So, no Reboot conference this year. However, a small team stepped up to organize Ersatz Conference for those who crave a shot of Copenhagen this time of the year. (Guilty as charged.) So Igor and I headed over to beautiful CPH and spent a few days there and took a short break from day-to-day work. Ersatz was just the excuse we had been looking for.
Just a few notes about the trip.
First of all: Thanks, thanks and thanks to Claus Dahl for spearheading the efforts to have Ersatz. Thanks also to the whole crew at Ersatz for switching to English during the conference to allow Igor and me to participate. (Along with Gernot Poetsch, we were the only non-locals.) Thanks to all participants for sharing their stories. Thanks to Steffen Christensen, Thomas Mygdal and Mark Jensen for giving us the tour of the new 23 offices and for Mark’s guided tour through the city – great fun!
The conference was an intimate, personal affair. Great stuff actually: Over BBQ and brunch there was plenty of time to share stories and insights, in workshops we could go more formal where needed. Igor and I gave a variation of the talk “Playful Cities” that Igor and Johannes had given before. And found out that quite a number of the projects we showed in the talk are already more or less implemented in Denmark, at least to some degree. I joked that Denmark might be living in the future already and nobody had noticed; in hindsight, I’m wondering if there’s more truth to it than I thought at the moment.
But Copenhagen has more to offer than conferences, and with a few days on our hands we went about finding the best third wave coffee in town. And boy, did we find good coffee. There are two places I’d like to highlight:
First, Ricco’s. Ricco’s is a mini chain, kind of a four-store franchise, and it’s just like an urban coffee shop should be: nice, relaxed atmosphere, intense and interested baristas who care to help you find the best you might want to have, and, well, delicious coffee. Great, absolutely fresh snacks, too. It’s a pleasure. I was only at one of the shops, but I’m sure they’re all great.
Second, Kaffe & Vinyl. This is an entirely different atmosphere, but just as great. In its tiny-ness it might even be more social. Kaffe & Vinyl, like the name indicates, is a coffee shop & vinyl store. You get to listen to and buy a small, but on first glance very decent selection of records – which are also the source of the music played in store, of course – and an even smaller but equally good selection of caffeinated products. The shop is clearly a labor of love, and it shows. Folks cue up and don’t mind waiting a few minutes to get a cuppa and then sit mostly outside in the sun as there is space for no more than a few inside at any time. While I was there I ended up chatting with a few folks, one of them claiming that besides Bonanza Coffee Heroes (my favorite Berlin coffee shop) and Coffee Collective, Kaffe & Vinyl might be the best coffee shop in Europe. Quite a claim, and there are too many coffee shops in Europe I haven’t checked out (yet), but it’s certainly not crazy to assume that there’s a spot at the top with Kaffe & Vinyl’s name on it. I didn’t make it to Coffee Collective this time, but hey, there’s always a next Reboot and thus a chance to check them out.
Anyway, long story short: Next time your in Copenhagen, make sure to grab a cup at each of those!
Image: Ersatz Bike by Sten Jauer
[permalink]So after seemingly endless debates, moving launch dates and massive protests by privacy groups and – worth noticing – Ilse Aigner, the minister of of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, it looks like Google just pretty silently launched Streetview in Germany. Kind of.
Kind of because it’s not the real Streetview, but a slightly different take on the original idea, based not on Google’s own photo material but on user-generated photos. Let’s have a look.
But first, let me put it in perspective briefly. While sharing many privacy concerns regarding all kinds of online services, I find Streetview to be very much not a problem at all. All faces are pixelated, and it’s the public space. I’ll side with Jeff Jarvis who says:
I argue that what is public belongs to us, the public, and efforts to reduce what’s public steals from us. Journalists should be particularly protective of what is public; so should we all.
He goes on to state that once we start prohibiting private companies from taking pictures there’s a threat we’ll start doing the same with citizens, then journalists. You get the drift. Full ack. What’s public is public. We live in a state where politicians openly demand more video surveillance and even does the occasional biometric video surveillance pilot project – in my book, that’s much, much worse.
But back to the point. Below you see a screenshot of Streetview in New York. Please note the high-quality of the pictures, and perspective of the environment as seen from the street. You can “move” along the street. It’s useful. It’s not super pretty, but it does the job, which is help you get oriented.
Then look at the German flavor of Streetview (screenshot below). It’s based on user-generated photos (by ways of Panoramio), which isn’t necessarily bad, but doesn’t quite seem to work here. It’s not consistent, it’s all different perspectives, and it’s not all current photo material. Some of the photos submitted are clearly from the 80s or early 90s. Interesting, sure. Useful, not really.
What’s more, since the photos are user-generated and – I’m assuming – not automatically analyzed and manipulated, the faces aren’t pixelated like the ones taken by Google themselves. In other words: Privacy is much worse, as is the overall usefulness. We get the worst of both worlds.
I’m not sure if I should applaud Google for the pluck to go with this hack; if I should congratulate privacy groups for a success (if you want to call it that) in standing up to a large corporation; or if I should lament that our minister for consumer protection just delivered the worst possible result in this conflict, which means that neither user rights (privacy) nor user needs (useful navigation services) are met.
In a way, this whole play really summarizes all that’s skewed in the odd love-hate relationship that Germany has with the web.
Full disclaimer: I’ve worked with Google before and I’m a member of the Google Internet & Society Collaboratory.
[permalink]Yesterday I visited DMY Berlin, one of Berlin’s leading design festivals. In this post I’d like to share a few impressions.
This year, DMY was held at the recently-closed airport Tempelhof, so needless to say the architecture there is quite a backdrop for a design festival. (Check out what Flickr has to offer on Tempelhof.)
I was there primarily to check out the DMY Maker Lab, an area of DMY focused on Open Design.
DMY Maker Lab Trailer from KS12 on Vimeo.
It was initiated by a a loose network called Open Design Berlin, a bunch of folks doing everything from laser cutting to 3D printing to silk screening and much, much more. More than anything, the whole scene reminded me of a mix between a workshop and a playground, and I guess those metaphors both fit in a sense.
Long story short: I asked Michelle Thorne to briefly explain what the Maker Lab is all about; and then asked Christopher Doering and Mendel Heit to say a few words about cooking bioplastic. Below you’ll find a very quick & dirty edit of the video:
DMY Maker Lab from thewavingcat on Vimeo.
The video only covers a tiny fraction of what was going on at the Maker Lab, both in terms of tinkering and people, but alas, there you go. I didn’t even get around to look at the printing, screening, photo booth, food stuff and what not. Nor did I manage to talk to many of the folks as I had to run, and that’s really a pity. As those kinds of loose networks go, they tend to be very diverse and not to have one voice but many. So this video can only hope to give a glimpse.
(My apologies for the poor quality. If anyone wants to re-edit the material, feel free to download the files from my Vimeo channel here, here and here.)
But there was more to discover than the Maker Lab. Some random finds I noticed and found interesting, in no particular order, but worth checking out: nobrand, an Argentinian design studio that works strongly with Argentina’s national icons. The (Un)limited Design Contest where you can win a 3D printer. (The real stuff.) A whole group of Taiwanese designers and design students which pretty much all amazing. The KeepCup, a decent take on re-usable to go cups. The really intense YLWT // Your Sins (-) Our Virtues. And of course the gorgeous installation “for those who see” by Daniel Schulze:
DMY Berlin: Daniel Schulze “For Those Who See” from thewavingcat on Vimeo.
(All designers are listed here.)
To finish off, a few random pics I took while at DMY:
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Update: New date for Cognitive Cities Conference is 26/27 February 2011 (details).
A few friends and I are planning a conference this fall. Please allow me to cross-post from the Cognitive Cities blog:
Our future will be played out in cities. The projections tell us that our planet will resemble some very familiar fictional fantasies: 75% of the global population will be living by 2050 in cities or mega cities. Between slums and mass poverty on one hand and eco-sustainable living on the other hand, there will be both tough problems to solve and exciting visions to realize. We are at a point in time where the paths are set for the future of cities. The Cognitive Cities Conference wants to pick up the vibrant global conversation about the future of cities and bring it to Germany. By bringing bright minds with different perspectives together, it is our ambition to enable not only an in-depth exchange about the current state of affairs, but also to foster new projects. We believe that collaboration and diversity lead to the best results. We see the Cognitive Cities Conference as a platform for exchange and mutual inspiration and invite urban planners, designers, technology geeks, environmental experts, public officials, urban gardening enthusiasts and cultural influencers to be part of the conversation. We can only make our cities more liveable if we work together to improve them. The format of the conference will be a combination of lightning talks and workshop style sessions. Participants will share ideas, thoughts and challenges based on their diverse backgrounds, thus presenting different perspectives and approaches to the challenges we share. We are planning a one track only event, with the option for break-out sessions at any time. Where and when? Cognitive Cities Conference 02./03. October 2010 Coworking Cologne Who is Cognitive Cities for? We believe that diversity is essential for mutual inspiration. Cognitive Cities is aimed at designers, architects, futurists, urban planners, web geeks, activists, urban dwellers, you name it. If you are interested in the future of your city, you are most welcome. Who is behind Cognitive Cities Conference? Axel Quack, Igor Schwarzmann, Johannes Kleske, Markus Reuter, Martin Spindler, Peter Bihr, Welf Kirschner. Powered by CognitiveCities.com. Cognitive Cities is organized on a non-profit basis. We will provide more details and a dedicated link soon.
Until we have a site up, please refer to the original post.
For us, the idea behind Cognitive Cities isn’t just focused on urban planning.
That’s very important, as I’d like to stress that we hope to touch on other fields that are just as relevant to living in a city: think smart homes, smart grids, smart meters. Think augmented reality, Spime, sensors, cell phones, geo-tagging. Think open data. Think transportation, car sharing, intelligent trip planning. (Jetpacks, anyone?) Think reclaiming your city bottom-up. Think street art and locative art. Think green living and rooftop gardens and urban gardening. All of these, and many more, will influence our lives in the city. And all of them should be represented at our conference.
Also, I’d like to briefly put this in context: I know this all is, so far, pretty vague. We’ll get more concrete soon. Until then, we’ll be getting in touch with a first batch of potential speakers and sponsors to cover basic costs and, hopefully, some travel grants for speakers or guests who couldn’t come otherwise. We got to this event via atoms&bits, so there’s a connection here too. Props and thanks to Martin Spindler for getting the ball rolling and getting me on board! Also, thanks to Axel for enabling us to use Coworking Cologne as our conference location. As always, having a location for an event always is a huge load off of our shoulders.
So while we’re setting up the basic infrastructure to organize an event, please feel free to get in touch. For the time being, the best way is to either leave a comment on the original post or here, or to drop any of us organizers a line directly. We’re all pretty easy to reach. (In my case, the contact form or Twitter.) Update: Email us at info@cognitivecities.com.
Thanks for the patience, and for spreading the word. We’re all really looking forward to this.
Update: Official hashtag is #cocities.
Image: Taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II., a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from yakobusan’s photostream
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A few weeks ago, four recent NYU graduates announced – to the background noise of the latest (of many) major Facebook privacy fail – that they intended to build a privacy-focuses, decentralized, open-source alternative to Facebook. A social network, installed on a server of your choice, the data controlled by you alone.
Their fundraising period just ended. Instead of the $10K they had planned to raise, they got some $200K in pledges on Kickstarter.
There are several interesting points here: (1) these four young guys seem fairly inexperienced, yet they are a main focal point of hope for a large & growing number of privacy concerned web heads, including myself, so they get all the attention and are in a very interesting place right now. (2) After their initial announcement and the following hype (both on blogs and traditional media) they fell practically silent for several weeks. Which didn’t go down to well with many including myself, but others are more forgiving that way. (3) How can they match the expectations? Is there even a clear consensus about where the road should lead? Can they manage to pull of the first steps towards a prototype and open source quickly enough to engage the community, including some of the veterans of this field like Chris Messina and David Recordon (who both work for big companies now)?
As of yesterday, the Diaspora website is relaunched and also offers the Diaspora roadmap (PDF). Looks like late summer is still the first big milestone. From the (very top-level) roadmap, and with my very limited knowledge about the technical background of social networking and distributed computing, the project seems to be sensible. I really hope the four of them manage to pull off the first steps quickly enough to get more people and support on board.
This is potentially huge. But so is the chance of screwing up. And they just put a lot of stuff on a plate that’s growing by the day.
Image: IMG_4567, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from nearnearfuture’s photostream
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