Glasgow 2020 - the dreaming city

I have seen this gradually take form since the event last year. Intend to read it through the week. Oh, it's free!

This book maps out the story of our cities - the places they are now and the places they will become. It is told through the experience of one city - Glasgow.

The Dreaming City contains the journey of an experiment in opening up a city's future. The experience of Glasgow 2020 - and a programme of events which reached out accross the city and its citizens - shows that people have the capacity and imagination to make their own futures.The project used stories and storytelling to provoke thinking about the future across the whole city.

This book contains a selection of some of these stories, as well as examples of other materials. It offers a different perspective to the world of 'the official future' and breaks new ground in how we think about the future of cities.

Get it!

Scratching the surface

If anyone doubts Microsoft's ability to innovate, i ask you to check out Surface Computing.

This is probably the most innovative technology that i have seen in recent times that is actually being used in the real world. The juke box thing was very cool and with this flipped upright and available as part of your media centre, this could really be the future of video and music in the home.

I watched the video with my 4 year old who was fascinated by it and he went off to get his own surface computer ... (one of these magnetic writing boards for kids)

Plazes

I'm on the new Plazes alpha - looks very exciting but i don't think i can post anything about it quite yet.

Looks pretty exciting anyway!

Designing and Evaluating Mobile Applications for New Social Experiences

I went to an event tonight entitled "Designing and Evaluating Mobile Applications for New Social Experiences" which was presented by Dr. Lynne Baillie.

It was a last minute decision to attend (i never knew about it) but i was glad i went as some of the ideas presented touched on many of the things i have been thinking about and working on for some time now (in fact i created my first WAP site way back in 1998!).

Much of what she discussed reminded me of some of the concepts on nexet generation technologies discussed in Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs. It was however, exciting to see it actually working (or at least the results of it).

Lot's of cool stuff i'll be following up on.

Clyde Property

I know a number of you from around Glasgow have emailed me in the past so you may be interested in my latest issue.

Clyde Property Letting. Yep, we left our house after 3 and a half years (when Xavier was brought up) and they are now hoping we are happy to pay for the cleaning of the whole house, despite us putting a lot of work in to ensure it was clean.

As an example, they want us to pay for the cleaning of arguably the leakiest windows in the West End and a 5 year old smoke stained CREAM couch. There are a number of other issues i wish i had the time to go into, but let's see how this goes....