 What do you think Leicester could be like in ten years time in
the best case, in terms of mobile technology?
 Leicester like all major cities will be more privatised and
individualistic, with some citizen-led attempts to revivify public
and collective values against the smaller state impositions of
the previous ten years.
 Information and personalised mobile services will be even
more important to the citizen in their survival strategies

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+ Future Technologies
 Mobile services are moving towards gesture recognition and
natural language interfaces, as well as towards emotion sensing.
How can we envisage the increasing invisibility of the device as
this natural interaction develops into a form of “unforced”
hybridity-which may include mobile projection?
 This may be come a world where information streams start
responding to our changing emotions. Such interwoven hybridity
will in turn give rise to further new behaviours.
 We already experience this with hands-free gestural performances
on mobiles. What will happen when we have mobile non-verbal
two way communication through enhanced or projected video
conferencing!

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+ Integrated homes
 As an artist, what do you believe the future for content is? For
example: we have all seen the increase of channels on Sky
television, but there is far too much to choose from...
 Content will be pre-filtered by personal preferences to avoid
overwhelming the user-but mobile TV etc will be ubiquitous and
related to space and place.

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+ Intelligent adaptive and
transformative architecture-
 Much research in Architecture at present focuses on
technological developments, but not much thought seems to be
given to underlying concepts for behaviour changing spaces.
 Can the use of such technology in our homes and work-spaces
actually change our behaviour?
 Perhaps we need hard, clear and accessible information
streams before buildings can stimulate beneficial behaviour
change

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+ Intelligent adaptive and
transformative architecture-
 Smart homes can be helpful, but are largely passive in their
effects.
 To effect behaviour change we need to consider a more
complex relationship between design and human behaviour.
We are moving to emotional sensing and predictive
behaviour by buildings-that is adaptive architecture sensing
and reacting, but allowing the user to determine the core and
auxiliary services, perhaps by learning through a neural net!

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+ Imagining Futures
 What do you think the city of Leicester be like in 2020 in your
opinon? In general, not just in your specific area.
 Leicester will have recovered from the depression years of
2010-2018 and will be regenerating through small e-business
start ups and service providers.
 Micro-manufacturing start ups linked to new technologies will
also be part of this new economy.
 Small scale individual entrepreneurship will be the order of the
day, offering personalised services through new mobile
networking.

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+ Futures: Opportunities
 You say that businesses are not aware of the opportunities that
mobile technology offers - what kind of opportunities are these
can you give any examples? Why will these opportunities
benefit them and in what way?
 Micro-business and niche provision through personalised
mobile services is a growth area, particularly when linked to
social media and lifestyle choices

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+ Futures: Best case
 What do you think Leicester could be like in ten years time in
the best case, in terms of mobile technology?
 Leicester like all major cities will be more privatised and
individualistic, with some citizen-led attempts to
revivify public and collective values against the smaller state
impositions of the previous ten years.
 Information and personalised mobile services will be even
more important to the citizen in their survival strategies

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+ Futures: Users
 In ten years time, in your opinion, do you think that people will still
be using mobile phones - and will they look different to how they
are now? Do you think that the technology can develop much
further in ten years time? And to what extreme?!
 The mobile phone will be more integrated into our bodies with
sensory switches linked to our emotions and movements and
gestures and the infrastructure around us will read from our
phones and respond with services and environmental
adjustments.
 Mobile sharing will be automated and information will migrate
from phone to phone automatically according to pre-selected
filters

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+ Futures: Nano technologies

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+ Futures: Content
 As an artist, what do you believe the future for content is? For
example: we have all seen the increase of channels on Sky
television, but there is far too much to choose from...
 Content will be pre-filtered by personal preferences to avoid
overwhelming the user-but mobile TV etc will be ubiquitous
and related to space and place.

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+ Futures: Integration
 How do you believe that both individuals and businesses in
Leicester will be using technology in ten years time? What do
you predict?
 Business and the individual will both find mobile and pervasive
technologies integrated in every aspect of their lives. All
services will be mobile cloud computing and wide area
networks and 4G will ensure reception is good across the city
space

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+ Integration and Cloud Computing

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+ Futures: Economics
 How good could this technology be to both businesses and
individuals?
 Britain is well placed to develop applications in this area which are
ingenious and needed-and of global reach.
 Do you think that we have the right entrepreneurs and forward-
thinkers in society and local government to enable this city to be
all that it can be 10 years from now?
 Most of the developments I predict are tied up with the right
economic model: more entrepreneurial finance is needed and for
this the banks and government would have to collaborate to set up
new and easier risk-friendly finance structures.

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+ Futures: Change
 Do you think Leicester is equipped to cope with the changes in
technology?
 Not on its current record as a city-it needs to move away from
an unsustainable private car-based economy to bring life
back into the centre and to allow its culture and lifestyle to
retain creative talents and innovators in the city.
 This means developing cultural capital, green spaces, and city
centre nightlife for all its citizens.

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+ Futures: Business
 And finally in your own opinion how do you think the Leicester
business world will look in 10 years time? A lot can change in this
time can't it?!
 Leicester has a wealth of energy and market connections with Asia
and the Indian sub-continent. It is multicultural in the truest sense
and is therefore potentially a model for the future shape of
British cities. It has three good and innovative universities-
including Loughborough-that is 30,000 Creative Industry-linked
students .
 What we need to see in the city is more connection between
these engines of prosperity and easier ways to fund and
develop innovation using the new pervasive technologies- such
as mobile phones.

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+ Futures: Speculation
 And finally in your own opinion how do you think the Leicester
business world will look in 10 years time? A lot can change in
this time can't it?!
 Leicester has a wealth of energy and market connections with
the Indian sub-continent. It is multicultural in the truest sense
and is therefore potentially a model for the future shape of
British cities. It has two good and innovative universities .
 What we need to see in the city is more connection between
these engines of prosperity and easier ways to fund and
develop innovation using the new pervasive technologies- such
as mobile phones.