I&IC workshop #1 at HEAD: output > Diagrams of uses

By Monday, October 6, 2014 Ethnography, Workshops, X-Posts Tags: 0043, Behavior, C, Documentation, Ethnography, HEAD, Sociology, Users Permalink 1

Note: the post “Soilless”, an ethnographic research presents the objectives for this workshop.

 

A first step in our field research approach consisted in investigating various on-line forums in which people comment/complain/discuss cloud computing services (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.). These boards are fascinating places to observe users’ practices, and the range of topics discussed is quite broad. We quickly discovered that it could enable us to build two typologies about the main usage of cloud computing services, and the motivation of users.

We basically built a corpus of messages that we categorized and represented visually with the following diagrams. They shed some light on cloud computing main use cases, namely the practices the cloud help people undertake. We intend to use them in the upcoming workshops as a stimulus/framing/inspiration for designers.

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The list of platforms and forums we investigated are the following: cloud drive (Dropbox, Google Drive, Insync, Copy, Spideroak, Wuala, Skydrive, SugarSync, LogMeIn Cubby, iCloud, Skydrive, Mozy Stash, Box, Syncplicity, Liner notes), filesharing systems(MediaFire, WeTransfer, YouSendIt), personal cloud services (OVH).

I&IC Workshop #1 at HEAD: “Soilless”, an ethnographic research

By Sunday, October 5, 2014 Ethnography, Society, Workshops, X-Posts Tags: 0042, C, Documentation, HEAD, Mobility, Sociology, Users Permalink 0

The first workshop in the project corresponds to a preliminary field research phase devoted to understanding people’s relationship with the Cloud. Given our ambition to revisit and explore alternative personal cloud systems, we find it important to investigate actual usage, problems, limits, experiences and situations related to the pervasive use of cloud computing.

 

Soilless – a research introduction and a field study from iiclouds.org design research on Vimeo.

 

Based on a series of user interviews and observations, we will address various issues related to this theme. Our aim is to have a sample of participants which practices have a certain diversity: nomadic workers, third-space users, musicians, VJs, journalists, etc. These interviews will be complemented by an analysis of on-line forums and groups focused on the discussion of cloud-related issues (Dropbox forums, blogs and social media messages discussing the limits and problems of these platforms, etc.).

Reblog > Floating Datacenters

By Friday, October 3, 2014 Sciences & Technology Tags: 0041, Datacenter, Engineering, Infrastructure, Sociology Permalink 0

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/10/28/the-barge-mystery-floating-data-centers/

The prototypes of the “Google Navy” have been discovered on both coasts. But are they floating data centers? Or some kind of marketing facility for Google Glass? This perspective pushes further the question of the legal borders of the physical nature of data. This refers to our research in a sociological way, and makes me think of Sealand’s Datacenter HeavenCo in international waters (even if the scale of the infrastructure is in no way simmilar).

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Via DataCenterKnowloedge

“Cloud infrastructures and the public’s right to understand it.”

By Friday, October 3, 2014 Resources, X-Posts Tags: 0040, ABCD, City, Datacenter, Engineering, Infrastructure Permalink 1

The Creative Time Report has a piece on cloud infrastructures and the public’s right to understand it. The author interestingly describe her discoveries:

In trying to see where data lives, I hoped to better understand how we live with data and, by extension, with the myriad forms of surveillance that it enables. We live with data by pretending that we don’t. The opacity of internet infrastructure and policy—and the insistence that ideally users shouldn’t need to see or understand either—occludes data, the institutions that hold it and the power they exercise with it. Ultimately, in a geography of power, the cloud is not the territory.

Data Center Grand Tour

By Friday, October 3, 2014 Resources Tags: 0039, City, Clouds, Datacenter, Engineering, Hardware, Infrastructure Permalink 0

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“Data Center Grand Tour” by Silvio Lorusso is a project that aimed at showing the data center where the info flowing into your computer is coming from:

ʻData Centers Grand Tour (This Data Belongs Here)ʼ starts here and will be an ongoing project for which Silvio Lorusso will be purchasing domain names and hosting in each country across the globe. For each domain a single web page will be hosted showing a satellite view of the geographical site at which that particular domainʼs data is stored. The tour will start by clicking at a destination, one click will take you to the next domain in a different country where you will again be able to view where that domainʼs data is stored, and so on until all of the countries in the world are covered

Stockholm 1982: The Hot Line

By Friday, October 3, 2014 Society Tags: 0038, Behavior, City, Hack, History, Infrastructure, Links, Social Permalink 0

http://blay.se/2012/09/17/hot-line-riot-1982/

In September 1982, the youths of Stockholm had discovered a specific way to meet each other: they used a bug in the routing of the city’s phone cabins to communicate through group calls, for free. This story is relevant as an ethnographical example of the influence of communication technologies on the behaviour of social groups, specifically through their misuse.

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Via Magnus Eriksson