“Pictures of Clouds”, 1995

By Wednesday, October 21, 2015 Resources, Sciences & Technology, X-Posts Tags: 0114, Clouds, Computing, History, Infrastructure, Networks Permalink 0

I found this quite funny yet revealing diagram related to the paper “A brief history of cloud computing” (already mentioned earlier on this blog), by Maximiliano Destefani Neto. It describes the time, back in 1995 according to Mr. Neto, when “Pictures of Clouds” started to appear in technical drawings about networks and the then emerging network computing (grid computing started to be a buzz word around the same time).

The purposes of these schematic “clouds” were to synthesize “too complicated for non technical people to understand” parts of the infrastructure into one image/logotype. It was the icon of the cloud! And it revealed to be a clever choice, because it probably helped to keep the whole infrastructure “blurry”, “hidden”, “invisible” or “un-understandable”… “It happens in the cloud“, this fuzzy technological arrangement and therefore you don’t really need to explain it.

 

clouds_of_1995

 

Now in 2015, we’re almost fully immersed into these “clouds”. Literally living in them, through them, … but they still remain blurry!

Continue Reading…

Datadroppers, a communal tool to drop off and/or pick up data (and then develop projects)

By Thursday, October 8, 2015 Projects, Resources, Sciences & Technology, X-Posts Tags: 0111, Clouds, D, Data, Open source, Service, Sharing, Tools, Web Permalink 0

Note: fabric | ch, one of our partner on this project, has developed an open source data sharing tool that tries to simplify the procedures of declaring/logging and sharing data (from “connected sensor things”, mainly). This is Datadroppers. The service is somehow similar, yet slightly more versatile than the now vanished Pachube, or the contemporary, but proprietary, Dweet.io (that we’ve already mentioned in the resources section of this blog).

One of the interesting points in this case is that the new web service has been created by designers/coders that are themselves in need of such data service for their own work, promising in some ways that it won’t be commodified.

The other interesting point is the fact that they are formally involved in this design research project as well (through Christian Babski, developer), which should help us match the functions of Datadroppers with OwnCloud: through the use of the documented OwnCloud Core Processing Library and the one of Datadroppers, new paradigms and artifacts in file/data sharing and cloud operations could be envisioned, implemented and tested.

But moreover and mainly, projects made by the design community could be developed that will take advantages of the open resources of Processing (later on, Javascipt as well), OwnCloud and these libraries. Designing tools remains one of the goals of this design research project. Designing artifacts that will use these (improved) tools will be the work of the coming year in our design research…

 

Via fabric | rblg, via datadroppers.org

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Continue Reading…

Raspberry Pi and GrovePi, “Get Started” and other resources

By Saturday, May 2, 2015 Resources, Sciences & Technology Tags: 0105, Code, Computing, Data, Hardware, Links, Makers, Monitoring, Tools Permalink 0

http://www.dexterindustries.com/GrovePi/get-started-with-the-grovepi/

Note: in the context of previous workshop (Networked Data Objects with M. Plummer-Fernandez a.k.a #algopop), we’ve been working with a combination of Raspberri Pi’s and sensors. We will continue with this hardware choice, even increase it during a coming exhibition at H3K, Poetics and Politics of Data. But for this, we will switch to the GrovePi solution when it comes to sensors, which will ease the prototyping part.

Here is a good resource about Pi’s and Grove sensors on Dexter Industries’ website.

Decentralization tools – links

By Thursday, April 2, 2015 Resources, Society, X-Posts Tags: 0103, ABCD, Links, Tools Permalink 0

A brief post on additional open-source services, software, hardware, community and art projects we stumbled upon during our ongoing research:

 

Commodify.us (service) enables users to retrieve their Facebook data, anonymize it and sell it back for market value. We’re not sure it’s legit (there’s a security warning while loading the site). It however seems to be the same people behind another service of the sort: GiveMeMyData.com

Freifunk.net (community) is a community-powered free wireless network originating from Germany.

Guifi.net (community) is an open, free and neutral telecommunication network built piece by piece (by literally deploying cables and antennas) by the community. The project originates from Spain.

Superglue.it (service, community) is a free tool to build and host your website at home. The project seems ambitious as it combines self-hosting hardware standards with a custom-made WYSIWYG webpage builder and a template repository fed by users (all webpages built become open-source templates).

FluidNexus.net (software) is a mobile messaging app for Windows and Android. It uses Bluetooth and the movement of crowds to spread data and suppresses the need for operators, a bit like the Firechat app. It however seems that the project has been abandoned in 2009.

Uncloud (software) is an application that enables anyone with a laptop to create an open wireless network and share information. Users can connect wirelessly while remaining disconnected from the internet.

GoTenna (hardware) is a product enabling users to text and share their location even when there is no telecom tower or satellite coverage.

AirChat (software, hardware) is a free, secure and open-source telecommunication network built by LulzLabs working a laptop and a hacked radio.

Alternet.cc (speculative design) is a free and secure communications network hypothetically built and maintained by the community.

Project Maelstrom Last but not least, Project Maelstrom is BitTorrent latest proposition to decentralize web hosting through the BitTorrent protocol – We cannot help to ask ourselves: Is it still decentralization if it’s owned by a company?

Project Fi While we’re in the corporate sphere: Google is apparently aiming to take over the front-end costumor away from telecom companies. Perhaps decentralization is becoming just another marketing argument for companies who actually want centralize (read: capitalize on) your data.

We will continue to add links as our research goes forward. In the meanwhile, you can find all the links mentioned in the research project on Delicious under the tag “i&ic_designresearch” (note: also mentioned in this previous post, “Public Survey on Delicious“, within the Resources category on this blog).

 

For additional and updated resources, a Github is maintained that lists tools:

https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet

http://redecentralize.org/