LOJOCONNECT.COM
location-based technology + journalism

By Satta Sarmah

With a bit of anxiety and great anticipation, the LoJo team ventured to Washington Park this morning for a trial run of our Chicago 2016 locative tour.

We were armed with our HP IPAQ GPS-enabled devices, headphones, response surveys–and loads of coffee and bagels— for the people who were kind enough to volunteer as our multimedia guinea pigs.

About 10 people showed up for our experiment, which was the perfect number for our five-person team.

Though we had more GPS devices than people, even the best laid plans sometimes go awry.

A few of our devices went haywire. Some couldn’t locate a GPS signal and others didn’t trigger in the right spots.

Besides the technical errors, there were also human ones. We decided to put markers along the route of our locative tour, but some people got lost or continued walking along the path when they were supposed to stop at a particular point to hear the story.

Some of these mishaps were probably because our directions weren’t as spot-on as we thought.

At the end of the tour, we asked participants to fill out surveys. The feedback was a mix of positive and constructive criticism:

- Because of the glare from the sun, many of the pictures we loaded were difficult for our tour-goers to see. Some even said the pictures were a bit of a distraction and that they would have liked fewer of them, so that they could be more engaged with the physical location.

-Many people enjoyed the historical aspects of the tour. The beginning of the tour included historical photos and information about the World’s Fair held near Washington Park in 1893. We also had Chicago historian and lifelong South Side resident, Timuel Black, talk about what the park was like in the early 1900’s. Hearing and seeing historical information and pictures of Washington Park while touring the modern version of the location really seemed to work.

- Though some said there should have been less narration from LoJo team members, another tour-goer complimented our narration by saying it reminded him of something that would have been written by NPR personality Ira Glass, a compliment that our team will graciously accept.

- Some said more user-control would have been great. However, the nature of GPS-based storytelling is that the content is triggered by the location, which has its pluses and minuses. A good alternative for this would be a podcast, which users could download to their mp3 players.

- Many tour-goers also said locative storytelling could be adopted by news organizations, with a little bit of tweaking of the platform and the storytelling itself. Suggestions included more directions to orient users to the location and an improved interface in regards to the GPS technology.

-As for what stories are best told in this format, people said stories about real estate and gentrification worked best. Downloadable neighborhood tours posted on a newspaper’s Web site are the best way for news organizations to monetize and make use of locative storytelling, tour-goers said.

All in all, we think our locative tour was a success. Though it was, literally, a walk in the park, the LoJo team is a bit exhausted. We’ll be using the rest of our Saturday to engage in an activity that’s a little more lax than a walk in the park— a nap in our beds.

By Ki Mae Heussner

So, tomorrow’s the big day.

After reporting, researching, recording, foraging the Chicago History Museum for antique photographs of Washington Park and building our Mediascapes, we’re ready to test our Olympics audio tour with actual people.

Tomorrow morning, in Washington Park (the site of the proposed Olympic stadium), we’re holding a public event to demonstrate the potential of locative storytelling. All those who attend will take a GPS-guided tour of the park to learn about the possible community impacts of hosting the 2016 Olympics in Chicago.

This past week, we split our time between Washington Park and our computer screens. If we weren’t walking around, iPAQs in hand, trying to catch a GPS signal, we were in front of our laptops, editing audio tracks, optimizing photographs and peering at Google Maps of Chicago’s South Side.

We’re grateful for the brave few who have agreed to serve as our guinea pigs tomorrow (it’s not too late to sign up…) and we think the trial should go smoothly.

Still, given all that we’ve learned during the past few weeks about locative storytelling and our trusty GPS devices, we do have a few concerns:

- The reliability of our handy dandy iPAQs. When they work, they’re fantastic - beyond geographically orienting users, they do have the great potential to uniquely connect users to the history and the people of a given place. But they don’t always work properly. They’re often temperamental. Sometimes they’re painfully slow to load. When we take a whole fleet of them out for testing, for unknown reasons a stubborn few will refuse to cooperate.

- The quality of our audio tracks. After much editing of scripts and audio recordings, I think we have some fine examples of audio-based journalism for our test subjects tomorrow. But the non-broadcast majors among us had to learn a new kind of writing and thinking to master this kind of multimedia journalism. We also added in ambient noise, appropriate music and other (free) sounds to further engage our listeners.

- The precision of our GPS trigger zones. The Hewlett-Packard Mscape maker is very user-friendly and powerful. It’s been a crucial tool for our class, as we learn about the limits and opportunities in locative storytelling. But the maps that the program imports for users are not very granular. Through trial and error, we’ve been able to place our GPS trigger zones so that as people walk around the park they hear the narration relevant to their locations. But, future iterations of Mscape maker (and other similar programs), should make it easier for creators of GPS-guided tours to determine the boundaries of their trigger zones.

By Joyce Chang

You’ve probably heard of or even used Google maps by now. Interactive maps have become rather commonplace tools that provide services ranging from driving directions to locating nearby restaurants on a customized mash-up. These maps are often informational and entertaining. (Who doesn’t like doing the 3D zooming in the Google Maps Streetview?) But a recent analysis piece in the Financial Times suggests that maps will take on even greater significance online in the future, becoming the interface to just about everything users do on the Internet.

The article offers an example by Erik Jorgensen, a Microsoft executive. If someone is going to a theater and wants to find other things nearby, such as a restaurant, it is often more useful and logical to search by location than to do a regular search.

John Hanke of Google Earth adds:

This type of search interface obviates the need to type in keywords – just go to a digital map and browse around. “Geography is another way, a different way, to organise information,” he says. “As human beings, we inherently understand geography.”

The article notes that this new “geoweb,” or a reordering of the Internet around a geographic interface, only works if information on the Web is indexed geographically by adding machine-readable tags to documents to indicate the locations to which they refer. Mike Liebhold, a veteran technologist who is now a fellow at Silicon Valley’s Institute for the Future, likens this to “sticking Post-it notes on to Web documents.” Jorgensen estimates that 60 to 80 percent of Web pages have geographically relevant information that could be indexed.

This way of thinking about the Internet is especially relevant to the mobile world. On location-aware handsets, people could use digital maps to see information about other places that are geographically closest, which matter the most, according to the article.

Ask for a restaurant and the handset would be able to show where the nearest one is, along with how to get there and an option to book a table by text message.

The article says that once highly detailed models of the planet are created, the “interplay between the virtual world and the real world could become much more inventive.” Ian Holt, of UK mapping agency Ordnance Survey, suggests that even location-aware spectacles could be created.

“As you look around, they will overlay data about what you’re looking at,” he says, like the “heads-up” displays used by fighter pilots.

The article says these are a stepping stone towards a future digital playground called “augmented reality” in which the real world is a basic framework on which to present information.

Virtual reality would be turned inside out: rather than retreating into a make-believe virtual world, inhabitants of augmented reality will be living in real space but with layers of data overlaid to deliver a supercharged version of reality.

 

Using these technologies, real or fictitious information could be “mapped” on to the real world to create new experiences, says Mr. Liebhold at the Institute for the Future.

The idea that mapping the physical world in digital form could be a turning point in the information age and the “plunging costs” of digital imaging and geolocation equipment are allowing companies to map, plot and photograph the world in great detail, according to the article.

By Hope Needles

An article in Tuesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal highlights some of the security concerns facing the corporate community as mobile devices, namely smartphones, become increasingly advanced.

According to the article, smartphones are indeed catching up to desktop computers in terms of technology and sophistication. Therefore, in a society where mobile phones serve as multi-functional devices for retrieving email, news, music and video content, there is a growing risk of this information being mishandled.

Sophisticated smartphones that run their own operating systems and e-mail applications are particularly attractive targets. Cyberthieves, for example, have begun to aggressively mine corporate databases, in search of undisclosed financial data, or design and engineering information, which they can then sell for a profit. According to Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of the security software company PGP, “The really big money now is going to be in stealing intellectual property.”

Many companies, such as John C. Lincoln Health Network in Phoenix, have started to address these concerns by blocking employees from uploading or downloading files to the company’s internal network. Other corporations have rolled out similar measures designed to limit employee access to internal servers via mobile connections.

These types of precautions are intended to prevent information leaks, and lessen the potential for viruses designed exclusively for mobile phones. So far, there have been between 300 to 500 known versions of malware detected. (Malware is spread to phones via email attachments or chat messages, which prompt the user to download an application.) As the article points out, these viruses can be especially detrimental because they can also be transferred via wireless connections and Bluetooth technology. Generally, the most vicious malware viruses originate in third-party applications such as games and ringtones.

So what can consumers do to protect their phones? The best strategy seems to be following the same common-sense logic that applies to PC virus protection.

For example, if prompted to download an application, make sure that this message is coming from a known and trusted source. Furthermore, the potential for mobile viruses can be reduced by installing virus protection software for smart phones, such as the programs designed by Symantec and McAfee.

As smart phones continue to advance, it doesn’t appear likely that these threats to security will go away any time soon. Therefore, it may be wise for cell phone providers to start pre-installing virus protection software for consumers. Smartphone users might also benefit from setting a boot password and a main password as extra precautions against hackers.

By Amy Lee

Microsoft Corp. is poised to launch the latest version of its operating system in the next few weeks, and without giving a ton of specifics, company executives this week announced its focus on a consumer mobile segment designed to bridge the gap between business and consumer uses.

Andrew Lees, the company’s senior vice president of Mobile Business Communications, told journalists at a recent press event at Microsoft HQ in Washington this week that the company is convinced users would prefer to access all business functions and consumer functions, such as social networking sites, from one mobile device.

“People don’t see themselves as business or consumer. Our focus going forward is not business or consumer, it’s business and consumer,” Lees said.

Executives at the press event did not elaborate on what type of device it is planning to debut — if any — as the business-plus-consumer-needs device when it rolls out the latest Microsoft operating system. Company executives have struck partnerships with four of the largest global vendors of mobile devices, but have not yet reached a deal with Nokia, the Finnish handset giant that holds 40 percent share of the global devices market. Without a deal, Nokia phone users will not have access to the Windows Mobile operating system on their mobile device.

Regardless, Microsoft has already positioned itself well with mobile device users. Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, said the company is on track to reach 20 million devices shipped with Windows Mobile in the fiscal year ending in June, up from 11 million the previous year. Microsoft hopes its experience in the traditional software market – specifically its Internet Explorer Web browser - will give it an edge over its rivals in growing its mobile presence.

By Satta Sarmah

At LoJoConnect, we’ve spent some time talking about how news organizations are using interactive maps to make public data more accessible.

But now this multimedia storytelling tool is being used by one journalist to map the slow decline of the news industry.

Any aspiring journalist or newspaper lover worried about the future of news may want to turn a blind eye to a new interactive map that charts newspaper layoffs.

The map is on a blog called Paper Cuts, which was started by Erica Smith, a graphic designer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Though 2008 isn’t even halfway over, more than 3,000 journalists have lost their jobs at U.S. newspapers, according to the blog.

The map is color-coded to show the differing magnitudes of the layoffs. For example, a white marker on the map indicates a layoff of one to 24 staff members at a particular newspaper (the Yakima-Herald Republic in Seattle, Washington and the Beaver County Times in Beaver, Pennsylvania fit this description), while a red marker on the map reflects a newspaper with more than 100 layoffs (big-name papers like the Washington Post and Newsday have had massive firings).

When users click each marker on this Google-powered map, a box pops up with the name of the newspaper, its parent company, the number of layoffs and the date these layoffs were announced. Noticeably, most of these layoffs were concentrated on the East Coast.

It’s interesting that news and non-news oriented Web sites are using mapping tools to locate and organize all sorts of information, especially news about the state of the news business. This map is a vivid representation of what journalists lament about as many of their colleagues pack up their boxes and seek work in a less volatile field.

For every journalist’s sake, let’s hope there aren’t many more color-coded markers added to this map.

By Ki Mae Heussner

It should have been just a walk in the park. But since we were testing our newly-hatched Mediascape, it wasn’t yet the smooth experience we were hoping for.

After building our Chicago 2016 Mediascape (or GPS-triggered multimedia tour), we drove to the sites of a few proposed Olympic venues to test our project.

As with our first test run, we created a bit of spectacle. (If there’s a way to track down a GPS signal while still looking dignified, we haven’t yet mastered it.) But, after some maneuvering, we succeeded in getting our GPS events to trigger at each of our designated locations.

Using a Hewlett-Packard iPAQ, our final project will allow users to travel to Washington Park, Douglas Park and Northerly Island to learn about the Olympic venues planned for each site as well as the impacts of those venues on the surrounding communities. In testing our tour this week, we learned how we need to refine and adjust our tour to maximize the user experience.

A few of the technical issues include:

- Losing the GPS signal. We knew tall buildings could block the signal; now we know tall trees can have the same effect.
- Making sure the photos are optimized for the device. If a file is too large, the device can’t display it. (This problem is easily solved.)
- Keeping the devices fully charged. If the battery power is too low, the device can’t search for a GPS signal. (This is also an easily-solved issue.)
- Correctly defining the limits of the GPS trigger zone. Using Hewlett-Packard’s Mscape maker, we imported maps of Washington Park, Douglas Park and Northerly Island, and then highlighted the parts of the map that corresponded to the places we wanted users to experience the media events. We learned, however, that it’s difficult to trigger events at very specific places (like schools or fountains) that don’t appear explicitly on Mscape maker maps. We were able to get around this hurdle by anchoring media events to nearby intersections or prominent landmarks.

In addition to these technical obstacles, we also encountered a few ease-of-use issues. For example:

- Five-minute audio tracks seem reasonable when you’re sitting inside a warm classroom, but when you’re standing in an open field in 40-degree weather, five minutes feels like 15 minutes. We learned that we need to shrink each media event and/or direct users to more comfortable locations, such as stadium seats. (Chicago weather, unfortunately, we can’t control.)
- Driving tours require substantial and specific driving directions. Washington Park, for example, contains a fairly simple web of roadways. But when other cars are factored in, the park could prove hazardous for a driver trying to listen to a Mediascape. We always assumed that a driving tour would not be a solo experience, but we now know that each audio track needs to provide drivers with very clear navigational cues.

By Joyce Chang

An article this week in Editor & Publisher describes the rise of “mobile journalists,” or “mojos,” who spend most, if not all, of their time outside the newsroom and file remotely from the field. The article suggests that the need for that the traditional brick-and-mortar newsroom may be diminishing as improved technology allows journalists to skip in-person newsroom meetings. Even non-reporting staffers, such as those handling ad placement and design, could potentially work off-site, saving publications the cost of office space.

“As technology offers easier ways to collect sound and images, editors are finding that equipping reporters with the necessary gadgets to work remotely — and kicking them out the door to do it — is an attractive option.”

Along with improved technology, earlier print deadlines and demand for increased online content are driving the push towards mobile journalism. Also, advocates say mobile journalists are able to get hyper-local stories faster, including offbeat stories that might not otherwise be covered.

The article mentions The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., a newspaper that plans to have all 44 news staffers outfitted with mobile journalist kits that include laptops and digital cameras. Reporters on traditional beats still file for print, but their coverage is more immediate and often involves blog-type reporting that is reminiscent of radio-style updating. The News-Press also has “community journalists,” who “cruise certain areas and file stories of interest” for the Web.

But some editors worry that journalists’ absence from the newsroom may lead to a loss of editorial oversight and idea exchange.

Tim Franklin of The Baltimore Sun says:

“Being in an office where you can collaborate with others can be very beneficial…Having a place to meet with someone —there is something to be said for that.”

Another potential obstacle is the price of outfitting reporters with the technology. The article says one newspaper’s kit, which includes a video camera, audio recorder, laptop, cell phone, and other gadgets, costs about $14,800 each.

I think mobile journalists are traditional news organizations’ way to compete with citizen journalists. Also, the focus on hyper-local coverage might be beneficial, particularly for smaller or medium-sized newspapers, because that niche content can’t be found elsewhere.

I find it somewhat ironic that technological advances are making it both harder and easier to get out of the newsroom. High-speed Internet and the wealth of information online have made it easier to report on stories without leaving the newsroom. Digital documents have sometimes eliminated the need for journalists to go digging through old paper files. At the same time, in the case of ‘mojos’, technology is spurring a push for journalists to get out of the newsroom. Ultimately, though, in both cases, technology is giving journalists greater flexibility in how they report a story, what types of stories they’re able to do and how quickly the stories can be done.

By Hope Needles

I am intrigued by the idea of mobile social networks, but I have my doubts about whether they will ever truly be able to catch on with mainstream users.

Unlike Internet-based services, mobile social networks face hardware compatibility issues and GPS limitations that must be overcome if they ever hope to model the success of Myspace, Facebook or Bebo. Here is a quick glance at some of the mobile networks that have caught my eye, and some of the strengths and weaknesses that could either help or prevent them from growing.

Brightkite

As a location-based social-networking service, Brightkite may be one of the most promising mobile networks available right now. Brightkite allows anyone to sign up and connect with their mobile network of friends, based on each person’s physical location at a given moment. The fact that Brightkite doesn’t require GPS (users send updates to the service via text messaging, pictures and emails) may make it more appealing for casual users who are intimidated by GPS.

However, like most mobile social networks that are still in development stages, there are compatibility issues that need to be addressed. Users with high-end, feature-filled phones will have a much richer experience using Brightkite than consumers with more affordable, simpler devices. The main challenge for developers, then, is creating a service that can easily reach and connect with the mainstream mobile market, regardless of how technologically advanced each consumer and his or her mobile device may be. With over 3.3 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide, well exceeding the number of Internet surfers, I think we are still a long way off from finding an application that can resolve these compatibility issues and still actively engage all types of people.

Zyb
Unlike Brightkite, Zyb serves as more of a personal organizer for a mobile network of contacts. By providing a backup and online synchronization function for all of your personal data, it enhances the experience of using a mobile addressbook to store contact information. Zyb helps you centralize all of your phone numbers, appointments and texts, which you can then access or manage online, and on your mobile device. All of this information can also be easily be transferred to a new phone if need be. In addition, Zyb can be used a tool for finding out who has added you to their mobile friends network.

While I think that Zyb is an interesting application that may eventually catch on faster than Brightkite, I still think that it is very limited in what it can do. For now it serves as a nice complement to Facebook photo albums, SMS texting and mobile calendars, but until it can offer me something that I can’t find anywhere else, it risks being replaced by a more robust technology.

Groovr

Groovr strikes me as being a great service for documenting aspects of your daily life, including parties, events and road trips. On Groovr, you can set up a personal profile for posting pictures, text messages or video to then send to all of your mobile friends. While it is useful to have this function in a mobile social network, it seems rather redundant. Why would someone need to go to the trouble of setting up a profile to post messages and pictures, when this same information can be instantly delivered to a group of people via the text feature? One of the more appealing features of Groovr is its instant chat capability.

A more distinctive feature of Groovr can be seen on its city ‘Explore‘ page. This page lets you post items that are unique to your city, such as photos taken at a specific monument, and share them with other people in that same general area. This gives users the opportunity to view how others are documenting their own unique experiences in the same surroundings.

Again, while I think that this is an interesting feature, Groovr, like other mobile social networks, is still plagued by compatibility issues. Not all phones support these features, such as the Explore page, which makes it difficult for the company penetrate the mainstream mobile market. Until Groovr serves as more than just an extension of online tools that already exist (via Twitter and Flickr), it may have a hard time surviving into the future.

While there may be a day when all of these hardware and network issues are addressed, allowing for greater innovation on mobile devices, PC-based services like Facebook continue to dominate the social networking arena.

By Hilary Powell

Since Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans in 2005, causing several hundred thousand people to evacuate, there have been varying reports on just how many people have returned to the city.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center has come up with a visual way to display population indicators, or ways to estimate how many people are living in the city.

One map uses color coding to show how many households are receiving mail. This mailing list data represents the number of residential addresses per block where the post office knows someone actually picks up the mail.

In April, the Center issued a press release stating that the city population had reached 71.8 percent of the pre-Katrina population, up from 49.5 percent in August 2006.

The map and related spreadsheet break down residents actively receiving mail within the city’s 6 parishes.

Another map uses home rebuilding grants to estimate how many residents have returned to salvage their properties.

The Web site’s data expert indicates the population estimates are constantly shifting. A map story form allows for the information to be constantly updated, as well as visually engaging.