The PLAN MRL workshop, was a week long brainstorm and work session on mobile, locative and pervasive computing at the Mixed Reality Lab in Nottingham.

There were 18 full time participants from the UK and Europe as well as additional participants joining in from the MRL and other parts of Nottingham's computer science department.

During the week the participants gave presentations took part in roundtable discussions and spilit into groups to work on prototyping the ideas that came up in discussions. Group prototypes included a working 'locative ipod' which recorded geographical position (via GPS) in relation to the track you are listening to and where you are in that music track . The result was a system that allowed you to walk around and 'find' and 'follow' tracks left by other users, hearing them as you crossed the paths left. Another prototype was web 2.0 mapping framework ported to a smartphone and using a base map generated by the Open Street Map project. This allowed you via 'georss' syndication to download a list of personalised and recently updated events and places of interest on to your phone and to be notified when you entered a circle of proximity. This resulted from an interesting convergence of skills from pervasive computing researchers, mobile phone, web 2.0, and digital mapping specialists, combined with the intersdisciplinary and cultural perspectives of the artists and social scientists.

Cross-disciplinary teams were formed to work on seed project ideas and develop methodologies. Ideas from the workshop helped create a frame of reference, and set the agenda for the Social Technology Summit at Futuresonic 2006.

At the end of the week the group shared information on funding possibilities, which included accounts of experience with open-sourcce, different research councils, arts funding bodies and commercial funding avenues.

The workshop was a platform and a model for some interesting work, an exchange of perspectives, it resulted in some continuing and productive collaborations between participants, and a wider appreciation of possibilities in terms of work, collaboration and funding.

The wiki from the workshop is here

Organised by Ben Russell, Steve Benford, Drew Hemment

Workshop participants:

Mikel Maron, web mapping frameworks : Mika Raento, mobile phone programmer : Malcolm Hall, Equator, Glasgow : Marek Bell, Equator, Glasgow : Steve Coast, openstreetmap.org : Libby Miller, Semantic web researcher : Lalya Gaye, Future Aplplications Lab : Christian Nold, designer : John Stell, mathematician : Iain Mott, Sound artist : Karl-Petter Akesson, SICS : Leif Opperman : Mark Paxton, MRL : Adam Drozd, MRL : Drew Hemment, PLAN : Steve Benford, PLAN : Ben Russell, PLAN