This document summarizes an article about urban sensing and using data collected from sensors and mobile devices. It discusses how research has shifted from natural environments to urban areas. Cell phones and embedded sensors now make it easier to collect and visualize real-time data about cities. Examples are given of using phone location data to map user activity in Rome. The challenges and opportunities of centralized vs. decentralized data collection and issues of privacy, copyright and engaging the public are discussed. Building an open "data commons" is presented as a way to provide insights, ask new questions and encourage public discourse.

1. Urban sensing:
Out of the woods
Communications of the ACM
Computer science & information systems magazine
2008 Journal by Dana Cuff, Mark Hansen and Jerry Kang

2. Sensing Research
Lab > Natural environment
Shift in emphasis from
natural to urban

3. Urban sensing
Cell phone as a sensor
Embedded networked sensors greatly reduce the
technical barrier to visualize data in real space

5. Number of cellular
phone users in north-
eastern Rome at
different hours of a
day. May 2006
Real-time data
GIS data
Raster images

7. July 09 July 10
AFTERNOON
EVENING
MIDNIGHT
The final match of the World Cup was played on July 9, from 8 to 10 pm approximately. Afterwards, people
started celebrating around the Circo Massimo, shown in the image. The following day the Italian winning team
arrived in Rome and celebrations continued from the afternoon till morning.

8. Sensing Systems
Full Centralization
Participatory
Decentralized

9. Bad Data Processing
Observer Effect “junk data”
Altered human behavior

10. D-Tower
Spark interaction
Promote a new
community feeling

11. Data Commons
Shared collection
Not just for science but also advocacy, art, play,
and politics.
“every sensor in the environment is a question”

12. Value of Data Commons
Provide answers
Pose new questions
Open new opportunities for public discourse

13. Building Data Commons
Privacy
Copyright protects creative expressions,
not information
Interface
Increasingly more critical to gathering information

14. Public Sphere
Must be available to diverse members
Opportunity for multiple users
Encourage exchange of information
Sirens & Cyclops