SXSW

You may have heard some of the exciting feline technology news coming out of SXSW this year. If not, check this out!

The video above displays three early “cat games” released by Friskies brand cat food at SXSW 2011, which included “Cat Fishing,” “Tasty Treasures Hunt,” and “Party Mix”. However, at this year’s SXSW Interactive they unveiled an all new cat game titled “You vs. Cat.” This game will allow for humans to play their companion animals for the first time. Because the earlier apps were designed simply for cats, people could not play alongside them. The result is a lot videos of confused cats slapping and rubbing on iPad screens.

The “You vs. Cat” application allows you to play a simple game on your iPad with your feline friend by lobbing virtual objects at your cat’s “goal” across the iPad screen. more...

Bartle Bogle Hegarty has reportedly ended the homeless-Austinites-as-mobile-WiFi-spots experiment/publicity stunt that was one of the biggest news items to emerge out of South by Southwest 2012. There was strong backlash and, on this site, a thorough consideration of how the whole thing fit into broader political-economic currents. As a former psychiatric counselor who worked with currently or previously homeless folks, I’m happy to see any public discussion of homelessness as well as some relatively safe and transparent work opportunities—at around minimum wage—available to this often ignored population. But to me that conversation seemed to emerge more from the backlash than BBH’s actual involvement with the homeless community. I’d like to pick some of these threads up, add new ones, and consider what this incident has to say about the use of information technology as a development tool and knowledge workers’ relationships to postindustrial cities. These ideas were developed in conversation with Jason Farman, who was kind enough to provide the screencaps included below.

The Internet backbone—especially urban wireless infrastructure—generally exists as a series of nodes not remarked on, or massive nondescript buildings housing server farms just outside the attention of urban knowledge workers like myself. I don’t need to know how it happens. The infrastructural activity that undergirds so much of my work and life goes on whether I notice it or not. What’s interesting about BBH’s efforts, is that they bring the infrastructure directly into focus with mobile hotspots that you must see, name, and approach. I think the short-term publicity stunt may address the invisibility of the homeless that WiFi vendor Clarence points to, “They [residents] walk around and just see people, don’t talk to them. Past the homeless too. You don’t even see us.” But this new visibility trades invisibility for infrastructural non-awareness or acceptance. In DC, I can see the cell phone antennae in my neighborhood if I look hard enough, but I still don’t really care. BBH is asking us to accept homelessness as a feature of a wireless urban landscape to be navigated more...

This week, an ad agency (BBH Labs [see: previous stunt]) succeeded at its goal of grabbing headlines (see: Pitchfork and Wired) by employing homeless people as mobile WiFi hotspots for SXSW. While the scheme purports to be an attempt at “charitable innovation;” it is, in reality, a stunning expansion of neoliberal economic principles by turning exploitation into a feel-good sport.

The scheme distributes MiFi devices capable of sharing 4G connectivity to passersby. The homeless workers wear shirts that state “I’m [name], a 4G hotspot” and list the directions for connecting. Users must text the name of the homeless workers that they have encountered to a particular number and they then receive login credentials and a convenient link to a website that touts the benevolence of the ad agency responsible for helping both the user and the poor homeless person in front of them.

Users are also prompted to make a donation to the homeless person providing them with WiFi service. According to the firm’s “Director of Innovation, ” Saneel Radia, the program is a “charitable experiment” aimed at “charitable innovation.” The Homeless Hotspots website compares itself to street newspapers run by the homeless more...