UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

Digital Mobility An for the Digital Lifestyle

A thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

In the School of Architecture and Interior Design College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning

16 May 2007

Mark W. Chachula Bachelor of Architectural Engineering The Pennsylvania State University

Committee Chair: Jay Chatterjee Committee Second Chair: Elizabeth Riorden Abstract

Being mobile means having the ability to easily access goods, services, information and people from other physi- cal locations. Traditionally this meant traveling from place to place or building to building. With the computer and the internet, however, it is possible to do these things all from one single location regardless of where we are on Earth. This is Digital Mobility. Today with the internet this takes place through a screen using a mouse and keyboard as opposed to through experiencing a variety of buildings and spaces. Architecture for the digital lifestyle will merge our digital experiences with physical experiences by providing a reconfigurable environment that allows us to truly inhabit the internet. Instead of experiencing the internet through the screen it is experienced through the building and the space we inhabit. In this way there is access to many dif- ferent places and environments from one single location. It is architecture that embodies digital mobility.

INTRODUCTION Objective Mobility

MOBILE ARCHITECTURE History Trends Summary

DIGITAL MOBILITY Mobility and the Internet Digital Mobility and Existing Architecture Virtual vs. Physical Tasks Digital Mobility

THE DWeL NETWORK The Network Components of the Network

CONCLUSION The DWeL Network and Digital Mobility

APPENDICES The Systems of the Server Building Precedents Research

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Where did you “go” today? Did you work, shop or meet with an old friend? How many “places” did you visit? Did you leave your home in the process, or did you do all of these things on the internet without ever getting out of your chair? Perhaps you accomplished these tasks from a coffee shop, an airport, a library or even your car? The ability to access many places with a computer and through the internet from almost anywhere is one of the hallmarks of the Digital Age: Mobility.

INTRODUCTION Mobility refers to our ability to access different things that are located at different geographic locations from where we are. We need to be mobile in order to go access information, goods, different activities, people, cultures and recreational opportunities. Where we go to do these things says a lot about who we are. We associate these places with our specific lifestyle and identities.

Traditionally, going places has meant that we would travel from one location to another to take part in the tasks listed above. We move our bodies from the building we were in to other locations and buildings that were specifically designed to accommodate these tasks. Once there we would perform our task then move on to the next location, the next building and the next task before returning to the building where we reside. Mobile Architecture typically meant a portable environment we would take with us from place to place to accomplish these tasks.

Today we can “go” many places by using the computer and the internet. We can use these tools to access people, activities, services, communities, information and even goods from anywhere on earth1. In this manner the internet has allowed us to become mobile by allowing us access to these many different tasks that we used to have to travel to accomplish. In this way it has also begun to replace some of the activities that buildings used to house2. The more we have taken part in these internet tasks and the more they have become part of our life the more mobile we are becoming. As we are increasingly able to “go” anywhere in the internet we are also able to locate physically in a wider variety of places because many of the buildings we used to

7 locate near because we used them frequently are being virtually replaced by the computer and the internet3. In this manner we are experiencing and benefiting from a new form of mobility that is made possible by the computer and the internet. Digital Mobility.

Digital Mobility thus presents us with two main characteristics and forms of mobility. The first is the ability to “go” many places digitally and procure services, meetings and goods that we used to need to physically travel for. The second is the increasing detachment from location afforded us by the ability to perform many tasks online. No longer do we need to live close enough to offices, stores, schools or people to be able to travel to them everyday because we can perform many of these tasks through the Fig 1. Computer and internet become our buildings. internet from anywhere in the world.

Today our digital mobility is manifested in the places we can “go” and the tasks that we can accomplish through the computer and the internet. This sort of mobility provides us with many opportunities to connect with people and resources and to do some from an increasing number of locations, but it leaves much to be desired in the actual experience.

It is not uncommon for many people today to spend most of their work day and a fair amount of their time at home behind a computer screen and navigating and inhabiting the environment of the internet. Research shows that 73% of Americans have access to and use the internet. In the demographic that is most likely to be digitally mobile, about 85% of those making over $30,000 per year (annual Fig 2. We can access all these places from anywhere. household income) are online. The percentage increases as the average household earning does4. 8 The things that we do online are more and more replacing our trips to buildings with quick trips to web sites that have little to do with the actual environment we are inhabiting, such as our office, home office, coffee shop etc.

As more of our life is lived in the computer and the internet we need to question how we inhabit and experience this environment. We need to ask if there is a better way to interact with the people and places of the internet than through a screen with a mouse and keyboard. If we spend so much of our day “in” the environment of the internet, is there a way that we can actually inhabit this digital experience? Is there a way that we can “go” many places and experience them through the internet that is more associated with how we are used to experiencing people and places?

This thesis proposes an architecture that allows us to live our life in the computer and inhabit our digital experiences. Once we do, we can truly begin to take advantage our digital mobility.

The objective is to explore and understand the parts of the digital revolution that are disassociating us from place and allowing us greater freedom to be mobile. With this understanding, a design will be explored that will illustrate these opportunities with a new building typology that facilitates our digital mobility.

First the thesis will look at the history of mobile architecture. This exploration will reveal trends in architecture relative to why we take our environments with us, what they provide Fig 3. The environment where we spend large portions of our life.

9 and what a digital architecture can provide. Next it will explore our lifestyle as affected by the digital revolution. This will include examining how we use the internet, how this affects our relationship with the built environment, and how it has enabled us with two forms of digital mobility. Finally it will propose a design that we can inhabit digitally, that facilitates both traits of digital mobility as well as those learned from traditional mobile architecture.

This thesis is about mobility and opportunity but it also looks at how we live our lives in the wake of the digital lifestyle. Our lives have changed, they are lived increasingly online and our buildings are not designed to accommodate this lifestyle. This thesis examines what we do in a virtual world and what we still need to do in our physical realm; and asks if there is a way to merge these experiences in a physical environment. By investigating how our lives have changed we can better facilitate them and a built environment that is relevant in the age of our digital mobility.

Fig 4. With digital mobility, we can go almost anywhere from almost anywhere we choose. 10 introduction - end notes

(1) Siegal, Jennifer. Mobile : The Art of Portable Architecture. 1st ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002., p.14 (2) Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995., p.47 (3) Mitchell, William J. E-Topia : “Urban Life, Jim--but Not as we Know it”. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999, p.71 (4) Day, Jennifer Cheeseman, Alex Janus, and Jessica Davis. “Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003” US Census Bureau Oct 2005. . (5) Madden, Mary. “Internet Penetration and Impact” Pew Internet and American Life Project April 26, 2006. . introduction - photo credits

[fig1a] mmahaffie. Digital image. [Vault Door]. 2005. 14 May 2007 . [fig1b] *Your Guide. Digital image. [Car/trolley sign and clouds]. 2005. 14 May 2007 . [fig1d] Piqueres, Jaime V. Digital image. [The average office]. 2006. 3 Sept. 2006 . [fig1e] chrisjfry. Digital image. [Five More Minutes]. 2007. 19 Apr. 2007 . [fig2] nashsnazzy. Digital image. [Laptop and coffee]. 2007. 14 May 2007 . [fig3] ralphbod. Digital image. [The home office]. 2006. 26 Apr. 2007 . [fig4] madjag. Digital image. [Galiuro Gompa]. 2005. 19 Apr. 2007 . Throughout time Mobile Architecture has existed in some form or another. Ever since early hunter/gatherers picked up their shelters to move and pursue sustenance man has been on the move and taking his environment with him. Between then and now many different forms of portable environments have been developed to sup- port a variety of lifestyles. This section will look at some examples of mobile architecture throughout time and isolate a few common points between them. It will also identify some points from these examples that can be used in support of the digital lifestyle and digital mobility,

MOBILE ARCHITECTURE HISTORY OF MOBILE ARCHITECTURE

Many early cultures were nomadic and thus developed forms of architecture that would support this lifestyle1. These early structures consisted of basic shelters such as tents to elaborate pieces of social identity such as the Jewish Tabernacle. Some societies were formed around this mobile lifestyle, with different buildings and village ar- rangements developed that would reflect these societies, and of course could be moved.

Fig 5. A beduin hunt.

Fig 7. A Yurt.

Fig 6. The Jewish Tabernacle.

13 Once man settled down and began to lead docile/domes- tic lifestyles in the earlly cultures, there were limited de- velopments in mobile architecture. Most developments in the realm of portable environments and mobile archi- tecture were for military campaigns and imperial explora- tions. Supporting troops and explorers meant moving a large amount of people as well as goods, and a variety of mobile architecture evolved from simple tent structures to elaborate sailing ships that would serve as home and envi- ronment for explorers as they traveled the globe, carrying everything they would need with them.

Fig 8. Hannibal’s elephants.

Fig 9. Conestoga wagon. Fig 10. Military encampment.

14 The advent of the industrial revolution brought about new technologies that changed the lifestyles of people in the world as well as their opportunities. Throughout the 19th century the world would industrialize and see advances that would allow for greater mobility such as the steam engine, electricity, steel, the process of standardization and the as- sembly line. In addition to changing architecture forever by bearing the Modern Movement, these technologies would bring the world closer together by providing global travel by train, steamship and plane all of which contained their own forms of portable environments.

Fig 11. The Pullman sleeper and dining car.

Fig 12. Oceanliner full of births and galleys. Fig 13. The early Ford assembly line.

15 The industrial product that most changed lifestyles in ways that can still be seen today is the automobile. It was the first to really spawn a wave of mobile architecture based on assembly line production but mainly on personal mo- bility. People, mainly Americans were given the ability to explore their world much as the early explorers and pio- neers did and never looked back. The trend of opportunity to explore and be mobile that the automobile represents is still important today. The internet has opened up many opportunities for individuals to explore their world and con- nect to people and places all over.

Early 20th century designers such as Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier and Jean Prouve began exploring these new personal freedoms as well as the opportunities of mass Fig 14. The Dymaxion Car. production and assembly line technology. The problem was that the lifestyle wasn’t necessarily in place to support widespread use of this mobile architecture, This would change in America after World War II when the American Dream of self sufficiency, home ownership and adventure was fed by the opportunities of the new interstate system and the romance of the open road.

The image and explorations which came to typify mobile ar- chitecture however was tied more to the automobile2 and exhibited in the works of Fuller (Dymaxion Car, Mechanical Wing) Carl Meyer (The Trailer of Tomorrow) and Wally By- ham (the Airstream trailer). The lasting image from this time that is applicable today and still growing is Byham’s Airstream trailer which is still produced today in a variety of forms. It has become an icon for mobile architecture associated with the automobile. Fig 15. Airstream Trailer.

16 The late 50’s and 1960’s were the beginning of the space race in the United States and the Soviet Union and the race to put humans in space and on the moon inspired a whole new type of self-sustaining, portable environment. The metabolists, Archigram, and of course NASA in ad- dition to other space agencies were experimenting with capsule-like pods based on the technology of the time of electronics and very early computers. The language of the structures of that time were very futuristic and space- themed as architects imagined a time when we would live in colonies in space or a time when this new technology would completely upend the way we live on earth.

Today mobile architecture means a lot of different things. Some of the main explorations however are based on sus- tainability (Office of Mobile Design) and globalization (LOT- EK). There is also a strong curiosity with premanufactured modular housing such as seen at fabprefab.com and vari- ous explorations in other forms of personal environments. Finally, today we are surrounded by various practical forms of mobile architecture as exhibited in hot dog carts, kiosks, festival tents and others that have developed over the years3. These practical forms of mobile structure have gone largely unnoticed but do attribute to and are perhaps the most visible form of mobile architecture.

Fig 16. Archigram’s Walking City.

17 Fig 17. NASA space capsule. Fig 18. Office of Mobile Design

Fig 19. LOT-EK mobile dwelling unit. Fig 20. Alleswirdgut Turn/On

18 OUTCOMES AND RELEVANCE

The examples that were reviewed here represent a wide variety of structures and a wide variety of uses and they have a few general things in common that can be related to today’s digital mobility. The first thing to note is how often developments in architecture were tied to discover- ies and advances in technology. Exploration in the Imperial Age was allowed by advances in navigational science and astronomy. The Industrial Revolution gave us boats, trains and most importantly automobiles. The space age inspired futuristic works by the Metabolists and Archigram. All of these movements reacted to technology and considered the possibilities of mobility that they opened up. They real- ized that these technologies would change the way we lived our lives and they expressed the opportunities of the these evolving lifestyles. Today the digital revolution has similarly changed our life and we can look forward to creating and taking advantage of new types of mobility.

Another important item to note, based on these examples is how they were often inspired by different forms of ex- ploration. This was either as in old where countries found adventuresome men to explore the world by ship or to go abroad and fight their battles or during the twentieth cen- tury when America fell in love with the automobile and the “open road” that it came to symbolize. There has always been a part of exploration and adventure associated with most forms of mobile architecture. This can be seen as directly related to the inspiration and optimism associated with the advances in technology.

Fig 21. Airstream Trailer.

19 In all of these cases, environments would be moved in sup- port of a specific lifestyle. Until now, in order to support those lifestyles the entire environment and associated material goods needed to be moved from place to place. Mobile architecture was about taking your structure with you because that was all there was, and we associated these structures with our identity and our homes. It also is limited because it can only be near one task at a time. Today we do not need to take our entire environment with us wherever we go. We have the opportunity to recreate it digitally. In addition, we also can complete many tasks online, so we are never isolated from what we need. We carry flows and move across places4. Today we do this with a computer screen, but the technology exists for us to recreate whole environments that we inhabit wherever we go. Instead of driving our home environment with us everywhere it is already waiting for us. That is because or digital information and digital identity is in the internet. It is accessible everywhere.

Fig 22. Mobile home.

20 mobile architecture - end notes

(1) Siegal, Jennifer. Mobile : The Art of Portable Architecture. 1st ed. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. p. 17. (2) Melis, Liesbeth. Parasite Paradise : A Manifesto for Temporary Architecture and Flexible Urbanism. : NAi Publishers, 2003., p.148 . (3) IBID, p.153. (4) Graham, Stephen. The Cybercities Reader. The Routledge Urban Reader Series. ; New York: Routledge, 2004 p.88.

mobile architecture - photo credits

[fig5] Roelli, Philipp. Digital image. [Nomads in East Asia]. 2005. 19 Apr. 2007 . [fig6] public domain [fig7] public domain [fig8] public domain [fig9] public domain [fig10] public domain [fig11] McKenna, Chris. Digital image. [British Pullman Cars at Bristol Temple]. 2006. 19 Apr. 2007 [fig12] public domain [fig13] public domain [fig14] Digital image. [Buckminster fuller dymaxion.jpg]. 2006. 19 Apr. 2007 . [fig15] aur2899. Digital image. [IMG_0258.JPG]. 2006. 14 May 2007 . [fig16] Archigram. The Walking City. A Guide to Archigram 1961-74. London: Academy Editions, 1994. [fig17] public domain [fig18] www.designmobile.com [fig19] www.lot-ek.com [fig20] www.alleswirdgut.cc/awg.php?go=TURNON [fig21] Airstream Life. Digital image. [Airstream Clipper]. 2006. 19 Apr. 2007 . [fig22] Airstream Life. Digital image. [1954 Flying Cloud peek inside]. 2006. 19 Apr. 2007 . 21 Traditional Mobile Architecture was limited in what it could access – it could only be near one thing at a time. With the Digital Revolution, our concept of mobility has changed. We can connect to the internet from almost anywhere and then “go” many places online to perform activities, meet people and acquire goods. Most of the things that we are increasingly doing online we used to have to travel to build- ings to accomplish. This digital mobility has changed our lifestyles. Our buildings need to respond.

DIGITAL MOBILITY 22 MOBILITY AND THE INTERNET

The computer and the internet have changed our lifestyle. They have invaded our homes and our offices with their presence and their peripherals. They have dematerial- ized many of the things we work with. They have begun to be the environment where we spend a majority of our time and the place where we accomplish many different tasks1 . They have connected us to people and resourc- es all over the world. They have changed our lives and they have changed the way we interact with our built environment. To understand the potential of digital mo- bility we need to understand it’s roots and how we ex- perience it today with the computer and the internet.

Today when we sit down and use the internet we can “go” a variety of places. We can work, learn, get information about ourselves and our health, meet with people, be active members of a far away community, order goods and ser- vices, maintain our fiscal records, watch movies or events from other cities1. Anything that we need to do to maintain our lives can be accomplished online and the opportuni- ties are increasing. In addition, much of the things that we use to identify ourselves such as our social networks, our profession, our possessions and even our opinions are be- ing uploaded and shared online. These personal aspects of the internet known as Web 2.02 lead Time magazine in 2006 to name “You” the person of the year. We now use the internet to identify ourselves and as part of our daily lives. It is doing more than just replacing the buildings and typologies that we used to use for tasks – it is replacing and becoming the manner in which we identify ourselves.

Fig 23. Time, Person of the Year 2006. 23 All of this is made possible by a set of signifiers and a sense Windows 1.01 2.03 3.0 WfW 95 98 2000 XP Version 3.11 of perception about the internet environment that has de- NT veloped over time. Originally the PC was nothing more than 3.1 a tool that was used for occasionally to hold some records, Year 1985 1988 1990 1993 1995 1998 2000 2001 run some calculations, play a few games and mainly for Released word processing3. We only spent a small portion of our Notepad time using it and it was still just a tool to simplify and con- solidate our calculator, type writer and file cabinets. Text Editor As we spent more time using the computer, as it was able to do a few more tasks we became familiar with its envi- Calculator ronment that was based on the physical office space we were used to operating in. “Files” were placed in “folders” Address and stored away, while we worked mainly on our “desktop”, book where we kept things for quick access. As computers de- veloped (but before the internet became widespread) some Terminal of us were able to “customize” our work environments. We could put a picture on our desktop like it were a framed Mail n/a n/a n/a picture of our family on our desk. We could change our screen saver, and the color of our files. We had already begun to inhabit the environment of the computer by mak- Settings n/a n/a ing it personal.

Keyboard n/a n/a The history of the internet goes back to the 1960’s when institutions researched how to connect their mainframe computers together. In 1969 four universities success- Mouse n/a n/a fully connected to the ARPANET backbone and the internet was born. Fig 24. We “navigate” our virtual environment with representations of familiar “physi- cal” tools. The first experience that most people had with the internet was in the early 1990’s with email5. By and large email

24 was a way to share information, much like FTP had been for earlier network users. In this way it was not a radically different experience from using the telephone, fax machine or physical post (or some combination of the three). The real impact of the internet had not really been felt, although one important thing came from the advent of email – the birth of our digital identities. Suddenly we were known and associated not only with physical attributes such as our given name and street address, but also by an email ad- dress online which described us6. This was the first step to us associating with the internet and our digital identity.

As the availability and popularity of the internet began to grow it took on different roles in our life, but primarily it was still used for accessing information from other people and locations. How this was accomplished, however, was changing. Newspapers from different cities were available online. Networks and other Tech-based companies sprang up with their own news and information services. In addi- tion, email providers began to offer other ways to commu- nicate such as group bulletin boards or chat rooms. We could associate with people from all over but still in a way that was separate form our actual identity. We could join many different groups or sign up for email accounts, but we could still choose to represent ourselves however we wanted. Often the option existed to create “screen-names” or “usernames” that would allow us access to people and information, but we didn’t have to use our real names to do so. We had a digital identity but it was still not necessarily associated with our true identity. There was a general un- derlying fear about putting too much of our identity on the internet for other unknown people to see.

Fig 25. Our digital and physical identities have continued to merge.

25 Then came Amazon.com and ebay.com and other forms of online shopping. Soon our usernames and screen-names became accounts that had mailing addresses and credit card numbers associated with them. Our digital identity took a step towards our physical identity. We didn’t nec- essarily have to give our information out so that everyone could see it (as we would have increasing options to do in the future) but our physical world and our digital worlds were coming closer together. As the internet became more dispersed and more people had access, more ser- vices were available online. Beyond email and shopping came banking, video conferencing, and eventually grocery or pizza delivery. The web grew as it took on tasks that could be accomplished online instead of in buildings.

This was still what was known as Web 1.0 which was the initial dispersion and expansion of the internet7. It was mainly characterized by hierarchical structures where people could access a variety of goods, services and other people online but content was mainly dictated by those who wrote and controlled the web pages we visited. We could talk to people in chat rooms and bulletin boards but that was about the only way to freely go online and express yourself. If someone really wanted to take the opportunity to go online and tell things about themselves (ie their real, physical life) they generally had to know how to acquire a web site, a web domain, and then how to write and post the site themselves. In this manner, most people could use Web 1.0 for a variety of tasks but could not personalize the content themselves.

26 Today we exist in what is loosely known as “Web 2.0” which is characterized by the ability of people to easily upload in- formation about themselves and their lives to share with others without any extensive knowledge of web design or programming8. Web sites such as myspace.com, face- book.com, flickr.com and blogger.com just to name a few have allowed people to share their personal information with acquaintances and strangers alike. People upload information about themselves like their favorite artists or things that they do as well as pictures to share with friends and family. In this way people are using these web sites to grow and exhibit their identity. Life is now on the internet. In Web 2.0 our digital identities and our actual identities finally merge.

In Web 2.0 people are not just exhibiting their digital iden- tity to friends and family. They also have the ability to share their knowledge in open knowledge communities like wiki- pedia.org and to share media at places like youtube.com. The opening of the internet in Web 2.0 has changed not only our identities and how we express ourselves but how we relate to each other and established institutions like government and the media9. In the future, more and more of our life will be available online 10. What will Web 3.0 bring?

It has been demonstrated here how in addition to being able to use the internet to accomplish many tasks we used to have to go to buildings for, our identities are now tied to and in the internet. These two factors have acted strongly to disassociate us from any one place in particular. No lon- ger do we need to locate near work or school or family or

Fig 26. The world of Web 2.0.

27 services if we so choose. We can accomplish them from anywhere. In addition, because our physical identities are increasingly becoming digitized we are not as tied to place. Instead of joining a social club in a given town, we may elect to join one online and become part of a community that has members all over the world. Instead of being “seen” at physical places in town that help identify us (what clubs or cafes or stores we shop at) we are now “seen” where we go online11. Our web page is our new home, as opposed to our residence. Our friends online may never see or identify with the color of our house, or our nice garden – but they will see and associate us with the pictures and design of our web site.

As our tasks and our lives are available online we are free to locate wherever we want on Earth, and to change lo- cations as frequently as we want. We have mobility “in” the internet by all the places and tasks and services and people we can access and we have mobility in that we are free to locate near whatever physical place that we want. That is an important fact, because as more and more of our lives are associated with digital experiences, those that are physically based and experienced will become more and more rare and thus desired. You cannot digitally rec- reate a trip down a ski slope or a round of golf or the sun and breeze on a beach. As we are free to do many things online, those that we cannot do online will become more valuable12.

Fig 27.

28 DIGITAL MOBILITY AND EXISTING ARCHITECTURE

Even as we spend so much time on the internet in an en- vironment full of signifiers and in communities, performing tasks that we used to have to occupy buildings to accom- plish, we still do so from behind a computer screen with a mouse and a keyboard. The computer has passed from a mere tool to the container of an environment that we inhabit, yet we treat it with the same rudimentary input and interface tools. This is becoming less and less desirable the more time that we spend in front of the computer and as we spend that time accomplishing tasks we used to do in person in buildings designed for those activities. There are three ways that the computer as it exists is not com- patible with our current architecture and typologies that we will explore here. – its spatial effects, its interface and how we perceive our environment.

First, the computer is designed by other software and in- dustrial designers; not by architects. Architects merely de- sign places to put the computer screen and its other com- ponents, most often providing desks to work at computers and shelves of some kind for printers/scanners etc. This is mainly seen in places where it is assumed that comput- ers will be used often such as work. But at home, most often computers are brought into homes that were not designed with a place in mind for them. Spare bedrooms Fig 28. Our computers are still looking for their place in our home. can become home offices, but even in that limited capacity they are not serving their function. More often computers find their place in corners of living rooms, dining rooms or even closets.

29 As we are spending more time in the environment of the computer both at home and elsewhere, architect’s could begin to consider how to integrate it into their designs. Many architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies Van de Rhoe designed furniture to compliment their architec- tural designs and placed them where they were appropri- ate to fulfill the design intent. Should architects not begin to consider how to integrate computer technology and pe- ripherals into their design? What’s more, why shouldn’t computers become part of the architecture itself. Why should architects continue to accept the technology given them by other industries when they have such a profound affect on how we plan and experience our spaces?

The second point is directly related to the first. To access Fig 29 a,b,c. Integrated by architects as part of their design...? the tasks and activities of the internet we use a computer and interface with it through a mouse and keyboard. We have noted that for any length of time this can be uncom- fortable at the least, but also we have noted that the way we perceive and work in the internet environment is in- creasingly personal and related to our built environment. If this is the case, why do architects not integrate the com- puters with their buildings? Why must we interface with our digital identities through a screen? Architects need to consider how we can experience and interface with our digital lifestyles and identities in new ways. Why can a wall not become the screen where we work? Why cannot a whole room become our interface? Why should we have to use keyboards and mouses, would it not be a more ar- chitectural experience if we could touch, move and speak commands? Our physical and our digital identities have finally merged, it is time that our physical and digital envi- Fig 30. The CAVE, a virtual environment. [CAVE]. ronments do.

30 Finally, the computer environment as it exists today af- fects our existing typologies13. The rooms we are in while we use in the internet become secondary environments to us – they are backgrounds to the real action which is beyond the screen. These spaces are not being used for their original purpose. In addition, while in the internet we visit and “go” to many places we used to have to access physically. In this manner the nature of those old, physi- cal places is changing. They are becoming less and less relevant in their existing typology and need to adapt some form of digital technology and become “Hybrid Spaces” in order to survive and remain relevant14.

In these manners we can clearly see how the new digi- tal lifestyle, where our digital and physical identities have merged, is no longer compatible with the existing buildings, environments and typologies which we inhabit. It is time to consider a new type of architecture that addresses and rectifies these disconnects between our built environment and our digital environment. The proposed architecture will merge our physical and our digital worlds. It will inte- grate the computer and its technology into our architec- tural experience, allowing us to interface with our digital world in a new more relevant way and it will thus create a new typology to replace old one’s that no longer make sense to continue. This new form of architecture will allow us to inhabit our digital world and facilitate our new forms of digital identity.

31 PHYSICAL VS. VIRTUAL TASKS

Typical Daily Routine In order to provide an architecture that merges our digi- tal and physical identities and also our digital and physical Task Virtually y/n environments we need to understand what tasks we can Awake/Sleep n perform online and which one’s we still need to accom-

Bathe/Shower n plish physically in person. The difference between virtual tasks and physical ones are that virtual tasks can be ac- cook/dine n complished from anywhere through the computer and the Occupation internet while physical tasks require us to take our body work to specific locations and perform specific physical tasks at office/deskwork y meeting y that location. We cannot recreate these tasks and activi- ties virtually. Errands shop food y household goods y For this project an exercise was completed that looked at clothes y the daily tasks and activities of an internet user who was liesure y/n drycleaning/laundry y most likely to have developed a strong digital identity. The house care n exercise asked what activities and tasks could be accom- banking/finances y plished online – not necessarily assuming that anyone per- Liesure son did all of these things everyday online, but what could socialize y be done online. In supposing that a new way of life is in sporting/cultural events n/y out to eat n the works with the computer, and a new architecture to hike/bike n support this lifestyle it was important to understand what jog/exercise/wo n movies y/n could and couldn’t be done online in order to understand tv y what kind of buildings and spaces to provide for the digi- outdoor recreation n tal lifestyle. This section will summarize the exercise that museums n/y concert n/y examines the tasks of our daily routines starting from school/classes/lecture y when we wake in the morning to when we return to bed

Other at night. church/spiritual n/y

Fig 31. Virtual vs. Physical tasks.

32 Caring for our physical bodies

Every morning we awake from our beds and ready our- selves for our day ahead. We often bathe or shower and feed ourselves before beginning our work day. Sometimes people choose to exercise their body before starting their days – others prefer to do this in the evening or not at all. These morning activities that we perform to take care of our body represent physical activities. We have to lay our bodies to sleep in a bed; we have to put our body in a shower to clean it. We have to put food into our body in order to nourish it and if we choose to exercise it we need to physically take it somewhere we can perform physical activities. We also have dinner in the evening (whether it is at our home or at a restaurant) and after our day is done we perform a few activities to maintain our bodies such as washing up and brushing our teeth before returning to bed to rest our body. All of the activities that we perform to take care of our body –the primary ones of which are resting, bathing and eating – are physical activities. We cannot virtually brush our teeth nor have a meal.

Work

Other tasks throughout the day do not necessarily require the same physical involvement. We can often perform our work from an increasing variety of locations. The files that we need to accomplish our work are usually stored digi- tally on a computer and thus conceivably can be accessed through the internet from anywhere. We may need to meet with people as a matter of our work routine, but this too can increasingly be done online. With our files digital Fig 32. .

33 and our connections able to be made through the phone and internet conferencing it can be said that our work can be a virtual task.

After our work day is done we may need to perform tasks that are supplemental to our life such as errands that maintain our lifestyle. If these tasks are up to date we may choose from a variety of hobbies that we do to entertain ourselves or to meet with people whose company we enjoy keeping such as friends and family. Both our errands and our entertainment have components that can be accom- plished online.

Errands and lifestyle maintenance

Fig 33. Physical Work. Errands are tasks that we need to accomplish in order to support our lifestyle and to maintain our daily routines. These range from taking care of our homes and posses- sions to managing our finances and other personal infor- mation and records. The physical aspects that are consid- ered in this exercise are tasks such as procuring food and other household items and maintaining our homes or other possessions such as automobiles and clothing. While all of these tasks are physical and require use of physical goods and materials, they can be considered as services that we can order online and have other people do for us. We can have goods such as food and clothes delivered to us and we can schedule times for people to clean our homes and other possessions such as laundry and dry cleaning. In this manner, these physical tasks can be accomplished on- line. We can choose to do them ourselves, but it also is possible to accomplish them virtually. Fig 34. Virtual Work.

34 Other errands that we can consider are maintaining our finances and other records. Our bank accounts are avail- able online, as are our credit card statements and other information. Maintaining our assets such as stocks and other investments is also possible digitally. We can ac- complish these tasks easily from anywhere. Going to the bank is almost a thing of the past with direct deposit and automatic check writing. We can virtually maintain almost all of our records.

In addition to these daily maintenance tasks we can also get information online that helps support our lifestyle. We can get information about our health from a variety of different web sites instead of having to travel to a doctor or dentist. Fig 35. Physical Market. We can learn about how to do certain tasks around our homes or in other activities that we used to have to meet with people to consult about by asking questions on the web. We can get information online that helps us live our lives without traveling and speaking to different people.

In these ways we can see that we can take care of almost all of our errands virtually with the use of the computer and the internet. Some of these errands may be physical tasks that require the transportation of physical goods or the use of physical products (such as cleaning or laundry) but we are able to schedule these services with the computer. We can maintain our life and our lifestyle from anywhere virtually with the computer.

Fig 36. Virtual Market.

35 Entertainment

We have many different options for entertaining ourselves online vs. physically. We can use our computers to do many things such as listen to and collect our favorite music. Or- ganize our photographs and memories. We can download and watch TV shows and movies with our computer. In addition to these basic tasks we can also “go” to concerts or sporting events by listening to them or watching them from other cities with our internet connection. We can shop for material goods that we enjoy such as clothes or other items without ever leaving our keyboards. In a similar way we can meet with friends and family and talk to them through email, instant messaging or video conferencing. All of these things that we can do on the computer take Fig 37. Virtual Entertainment. the place of traveling to the movies, the ballpark or some- where to socialize with friends and family.

On the other hand, many of the things that we do for en- tertainment cannot be digitally replicated online. While we can listen to the opera or a sporting event online, it is not the same experience as witnessing these events first hand. A movie is best seen on a large screen and no one would argue that face to face interaction is more desirable than interacting with close acquaintances through a com- puter screen. In addition, many of the other hobbies that we enjoy are based on interacting with a physical place and cannot at all be replicated online. Favorite hobbies such as hiking, mountain biking, golfing and skiing are dependent on geographic features and location. We need to go to spe- cific places and physically perform these activities to truly experience and enjoy them. Fig 38. Physical Entertainment.

36 Summary

It can be seen then that our daily tasks and activities can be divided up into those that can be accomplished physi- cally and those that are accomplished virtually. The tasks that we do physically need a physical space and environ- ment to support them, and those that are done virtually need a virtual tool such as the computer.

Looking at the exercise above and at the graph we see that most of what we need to do during the day can be accomplished online. It should be noted again that this is not to say that we do so with regularity, but that it can be accomplished. This is important when considering a build- ing that supports a digital lifestyle. We need to provide physical spaces to meet our physical activities and a virtual realm where we can perform virtual tasks. Right now that platform is the computer, but the proposed architecture would provide a physical environment that is tailored to our virtual lifestyle.

Most of the physical activities that we engage in have to do with maintaining our body such as sleeping, bathing and eating as well as those entertainment activities that require a physical platform. Our work and errands and some of our entertainment needs can be met online. This leads to the conclusion that in the future our buildings will still need to provide a physical place for us to sleep, eat and bathe and also be close to physical activities that we enjoy participating in. It will not be as important that we are close to work and other services as we will be able to accomplish them online. It will be important as we do more Fig 39&40. Physical activities that can not be virtual.

37 of these activities online to provide an environment to ac- complish them that is more satisfying than the screen, key- board and mouse. This exercise has shown what we need to provide in reference to physical environment, which is primarily what we need to design for architectonically. The virtual environment is a single environment that we spend a lot of time in, which also requires attention and needs to be included as part of the design of the physical environ- ment of the building.

38 Digital Mobility

As has been mentioned before, the growth of our digital identity and its ability to replace many of our physical tasks with virtual ones has enabled our digital mobility, which comes in two forms. The first is our ability to “go” and ac- complish tasks virtually such as banking, shopping, social- izing, meeting, working etc without ever leaving our home. The second form is that we can do this from anywhere. As we have seen, most of what we need to do for our life can be done virtually (the exception being caring for our body and some forms of entertainment that we enjoy) and thus we are free to be mobile and live where ever we want.

This project will go on to explore these concepts. It will provide for the first form of mobility by actually re-creat- ing environments that we will physically “go” to. Instead of just looking up a web site online to shop for an item, the reconfigurable environment will allow users to holographi- cally transport to that store. Thus, without ever leaving your environment you can “go” other places. This is made possible by a room known as the Immersive Environment [IEnv] that reconfigures to look like another IEnv elsewhere that someone else somewhere else is occupying. The us- ers are then holographically projected into each other’s spaces. With the rooms configured exactly alike and the users able to see lifelike representations of them, they will be able to “go” to each other’s spaces. They will be sharing a space based on preacknowledged signifiers and forms of communication. This will be a true form of mobility as us- ers will actually go places, instead of just visiting them as a web site in the environment of the computer.

39 In order for users to share spaces like this, they will need to each have the exact same operating platform that can be configured exactly the same, just like users today need to use exact same platforms in the computer. In order to accomplish this the thesis proposes a network of IEnv’s spread around the world housed in Digital Dwelling Units [DDU’s] that users are free to reserve and travel between. This completes the second form of mobility. Since there is no longer a need to be close to work, or services or even friends or family because user’s can “visit” them online, users can locate in any DDU in the world. DDU’s will be near specific geographic and cultural features that cannot be re-created virtually, allowing the user access to these forms of recreation anytime they like. If you could work and live your life from anywhere, where would it be? Would it be near good food, good skiing, or the beach? With the DDU’s connected together in the Digital Worldwide Living [DWeL] Network you could live near anyone or any place, and change between them whenever you please. Wher- ever you go you can access your digital identity and your digital world through the standardized IEnv platform. In the DWeL Network users are free to utilize both forms of digi- tal mobility.

40 digital mobility - end notes

(1) Madden, Mary. “Internet Penetration and Impact” Pew Internet and American Life Project April 26, 2006. . (2) Fox, Susannah and Mary Madden. “Riding the Waves of “Web 2.0”” Pew Internet and American Life Project Oct 5, 2006. . (3) Grossman, Lev. “Person of the Year: You.” Time Dec 25, 2006- Jan 1, 2007: 42-78. (4) Salazar, Jaime, Albert Ferre, Tomoko Sakamoto, and Anna Tetas. Verb Matters. , New York: Actar, 2004, p.2-19. (5) Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005., p.56. (6) Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995., p.7. (7) Fox, Susannah and Mary Madden. “Riding the Waves of “Web 2.0”” Pew Internet and American Life Project Oct 5, 2006. . (8) Grossman, Lev. “Person of the Year: You.” Time Dec 25, 2006- Jan 1, 2007: 42-78. (9) IBID (10) Rainie, Lee and Janna Anderson. “The Future of the Internet II” Pew Internet and American Life Project Sept 24, 2006. . (11) Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995., p.8. (12) Mitchell, William J. “The Revenge of Place”. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Proceedings, Third International Space Syntax Symposium. Atlanta, 2001. (13) Mitchell, William J. City of Bits : Space, Place, and the Infobahn. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995., p.47. (14) Eckert, Gregory Windsor. “The creation of hybrid space architecture”. Thesis, Masters in Architecture. Cincinnati: University of Cin- cinnati, 2006.

41 digital mobility - photo credits

[fig23] Time Magazine. 2006 Person of the Year. 2007. TIME. [fig24] http://www.windows-icons.com/history.htm [fig26] screenshots: flickr.com, youtube.com, wikipedia.org, myspace.com [fig27] Dynax5d. Digital image. [Trailer Park in Arizona]. 2007. 14 May 2007 [fig28] leff. Digital image. [home office]. 2005. 26 Apr. 2007 . [fig29a] St. Louis Museum of Art [fig29b] public domain [fig29c] phil_g. Digital image. [Computer Mess]. 2005. 20 Apr. 2007 . [fig30] http://www.arl.psu.edu/capabilities/cn_sealab.html [fig32] Klara Kim. Digital image. [toothbrush doesn’t match]. 2007. 8 May 2007 . [fig33] hyku. Digital image. [The CNP Boardroom]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig34] cpb. Digital image. [IMG_0967]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig35] jeffq. Digital image. [Produce]. 2007. 9 May 2007 . [fig36] peapod.com [fig37] Looking Glass. Digital image. [Whole World Smiles with You]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig38] foxypar4. Digital image. 2007. 9 May 2007 . [fig39] -Gretchen. Digital image. [Shower]. 2005. 9 May 2007 . [fig40] c0reyann. Digital image. [Outer Banks Natural Beauty]. 2007. 13 May 2007 .

42 As our physical and digital identities have merged, we are now able to fully take advantage of our digital mobility. To do this we need to provide an architecture that merges our physical world and built environment with our digital world – the one we physically occupy with the one that we inhabit and travel in behind the screen. The digital mobility that this allows us is twofold: If we can truly build a world with web sites and other “places” that we can inhabit then we can “travel” to many places by recreating an environment, inhabiting it and sharing it with other individuals. This is our first digital mobility. Since we can access and inhabit this other world from any physical location in the world, we are free to locate ourselves near physical locations that we en- joy which can not be recreated digitally. This is the second digital mobility. In order to do this we need a new physical environment, building and structure. - The DWeL Network

THE DWeL NETWORK 43 THE DWeL NETWORK

The proposed DWeL Network is composed of buildings spread worldwide known as Nomadic Online Dwelling En- claves [NODES] that each houses a series of Digital Dwell- ing Units [DDU’s]. These DDU’s provide basic needs for occupants to live plus an Immersive Environment [IEnv] that allows occupants to customize and reconfigure their homes as well as to holographically “go” to other people’s IEnvs through a reconfiguration and a holographic projec- tion. The buildings NODES are located at places offering unique geographic and cultural features that cannot be recreated virtually. Users are free to reserve DDU’s any- where and travel between the NODES in the system. In this way, the Network provides for both aspects of digital mobility that was discussed in the last section.

The NODES of the Network will be located all over the world. The system will begin with four buildings [London, New York, Chicago and Tokyo] with immediate plans to grow to eight [San Francisco, Vail, Mumbai and Rome?]. Once the occupancy of the system reaches a certain level the Network will continue to propagate around the world to more and more locations. These will include locations in cities as well as remote locations where people can consid- er themselves on vacation, near ski, golf or beach resorts. People who have bought into the system will have a vote into where to locate new NODES (as they have a stake in where they will want to travel).

When a user buys into the DWeL Network he reserves the right for one DDU anywhere in the network. He is free to Fig 41. Components of the DWeL Network

44 move between NODES as often as he would like – the user just needs to log on to the company web site and reserve a unit in another city just like one might log onto a travel site such as expedia.com or Travelocity.com today. When the day comes to move the user simply checks out of his unit and travels to the next one. The added cost with each move comes with what the user chooses to do with his physical possessions such as clothes.

Each DDU is equipped with two closets that the user can fill with his material possessions. When a user changes locations he can physically move all his possessions with him with no help from the company free of charge. Or he can choose to have the network system help. The Network can ship his two closets to his new DDU or store them at the existing building if the user plans on returning within a short period of time. If the user is only going away for a weekend, he can choose to keep the one DDU he cur- rently occupies and pay for the rental of an additional unit wherever he is traveling. Each of these different options have different costs associated with them, but when a user signs on to the Network he is automatically granted credit for so many moves or storage fees each year. This allows that the user will have the mobility that he desired when he signed up to be part of the Network.

Fig 42. Sample reservation system for the Network.

45 Components of the Network

The DWeL Network is a worldwide network through which users can move both virtually and physically. It is composed of a few basic pieces that allow this digital mobility. Once we examine these pieces and how they work we can look at how the network functions as a whole and how it provides for the two types of digital mobility.

46 The Digital Dwelling Unit [DDU] – The DDU is the foundation of the DWeL Network. It is a dwelling unit that allows its inhabitants to perform basic physical tasks necessary for life but also provides a place where the user can perform the variety of virtual tasks that are part of the digital lifestyle. The unit is divided into a half that supports physical tasks (mainly eating/cooking and bathing) that mainly depend on having water supplied with fixed spatial needs (a kitchen and a bathroom) and a virtual half that can be reconfigured to be any type of space that the user can imagine. This area, the Immersive Environ- ment is big enough to be configured into as many as three small rooms such as a bedroom, dining room, office, meet- ing room, living room etc. This space can be reconfigured at the push of a button.

The physical portion of the DDU consists of spaces that are fixed by the physical constraints of the activities that they support. These areas are not reconfigurable like the Im- mersive Environment. They consist of a kitchen, bathroom, small workstation to control the Immersive Environment and two closets to store physical possessions such as clothes or other goods. Also provided in the physical envi- ronment are cabinets that hold the physical goods needed in these spaces such as dishes, utensils, linens and towels. Like a hotel or suite hotel, these items are provided at ev- ery DDU – the user does not own them, he reserves and rents them just like the DDU. They are part of the unit.

Fig 43. The DDU.

47 The physical portion of the DDU is where the water and electrical services are fed into the unit. The water remains on this side while the electrical is distributed to the rest of the unit. The mechanical/air conditioning needs of the unit are met by an AHU system that is near the front side of the unit. We will explore these systems in more detail in later on.

Fig 44. Physical and “virtual” parts of the DDU.

48 Fig 45. The DDU.

49 The Immersive Environment [IEnv] – The Immersive Envi- ronment is the reconfigurable and virtual portion of the Digital Dwelling Unit. The user can program the IEnv to be any combination of rooms by changing the arrangement of furniture and altering the images that are projected on the walls of the space. In addition, the user A can “share” his IEnv with user B in other DDU’s at other locations by being holographically projected into the other user B’s IEnv, while user B is projected into user A’s space.

Fig 46. User customized IEnvs. Fig 47. “Shared” IEnvs.

50 The floor of the unit reconfigures to represent any number of different furniture configurations that the user would like to program in. Instead of the user having to go and pur- chase many different types of furniture to recreate many different environments in their home, they can program the computer to change these arrangements in an infinite number of possibilities. This is akin to the many different environments that we inhabit in the internet; only instead of going to web site behind the screen we can inhabit the experience architecturally. The floor is composed of 6”x6” tiles that can be raised and lowered by a set of hydraulic pistons below the floor in any number of combinations to form chairs, tables, beds or any other types of furniture that the user may desire. The user can choose from a pre-established menu of pieces already programmed into the DDU or can create their own configuration. A basic interface in the IEnv control room is responsible for making these changes.

Fig 48. Configuration of the IEnv furniture.

51 Fig 49. Details of adjustable floor.

52 In a similar way the user can change what images and scenes are projected on the wall of the IEnv. The user can make the walls any color, projected pictures on the wall or make the environment look like an office, school, store, etc. The option also exists for the user to project images into the space that can act as screens between spaces.

The reconfigurable floors in addition to the customizable walls and screens allow the user to create any kind of spaces that they like. These predetermined settings are saved in the server of the DWeL Network and can be re- called at any DDU in the system. Thus the DDU’s are like mobile homes in that wherever the user is he has access to the exact same environment – only with the IEnv and the DDU the user doesn’t have to tow this environment with him everywhere – it is waiting wherever he goes.

Fig 50. “Painted” wall of the IEnv.

53 The Nomadic Online Dwelling Enclave [NODE]

The DDU’s are part of a larger building that supports the residents and their lifestyle in the DDU. The buildings [NODEs] of the Network are made up of a few basic com- ponents that are arranged differently at each location to best support the lifestyle at that location. This “kit of parts’ consists of the rack structure that houses the DDU’s, the core areas that serve these units and program areas that provide specific needs to support life at that location. Each NODE has specific needs based on the climate and siting at each location and thus the building at each location will be different, but the kit of parts remains the same. It is just applied differently at each NODE.

Fig 51. NODE “Kit” of Parts.

54 The racks and Core – includes modularity

The “racks” that support the DDU’s are the basic compo- nent of the NODE and follow the same pattern at every location. Because the DDU’s need to provide the exact same platform everywhere the racks that support them need to be the same system everywhere. The form that these racks take at each location, however, can vary from NODE to NODE.

Fig 52. Typical rack for DDUs.

Fig 53. Various configurations of racks.

55 It is imperative that every DDU be exactly the same. This is for two reasons – 1) if users are to be able to expect the same “home” and environments wherever they go than each unit will need to be exactly the same and 2) in order for users to be able to configure their units exactly alike and transport holographically into each other’s unit they need to operate on the same platform, much like today’s internet users need to use the same computer and inter- net sites or programs in order to communicate with each other.

Because each of these units needs to be exactly the same, and because their interiors are so complicated each DDU is pre-manufactured inside a pair of standard 40’ ISO ship- ping containers that are shipped to the site, assembled in a few easy steps and then lifted into place in the rack. Not only does this system allow for standardization of all units, it allows those units to easily be dispersed and assembled anywhere in the world as the ISO shipping container is a worldwide standard. In this manner the DWeL Network can easily proliferate around the world.

Fig 54. ISO Shipping Containers.

56 Fig 55. Unpacking and assembling DDU at site.

57 At each location the rack is a module that supports the DDU. As noted it can take a variety of configurations when stacked, but the basics are the same. The rear corridor (also pre-manufactured shipping container) is how the DDU is served for circulation, water and electricity. This corridor needs to attach to a core that provides vertical circulation of both people and services. The building sys- tem section of the report illustrates these systems more completely (see appendix).

Fig 56. Rack corridor carries people and services.

58 Program

Per the earlier discussion of physical vs. virtual tasks, the buildings need to provide a variety of physical spaces to support life in the DDU’s. As with the configuration of the building the needs for program will vary from NODE to NODE, but largely fall into four categories: services such as laundry/housekeeping or storage and receiving, food service (either a café, snack shop or restaurant), a front desk to co-ordinate the coming and going of patrons and some form of recreation such as a fitness center of gym. Each of these services will be tailored to meet the specific needs at each NODE, but will be present at each building. At dense locations the program maybe integrated along with the rack into one structure, at less dense locations it may be spread over a large site (as may the racks and units). The attached chart shows which program will gen- erally be provided at three general types of node location.

59 Task Virtually In Ienv DDU provides CPT's Provide y/n y/n urban/high dens sub/mid density ex/resort/low d Awake/Sleep n y linens in a closet - - -

Bathe/Shower n na shower/toilet/towels - - - bathroom storage cook/dine n no / yes dishes/utensils/ - - - cookware Occupation fully stocked kchn work office/deskwork y y printer/scanner - - - meeting y y nothing large group conf - -

Errands shop food y y - delivery service deliver/on site store on site store household goods y kitchen cabinets delivery service deliver/on site store on site store clothes y clothes closets post/front desk post/front desk post/front desk liesure y/n small amt storage post/front desk post/front desk post/front desk drycleaning/laundry y y - delivery service deliver/on site store laundomat house care n y kitchen cabinets maid service avlb maid service availb maid service avail banking/finances y y -

Liesure socialize y y - IEnv / Cyber Bar IEnv / Cyber Bar - out to eat n n - Adjacency to Adjacency/Café Snack Shop/Store sporting/cultural events n/y y - Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv museums n/y y - Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv concert n/y y - Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv school/classes/lecture y y - - - - outdoor recreation n n - storage lockers storage lockers storage lockers jog/exercise/wo n n - fitness facilities fitness facilities recreation center movies y/n y - Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv tv y y - - - -

Other church/spiritual n/y y - Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv Adjacency/IEnv

Fig 57. Virtual/Physical Task Matrix (by author)

60 Architectural features of the Building

One of the main features of each NODE in the Network is that each building will be tailored in form and in program to its specific site and location. This goes to the thesis that each building is located at a location that is geographically or culturally unique, and this is why the user would want to locate there in the first place. In addition to having a unique building at each NODE, there will also be a public plaza that demonstrates some characteristic of the location that is unique. This will reinforce and identify the notion that each place has unique characteristics (see figs 59-62).

The notion is that while each building is unique, as one pro- gresses from the unique place through the building to the DDU it begins to become more standardized, just as the user progresses from a unique, physical setting to a virtual one that can be almost anything anywhere in the world. To demonstrate how users are actually visiting many different places in their IEnv’s or that each DDU is being used for a different use, the window at the end of each DDU that is part of the IEnv will be seen from the outside. The user can choose to show the negative image of what is projected on that piece of glass or to mask it by blurring the image, but in either case the window will give a hint of what is occurring in the DDU. When viewed collectively from the outside, each DDU will be different and this will show how each unit is being used differently. In addition, this façade will continuously change as users change their IEnv’s to different configurations and visit different places. Thus the building will rarely appear the same twice, illustrating the dynamic lifestyles housed within. Fig 58.

61 Fig 59, 60, 61, 62. Vernacular details for unique building locations.

62 dwel network - end notes dwel network - photo credits

[fig41] public domain [fig50a] MGShelton. Digital image. [Living room at Christmas]. 2007. 9 May 2007 . [fig50b] ajstarks. Digital image. [GAP]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig50c] Piqueres, Jaime V. Digital image. [The average office]. 2006. 3 Sept. 2006 . [fig54] -Javier-. Digital image. [Lego]. 2007. 14 May 2007 . [fig59] Slightlynorth. Digital image. [Ghirardelli Square Fountain]. 2007. 9 May 2007 . [fig60] RSEanes. Digital image. [Trafalgar Square Fountain]. 2005. 9 May 2007 . [fig61] Brent and MariLynn. Digital image. [PPG Place Plaza]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig62] The Poss. Digital image. [Dunkeld Square and Fountain]. 2006. 9 May 2007 . [fig63] - (Conclusion) prawnpie. Digital image. [Airstream]. 2005. 19 Apr. 2007 .

63 The DWeL Network is a system of NODE buildings spread all around the world designed to accommodate the two forms of digital mobility that we experience today. Our abil- ity to experience the first type of mobility frees us to enjoy the second. Both are dependent upon the use of the inter- net and computer.

The first digital mobility that we enjoy is the ability to “go” places with the internet by accessing goods, services, infor- mation and people from remote locations without having to physically travel there. Thus we are mobile in that we can access these places. The document showed that for those of us who use the computer heavily at work and at home our lives cannot be separated from the computer and the internet. Where we go online and what we do is part of our identity. As it is such, we are spending more time online accomplishing these tasks and less time going to buildings and spaces to do so. In this way our experience of “going” to new places is captured behind the computer screen and only accessible with a mouse and a keyboard.

But the Immersive Environment changes the way that we go places. Instead of occupying web sites and connections with other people and places in our mind, the IEnv allows us to physically “go” to these places and meet with other peo- ple in a room designed to accommodate those tasks – in- stead of just behind a computer. The ability to change the IEnv to any number of environments that represent web CONCLUSION 64 sites and connections with other people demonstrates the mobility we enjoy with the internet and it allows us to experi- ence those tasks in a room and environment, directly com- municating with people as we once did when we traveled and met with people face to face. The IEnv allows the user to travel and meet face to face with people and accomplish many tasks from one location, anywhere in the DDU.

The ability to accomplish these tasks that we used to de- pend on buildings for from anywhere exemplifies for our second digital mobility. The document showed which tasks could be accomplished online and which one’s needed a physical space to support an activity. The results were that almost everything we needed to live our life such as work and errands could be accomplished online with a computer (or in the case of the DWeL Network through travel in the IEnv). This ability frees us from locating near specific buildings designed to house these activities. We only need to physically support our bodies (by sleeping, eat- ing and bathing) which is done by the DDU and locate near tasks that cannot be replicated virtually, which it has been shown are mainly those that depend on unique geographic or cultural features. Thus the ability to “go” places in the IEnv allows users to locate at any NODE in the worldwide Network they choose, so that they can be close to features that cannot be recreated digitally, whether this be a beach or a mountain, a specific event to attend, a restaurant or friends and family where the desire for connection is more than with a projected image of that person.

This document has demonstrated how both of these mobili- ties are possible and feasible given the lifestyle that we now

65 lead which is connected to Web 2.0. It also has used some illustrations taken from previous forms of mobile architec- ture, where the idea was to transport your needs and your environment with you everywhere so that you would be free to access and live near unique geographic features. But there were still limitations in this way of thinking because ultimately one needed to return to work or to get provi- sions and thus was still limited by location. Furthermore, as demonstrated with our developing digital identities it is seen that most of what we need is available in the internet, and can be recreated or accessed from anywhere in the world (or in the Network). Examples of mobile architecture were used to illustrate how we no longer need to carry our world and environment with us anywhere (and thus theo- retically free to be more mobile) because what we need is available everywhere in the network. In addition, we can truly live the RV lifestyle by locating near whatever place or feature like and being able to stay there as we dwell in our digital connections.

66 Fig. 63. 67

APPENDICES 69 Appendix A - NODE Building Systems Schematics

Appendix B - Precedents Precedent 1 - Work with Shipping containers

Project: Varies Architect: LOT-EK Location: Varies Date: Varies Description: One of the better know firms for work with reused ISO shipping containers is the firm LOT- EK. Their interest in the containers is as much from a sustainabilty aspect or found material aspect as it is about mobility and transportation. Three proj- ects, the Mobile Dwelling Unit, 87 LaFayette Tower and Fast Train Station and Tower are examined here for how they use shipping containers and what kind of structures they are housed in.

Fig 64. Mobile Dwelling Units racks.

Fig 66. 87 LaFayette Tower b.2 Fig 65. Fast Train Station and Tower Precedent 1.1

Project: Mobile Dwelling Unit [MDU] Architect: LOT-EK Location: Portable Date: 200x Description: The mobile dwelling unit project by Lot-ek examines using ISO shipping con- tainers as portable environments. Each unit is fit- ted out as a dwelling built inside a typical ISO Ship- ping container. In theory, the units are housed in steel structures that are located all around the world. When a user moves his home is shipped to the new location, added to the rack there and red- ployed. This concept is not very different from the DWeL Network, except in the DWeL Network the containers are stationary and only the user travels from location to location.

The MDU project is probably one of the better known project utilizing ISO containers and is presented as such. It illustrates not only a system that is similar to the DWeL Network, but how the inside of the containers can be pre-manufactured and then de- ployed around the world.

While the network of MDU’s was never complet- ed, a prototype of the actual unit was. It is a good example of how to turn used ISO containers in to dwelling spaces.

Fig 67. Mobile Dwelling Unit storage racks. b.3 Precedent 1.1

b.4 Figs. 68-70. Mobile Dwelling Unit: Racks, Exterior and Interior. Precedent 1.2

Project: 87 LaFayette Tower and Fast Train Station and Tower Architect: LOT-EK Location: New York City and Turin Italy Date: 200x Description: These two towers are similar in struc- ture to those pursued in the DWeL Network. Both incorporate shipping containers into a steel frame “rack” type structure and include other types of program space. Both projects were examined for how the structure was designed to accomodate the containers, and also how the public/circulation space was treated around the containers. This the- Fig 71. 87 LaFayette Tower sis proposes that any NODE buildng in the DWeL Network that is higher than 6 or 8 stories would want to have enclosed circulation, in order that us- ers are comfortable and protected from the height and the weather. LOT-EK uses both approaches, inside and outside in these projects.

These projects were also examined to see if the container units were stand alone (ie completely prefabricated) or treated as part of large “rooms” and sections of the buildng as a whole. Examining the information at hand was difficult, but the conclu- sion was reached for the DWeL Network to treat each container as its own unit, and to “plug it in” to a greater system, as opposed to treating it as part of a large whole. b.5 Fig 72. Fast train station and tower. Precedent 1.2

Fig 73. 87 LaFayette Tower Fig 74. Fast train station and tower - Plaza.

b.6 Fig 75. Different ISO Container arrangements. Fig 76. Fast train station and tower. Precedent 2 - Re-configurable Environments

Project: Varies Architect: Varies Location: Varies Date: Varies Description: There has been a trend latelly in some areas of archtiecture, mainly residential, to con- sider how to design homes to be more flexible and reconfigurable. The thought process is that as the world becomes more globalized and we are becom- ing more connected to each other across the world, our home takes on different roles such as office, or store or classroom as we do more tasks from home. A few architects have begun to explore, like the DWeL Network does, how architets can pro- Fig 77. ma0 - h0use vide this flexible environment.

Fig 79. Kas Oosterhuis - SpaceStation b.7 Fig 78. alleswirdgut - TurnOn Precedent 2.1

Project: h-0use Architect: ma0 Location: Project Date: 2001 Description: The h-0use project begins to ask what roles does the home play, and how can it be config- ured to accomodate them. Much like the DDU it of- fers a recoonfigurable environment to accomodate a variety of tasks and functions. More importantly, however, the project notes the separation between a “technical box” that contains the static, unchang- able environments such as the kitchen and baths and the dynamic configurable one’s. This is very similar to what is exhibited in the DDU with the sep- Fig 80. h0use. aration between physical and virtual spaces.

In addition, the h-Ouse project proposes that its units are spread throughout the world to accomo- date a new modern group of nomads, made for liv- ing ‘in this world of widespread deterritorialization”.

In this manner the project recognizes the need for increased mobility in the information age (the unit is said to accomodate “every kind of information flow”. It also recognizes that with this mobility comes the need for flexibility in how we use the spaces in our homes.

b.8 Fig 81. h0use building. Precedent 2.1

[01] [02]

[03] [04] b.9 Fig 82. h0use configurations. Precedent 2.2

Project: turn0n - urban. sushi Architect: awg_AllesWirdGut Location: Prototype Date: 2000 Description: The turn0n project represents an ex- ploration in customizable and reconfigurable dwell- ing units. The unit is made up of different round sec- tions that spin much like a hamster wheel in order to accomodate different uses. The user decides which of these pieces he would like included in his unit and it is manufactured to meet these needs.

Thus the project is customizable by the user simi- larly to how the IEnv is customizable by its user. The Fig 83. turn0n project is an exploration of a new way of living, much like the DDU and DWeL Network is.

Fig 84. turn0n options Fig 85. turn0n plan. b.10 Precedent 2.3

Project: SpaceStation Architect: Kas Oosterhuis Location: Project Date: 1998 Description: While the SpaceStation is not a dwell- ing, the concept and the technology that it uses are applicable to the IEnv and DDU. The exploration of the project had to do with the inner skin of the sta- tion, which could be reconfigured anyway as needed by the astronauts in order to accomodate the tasks they are achieving.

The system is made up of a stretchable innerskin that is reconfigured by a series of hydraulic pistons Fig 86. SpaceStation. below the surface of the skin. The pistons raise and lower as needed to provide the physical envi- ronment. In addition, the skin is set with a series of LCD’s that can be configured to create a CAVE like environment.

The reconfigurable skin represnents the possibility to reconfigure our environment to meet the needs set forthe by the tasks we are attempting to ac- complish.

b.11 Fig 87. SpaceStation. Precedent 3.0 - The RV Park

Project: Typical Recreational Vehicle Park Architect: Varies Location: Varies Date: Varies Description: The RV Park may seem to be an un- usual precedent for this exploration, but in fact there are a few things that it has in common with the DWeL Network. First and foremost is the con- cept behind the RV Park. In U.S. National and State Parks all over the country you will find a place to park Recreational Vehicles. The idea is that you travel to these places because they are unique in a geographic way and are not able to be experienced without being there. This concept is at the core Fig 88. Archigram Free Time Node. of the DWeL Network too. DWeL Network NODEs are located in places across the world that are unique culturally or geographically and provide a way to stay at that location and enjoy it for a while.

This brings up another similarity between RV Parks and the DWeL Network. Although in the DWeL Net- work you are limited to travel between places where the NODEs are located because that’s where their infrastructure is, trailer parks and RV’s are similar. While RV’s can park almost anywhere for a short amount of time they cannot stay at a remote loca- tion like the middle of the desert forever. They need to unload waste, take on water, fuel up and plug into electricity every so often. Many times people Fig 89. Typical RV Park. b.12 Precedent 3.0 - The RV Park [cont]

choose to travel from RV Park to RV Park and hook up their vehicles instead of just parking and staying long periods of time at remote locations. In this way, both RV Park’s and the buildings at NODEs provide bases for travel that can be traveled between – the only different is that with the DWeL Network, you only have to take yourself.

Both RV Parks and NODEs provide the same kind of services too. Based on location RV Park’s pro- vide other buildings and services such as General Stores or places of recreation. They have a central front desk to keep track of who is coming and go- ing from the park. This will be important for the buildings too, because those at low density resort locations will be very similar in form and function to Fig 90. actual trailer parks. Therefore, how real RV Park’s get their food and goods and what services they provide are important. In addition, the NODEs will need a central desk to help users navigate the place they are at, to co-ordinate who is coming and going and to keep the building in general upkeep.

Finally there is a kinship between the aesthetics of both systems. They are places to accommodate transient, mobile people and support their act of travel. The DDU’s collected together look like many RV’s gathered together. The language of the RV Fig 91. Park fits with that of the DWeL Network.

b.13 Precedent 3.0 - The RV Park [cont]

Racks Recreation

FrontDesk/Services Foodservice

“Core”

b.14 Fig 92. appendix b - photo credits

[fig64-76] lot-ek.com [fig77] http://www.ma0.it/immagini.swf [fig78] http://www.alleswirdgut.cc/awg.php?go=TURNON [fig79] http://www.oosterhuis.nl/quickstart/index.php?id=168 [fig80-82] http://www.ma0.it/immagini.swf [fig83-85] http://www.alleswirdgut.cc/awg.php?go=TURNON [fig86,87] http://www.oosterhuis.nl/quickstart/index.php?id=168 [fig88] Archigram. Free Time Node. London: Academy Editions, 1994. [fig89] harDrive. Digital image. [PB290030]. 2007. 14 May 2007 . [fig90] http://www.juneaurv.com/map.pdf [fig91] Sherlock77(James). Digital image. [Day Trip to the Mountains]. 2005. 19 Mar. 2007 . [fig92] http://www.internationalrvdaytona.com/images/park-map-1.jpg Appendix C - Technology Research BBC NEWS | In Depth | Bett2000 | Meet the hologram teacher Page 1 of 3

CATEGORIES TV RADIO COMMUNICATE WHERE I LIVE INDEX SEARCH

You are in: In Depth: Bett2000 News Front Page WATCH/LISTEN World ON THIS STORY UK The BBC's virtual Keith England Thursday, 13 January, 2000, 06:05 GMT N Ireland Phillips "The future Scotland Meet the hologram teacher has arrived, Wales and timetabling will never Politics be the same." Business Entertainment See also: Science/Nature 08 Nov 99 | Education Technology Now for the 'virtual' Health action zone Education Internet links: ------Talking Point Edex ------National Grid for Learning Country Profiles BETT2000

In Depth The teacher is not really there ... The BBC is not responsible for ------Technology now allows pupils to be taught by the content of external Programmes internet sites ------a "virtual teacher" who could be many kilometres away. The process goes a step Top Bett2000 stories beyond video now: conferencing in that Technology boost for key the hologram teacher skills SERVICES appears to be in the Online drive pushes Daily E-mail classroom, and can ahead in schools News Ticker see and speak to the Teachers offered £500 for Mobile/PDAs pupils as if they were computers ------all in the same room. Pupils embrace web for work and fun Text Only Software helps special Feedback The system was needs demonstrated by Help Meet the hologram Edex, the largest EDITIONS Notes can also be teacher Change to World supplier of internet transmitted both ways Schools offered free connections to the UK system software education market, at the BETT2000 educational technology show in London. Links to more Bett2000 stories are at the foot of Maths teacher Catharine Darnton was digitally the page. teleported into the exhibition centre at Olympia from Graveney School in south London. The distance involved was only a few miles, but because the system uses internet protocols, audience and teacher could in theory have been anywhere. It has been tested successfully within the school. Ms Darnton sees it as being of particular benefit for minority courses.

"I teach further mathematics. We've only got six http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/education/2000/bett2000/600667.stm 1/23/2007 BBC NEWS | In Depth | Bett2000 | Meet the hologram teacher Page 2 of 3 candidates in the school doing that. The economics make those sorts of classes difficult to lay on," she said.

"But if you could have a single teacher being able to see three or four classrooms

across a borough or Catharine Darnton: "Great something like that, potential" then perhaps those sorts of subjects would be viable.

"And you could see the same sorts of things for minority languages - Latin and Greek - things that schools perhaps have not been able to deliver." The technology behind the hologram conferencing involves capturing an image with a video camera and loading it onto a PC encoding card.

The encoding card turns the image into a digital format which, with the help of some

special software, is Duffie White: "Allows transmitted to another interaction" computer over the internet. At the receiving end, another computer reverses the process.

The developer of the system, Duffie White, says it is similar to videoconferencing in that video images are being transmitted, but users are not aware of looking at a screen and a camera. "You look at the people in the classroom, and the teacher appears within the classroom for the students.

"So the students aren't relating to a monitor, they are actually relating to a lifesize image of their teacher - and that

teacher can see those Novelty perhaps, but students." students say they pay more attention than to a 'real' teacher The key to the system's success is a fast internet connection - a http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/education/2000/bett2000/600667.stm 1/23/2007 BBC NEWS | In Depth | Bett2000 | Meet the hologram teacher Page 3 of 3 normal phone line would not cope.

Edex has been pushing for some time for a fast national network for education, and argues that schools' use of ISDN connections is a blind alley.

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• Computer – Hardware – Internet by Kevin Bonsor – Peripherals – Security – Software Inside This Article • Electronics 1. Introduction to How Holographic 3. Building a Holographic Environment • Entertainment Environments Will Work 4. Lots More Information • Health 2. Beyond Videoconferencing • Home • Money Beyond Videoconferencing • People In the office of the future, you won't call people with a phone. You will • Science command your computer to call a particular person. "Computer, call Joe at the • Travel London office." Suddenly, one of your office walls will flicker and Joe will be sitting across from you as if he were right there. On the other end, Joe will EXPERT REVIEWS experience the same immersive connection. That's the idea behind tele- immersion: bringing two or more distant people together in a single, simulated Consumer Guide Auto office setting. Business travel will be practically unnecessary. Consumer Guide Products This type of communication will take us beyond the limits of Mobil Travel Guide videoconferencing. Have you ever used a Webcam to teleconference with another person? If you have, then you've seen that videoconferencing via the OPINIONS Internet is not a perfect form of communication. The image is close to real- Member Home time, but there are delays that cause a jerking video. Also, if someone walks Log In/Register out of view of that one camera, you can no longer see the person. With tele- immersion, people can't walk out of the view of the camera. In fact, you can PRICES peer around their office just by looking at the display screen from different Shop HowStuffWorks angles. It's like having a window to look through. Holographic environments will be generated by computers with computing VIDEO CENTER speeds thousands of times faster than your PC. There are several steps to Search Video Center constructing a holographic environment:

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There are several groups working together on the National Tele-Immersion Initiative (NTII) to bring us all together in these virtual environments. In May 2000, researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC), the University of Pennsylvania and Advanced Networks and Services reached a milestone in developing this technology. A user sitting in an office at UNC in Chapel Hill, NC, was able to see lifelike, three-dimensional images of colleagues hundreds of miles away, one in Philadelphia and the other in New York. Tele-immersion may sound similar to virtual reality, but there are key differences between the two technologies. Virtual reality allows you to move in a computer-generated 3-D environment, but tele-immersion, for now, can only create a 3-D environment that you can see -- you can't interact in it. The next step is to merge tele-immersion and virtual reality to allow users to alter the scenes that they see. The applications for immersive holographic environments are endless. Imagine a video game free of joysticks, in which you become a participant in the game, fighting monsters or scoring touchdowns. Instead of traveling hundreds of miles to visit your relatives for the holidays, you'll simply call them up and join them in a shared holographic room. Eventually, you will even be able to hug other people using this technology. Doctors and soldiers could use tele- immersion to train in a simulated environment.

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Cave Automatic Virtual Environment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from CAVE)

A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (better known by the recursive acronym CAVE) is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube. The name is also a reference to the allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic where a philosopher contemplates perception, reality and illusion.

Contents

1 General characteristics of the CAVE 2 The first CAVE 3 Technology 4 Software 5 Developments in CAVE research 6 Calibration 7 Applications 8 List (necessarily incomplete) of CAVEs at universities 9 External links 10 References

General characteristics of the CAVE

The CAVE is a 10’ X 10’ X 9’ theatre that sits in a larger room measured to be around 35’ X 25’ X 13’. The outside room must be free of light at all times while using the CAVE. The walls of the CAVE are made up of rear-projection screens, and the floor is made of a down-projection screen. High-resolution projectors (the University of Illinois uses an Electrohome Marquee 8000) display images on each of the screens by projecting the images onto mirrors which reflect the images onto the projection screens. The user will go inside of the CAVE wearing special glasses to allow for the 3-D graphics that are generated by the CAVE to be seen. With these glasses, people using the CAVE can actually see objects floating in the air, and can walk around them, getting a proper view of what the object would look like when they walk around it. This is made possible with electromagnetic sensors. The frame of the CAVE is made out of non-magnetic stainless steel in order to interfere as little as possible with the electromagnetic sensors. When a person walks around in the CAVE, their movements are tracked with these sensors and the video adjusts accordingly. Computers control this aspect of the CAVE as well as the audio aspects. There are multiple speakers placed from multiple angles in the CAVE, giving one not only 3-D video, but 3-D audio as well. [1] (http://www.cs.uic.edu/~kenyon/NASA/Workshop_Noor.html) The first CAVE

The first CAVE was developed in the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois at Chicago and was announced and demonstrated at the 1992 SIGGRAPH. The CAVE was developed in response to a challenge from the SIGGRAPH 92 Showcase effort (and its chair James E. George) for scientists to create and show off a one-to-many visualization tool that utilized large projection screens. The CAVE answered that challenge, and became the third major physical form of immersive VR (after goggle's n' gloves and vehicle simulators). Thomas A. DeFanti, Daniel J. Sandin, and Carolina Cruz-Neira are credited with its invention. It has been used and developed in cooperation with the NCSA, to conduct research in various virtual reality and scientific visualization fields. CAVE is a registered trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Regents. The name was first licensed to Pyramid Systems and is currently licensed to Mechdyne Corporation, the parent company of Fakespace Systems (Fakespace Systems acquired Pyramid Systems in 1999). Commercial systems based on the concept of the CAVE are available from a handful of manufacturers.

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Technology

A lifelike visual display is created by projectors positioned outside the CAVE and controlled by physical movements from a user inside the CAVE. Stereoscopic LCD shutter glasses convey a 3D image. The computers rapidly generate a pair of images, one for each of the user's eyes. The glasses are synchronized with the projectors so that each eye only sees the correct image. Since the projectors are positioned outside of the cube, mirrors often reduce the distance required from the projectors to the screens. One or more computers, often SGI workstations, drive the projectors. Clusters of desktop PCs are popular to run CAVEs, because they cost less and run faster. A cluster can be harder to administer than a single SGI, however. Software

Software and libraries designed specifically for CAVE applications are available. There are several techniques for rendering the scene. OpenGL is better for simpler simulations, not large scenes. There are 3 popular scene graphs in use today: OpenSG (http://www.opensg.org) , OpenSceneGraph (http://www.openscenegraph.org) , and OpenGL Performer (http://www.sgi.com/products/software/performer) . OpenSG and OpenSceneGraph are open source, while OpenGL Performer is a commercial product from SGI.

VR Juggler (http://www.vrjuggler.org) is a suite of APIs designed to simplify the VR application development process. VR Juggler allows the programmer to write an application that will work with any VR display device, with any VR input devices, without changing any code or having to recompile the application. Juggler is used in over 100 CAVEs worldwide.

CoVE (http://cove.opentechinc.com) is a suite of APIs designed to enable the creation of reusable VR applications. CoVE provides programmers with an API to develop multi-user, multi-tasking, collaborative, cluster-ready applications with rich 2D interfaces using an immersive window manager and windowing API to provide windows, menus, buttons, and other common widgets within the VR system. CoVE also supports running X11 applications within the VR environment.

Equalizer (http://www.equalizergraphics.com) is an open source rendering framework and resource management system for multipipe applications, ranging from single pipe workstations to VR installations. Equalizer provides an API to write parallel, scalable visualization applications which are configured at run-time by a resource server.

Syzygy (http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/syzygy.htm) is a freely-distributed grid operating system for PC Cluster Virtual Reality, Tele-Collaboration, and Multimedia Supercomputing, developed by the Integrated Systems Laboratory (http://www.isl.uiuc.edu) at the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This middleware runs on MacOS, Linux, Windows, and Irix. C++, OpenGL, and Python applications (as well as other regular computer apps) can run on this and be distributed for VR. Developments in CAVE research

The biggest issue that researchers are faced with when it comes to the CAVE is size and cost. Researchers have realized this and have come up with a derivative of the CAVE system, called ImmersaDesk. With the ImmersaDesk, the user looks at one projection screen instead of being completely blocked out from the outside world, as is the case with the original CAVE. The idea behind the ImmersaDesk is that it is a single screen placed on a 45-degree angle so that the person using the machine has the opportunity to look forward and downward. The screen is 4’ X 5’, so it is wide enough to give the user the width that they need to obtain the proper 3-D experience. The 3-D images come out by using the same glasses as were used in the CAVE. This system uses sonic hand tracking and head tracking, so the system still uses a computer to process the users’ movements.

This system is much more affordable and practical than the original CAVE system for some obvious reasons. First, one does not need to create a “room inside of a room”. That is to say that one does not need to place the ImmersaDesk inside of a pitch-black room that is large enough to accommodate it. One needs one projector instead of four, and only one projection

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screen. One does not need a computer as expensive or with the same capabilities that are necessary with the original CAVE. Another thing that makes the ImmersaDesk attractive is the fact that since it was derived from the original CAVE, it is compatible with all of the CAVE’s software packages and also with all of the CAVE’s libraries and interfaces. [2] (http://www.cs.uic.edu/~kenyon/NASA/Workshop_Noor.html) Calibration

In order to be able to create an image that will not be distorted or out of place, calibration must take place in the CAVE before an image is projected. The things that are actually being calibrated here are the electromagnetic sensors. What will happen is a person will put on the special glasses needed to be able to see the images in 3-D. The projectors then fill the CAVE with many one-inch boxes that are set one foot apart. The person then takes an instrument called an “ultrasonic measurement device” which has a cursor in the middle of it, and positions the device so that the cursor is visually in line with the projected box. This process can go on until almost 400 different blocks are measured. Each time the cursor is placed inside of a block, a computer program records the location of that block and sends the location to another computer. If the points are calibrated accurately, there should be no distortion in the images that are projected in the CAVE. This also allows the CAVE to correctly identify where the user is located and can precisely track their movements, leading to the projectors being able to display images based on where the person walks inside of the CAVE. [3] (http://inkido.indiana.edu/a100/handouts/cave_out.html) Applications

The concept of the original CAVE has been reapplied and is currently being used in a variety of fields. Many universities own CAVE systems.

CAVEs are used for many things. Many engineering companies use CAVEs to enhance product development. Prototypes of parts can be created and tested, interfaces can be developed, and factory layouts can be simulated, all before spending any money on physical parts. This gives engineers a better idea of how a part will behave in the entire product. List (necessarily incomplete) of CAVEs at universities

The 4-wall Cave [4] (http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/vr/Projects/ImmersiveVRLab) at UCL, London EVL (http://www.evl.uic.edu) at University of Illinois at Chicago The Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) at Iowa State University is the home to a pair of CAVEs: a 4 walled CAVE and a 6 walled CAVE. Brown University also owns a CAVE. Students use the systems for a variety of purposes, including engineering, physics, chemical, psychological, biological, and geological research, as well as for art courses, tours of the human body, architecture study, meteorology and virtual archaeological excavations. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a CAVE, a 6-walled CUBE, and a 3-walled portable CANVAS (http://www.canvas.uiuc.edu/) . The CUBE is used for cognitive psychology research, geometry, urban planning data visualization, interdisciplinary communications courses. The CANVAS is used primarily for creating tools for artists to use in VR. Duke University has the DiVE (http://vis.duke.edu/Facilities/visroom/visualization_room.html) , a 6-walled 'CAVE'. University of Linz has a 4-walled CAVE mainly used by the Inst. of Graphics and Parallel Processing (http://www.gup.uni-linz.ac.at/) (CAVE@GUP (http://www.gup.uni-linz.ac.at/cave/index.php?lang=E) ) Pennsylvania State University owns a 5 wall CAVE system and supports many fielded CAVE systems *around the country via their Applied Research Laboratory (http://www.arl.psu.edu/capabilities/cn_sealab.html) (ARL). University of Reading owns a CAVE which is used for several research projects including medical visualisation. Virginia Polytechnic Institute has a 4-walled CAVE University A 3-walled CAVE used in Architectural Education and Research. ([5] (http://www.engg.uaeu.ac.ae/a.okeil/uaeu-cave/) ) University of Calgary has a 4-walled CAVE SARA Computing and Networking services (http://www.sara.nl) owns a CAVE.

3 of 5 5/8/2007 2:00 AM Cave Automatic Virtual Environment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAVE

University of Groningen owns a CAVE. Macquarie University owns a CAVE. University of Southern Mississippi owns a CAVE, along with another at sister-site Stennis Space Center. University of California, Davis has a CAVE operated by the W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences. (www.keckcaves.org (http://www.keckcaves.org/) ) Wright State University has a 5-walled CAVE operated by the Department of Psychology ([6] (http://www.psych.wright.edu/veritaslab.htm) ) University of Michigan owns a CAVE. Virtual Manufacturing Systems Laboratory (VMS), Department of Industrial Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand owns a PC-CAVE with 4 walls for FRONT-, LEFT-, RIGHT-, and FLOOR-screen. ( VMS@IE-CU (http://www.ie.eng.chula.ac.th/laboratory/vms/) ) School of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Seinäjoki University of applied sciences, VR laboratory (http://www.vrlab.fi/) , Seinäjoki, Finland has a 5-walled CAVE that is run with Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision and PC-Cluster. University of Arizona has a 4-walled CAVE used for data and bio-medical visualization, 3D visual arts, and history projects. (AZ-LIVE (http://computing.arizona.edu/news/az-live.html) ) University of Caxias do Sul has a 4-walled CAVE used for general purpose visualization, as well 3D visual arts. Developed by New Technologies in Visual Arts Lab - (NTAV) (Artecno Group (http://artecno.ucs.br/ntavpocketcave/) ) Avans Hogeschool has a virtual CAVE that used to belong to SARA. It is used by the Academie voor ICT & Media faculty. The Politechnic University of has a cave also(here (http://www.upv.es) ) The Arctic Region Supercomputing Center operates the Discovery Lab (a 4-walled CAVE) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Cornell University maintains a 3-wall CAVE. The Vision psychophysics and perception laboratory (http://vision.opto.umontreal.ca) at Université de Montréal has a 4-walled CAVE system. The CAVE system is used for vision research. The CAVE at the Art Institute of Chicago (http://bcchang.com/vrlab/index.php) is a 1-wall cave with an integrated surround-sound system via OSC/Supercollider; also integrating WiiMote interface. Part of the Arts and Technologies Studies at the school. The Desert Research Institute's Reno, Nevada campus has a 4-wall CAVE. The Univerisity of Salford's (http://www.salford.ac.uk) Centre for Virtual Environments (http://www.nicve.salford.ac.uk/) houses perhaps the world's largest collection of large Scale VR equipment, including CAVE, Reality Room, Workbench and Trace systems. The CAVE in the Ars Electronica Centre (http://www.aec.at) in Linz, was the first to be installed outside the US. It, the CAVE at the ICC in Tokyo, and the CANVAS at Illinois, are open to the public. External links

The Visroom at Duke University (http://vis.duke.edu/Facilities/visroom/visualization_room.html) The Cave at Penn State ARL (http://www.arl.psu.edu/capabilities/cn_sealab.html) The Cave at LSI in Universidade de Sao Paulo (http://www.lsi.usp.br/interativos/nrv/caverna_eng.html) The Cave at NTAV in Universidade de Caxias do Sul - UCS - Brazil (http://artecno.ucs.br/ntavpocketcave/) Electronic Visualization Lab homepage (http://evlweb.eecs.uic.edu/) The Cave at NCSA (http://cave.ncsa.uiuc.edu/) Iowa State University's Virtual Reality Applications Center (http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/) Brown University's Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Visualization (http://www.ccv.brown.edu/) Dave Pape's CAVE page (http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/CAVE/) (University of Illinois at Chicago) Technologyreview.com - Exploring The Cave (http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/11662/) Virtual Environment Enclosures (http://www.cs.nps.navy.mil/people/faculty/capps/4473/projects/christianson/CavesLong.html) The CAVE at ARS Electronica CENTER (http://www.aec.at/en/center/project.asp?iProjectID=11197) The CAVE at SARA (http://www.sara.nl/products/products_08a_01_eng.html)

4 of 5 5/8/2007 2:00 AM Cave Automatic Virtual Environment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAVE

The CAVE at University of Groningen (http://www.rug.nl/rc/hpcv/visualisation/index?lang=en) The CAVE at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (http://bcchang.com/vrlab/index.php) Reading Visualization Centre (RVC) (http://www.cave.rdg.ac.uk/) The Centre for Virtual Environments (http://www.nicve.salford.ac.uk/) Newcastle University - Informatics Research Institute - Virtual Reality Suite (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/iri/facilities/) Advanced Visualization Lab at Indiana University (http://www.avl.indiana.edu) Virtual Reality Lab - Department of Architecture, United Arab Emirates University (http://www.engg.uaeu.ac.ae/a.okeil/uaeu-cave) Image of a CAVE (http://inkido.indiana.edu/a100/handouts/Image116.gif) Image of ImmersaDesk (http://www.invisu.ca/images/imm.gif) HoloVis International - World's Highest Resolution CAVE Solutions (http://www.holovis.com/) Omnidirectional Treadmill (http://www.vsd.bz) Vision psychophysics and perception laboratory (http://vision.opto.umontreal.ca) Barco V&AR immersive environments (http://www.barco.com/VirtualReality/en/products/productclass.asp?class=390) Visbox, Inc. - Affordable Multi-screen Immersive Displays (http://www.visbox.com/visbox-X3.html) References

The CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment (http://inkido.indiana.edu/a100/handouts/cave_out.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Automatic_Virtual_Environment"

Category: Virtual reality

This page was last modified 15:55, 20 April 2007. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a US-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.

5 of 5 5/8/2007 2:00 AM Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003 Issued October 2005 Special Studies P23-208

Introduction second and third parts of the report deal Current with computer and Internet use among This report provides information about the Population children and adults, respectively. characteristics of households and people Reports who have and have not adopted use of computers and the Internet. The findings COMPUTERS AND INTERNET By ACCESS IN HOUSEHOLDS Jennifer Cheeseman Day, in this report are based on data collected in Alex Janus, and a supplement to the October 2003 Current Jessica Davis Population Survey that included questions Prevalence of Personal Computers about computer and Internet use at home, and Internet Access 1 school, and work. The U.S. Census Bureau The majority of households have personal has asked questions in the Current Popula- computers and Internet access. In 2003, tion Survey to assess computer use since 70 million American households, or 62 per- 1984 and Internet use since 1997. cent, had one or more computers, up from 56 percent in 2001 (Figure 1).2 In 1984, The first part of this report examines com- the proportion of households with a com- puter and Internet use in households. The puter was 8 percent.

Figure 1. Households With a Computer and Internet Access: 1984 to 2003 (In percent)

61.8 Households with a computer 56.3 Households with Internet access 54.7 51.0 50.4

42.1 41.5 36.6

26.2 22.8 18.0 15.0

8.2

1984 1989 1993 1997 1998 2000 2001 2003

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 1984, 1989, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003.

1 The data in this report are from the Computer and 2 The estimates in this report (which may be shown in Internet Use Supplement to the October 2003 Current text, figures, and tables) are based on responses from a Population Survey. The population represented (the popu- sample of the population and may differ from actual val- lation universe) is the civilian noninstitutionalized popula- ues because of sampling variability or other factors. As tion living in the United States. a result, apparent differences between the estimates for two or more groups may not be statistically significant. All comparative statements have undergone statistical testing and are significant at the 90-percent confidence level unless otherwise noted.

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2 U.S. Census Bureau Sixty-two million households, or The presence of a school-aged child puter and 31 percent had Internet 55 percent, had Internet access, up also influenced whether a house- access. from 50 percent in 2001, and more hold had a computer or Internet than triple the proportion of house- access. More than three-quarters of Households Without Internet holds with Internet access in 1997 households with a school-aged child Access (18 percent). Most households with (6 to 17 years) had a computer, and a computer also had Internet access 67 percent had Internet access. In Forty-five percent of households did (88 percent).3 In 1997, less than comparison, 57 percent of house- not have Internet access at home 6 half of households with computers holds without a school-aged child in 2003. The three most com- had someone using the Internet. had a computer, and 50 percent had mon reasons were “don’t need it, Internet access. not interested” (39 percent), “costs While computer ownership and are too high,” and “no computer or home Internet access have been High-income households were more computer inadequate” (each at adopted widely, some groups had likely to have a computer or Internet 23 percent, Table B). A few house- lower adoption rates. For instance, access. Among family households holds had “access elsewhere” 35 percent of households with with incomes of $100,000 or more (2 percent). “Language barriers,” householders aged 65 and older, during the 12 months prior to the “concern that children will access in- about 45 percent of households survey, 95 percent had at least one appropriate sites,” and “privacy and with Black or Hispanic household- computer and 92 percent had Inter- security concerns” were rarely given 7 ers, and 28 percent of households net access at home. Among family as reasons (each 1 percent). with householders who had less households with incomes below than a high school education had a $25,000, 41 percent had a com- Among households without the In- computer (Table A).4 In addition, ternet, more than 4 out of 5 also did 41 percent of one-person house- 5 holds and 46 percent of nonfamily 4 Hereafter, this report uses the term non- The percent of households with comput- households owned a computer.5 Hispanic White to refer to people who reported ers with either Black or Hispanic householders they are White only and not Hispanic or La- is not significantly different from the percent Differences among households in tino. The term Black is used to refer to people of nonfamily households with computers. Internet access mirror those for who reported the single race Black or African 6 The Current Population Survey asked why American, the term Asian refers to people who computer ownership. respondents did not have Internet access. It reported the single race Asian, and the term did not ask reasons for not having a home Hispanic refers to people who are Hispanic or computer. Latino. Because Hispanics may be any race, 7 3 Twelve percent of households with a data in this report for Hispanics overlap slight- The value for “language barriers” is sta- computer did not have Internet access, and ly with data for the Black population and for tistically different from the values for “concern another one-half million (less than 1 percent) the Asian population. Based on the October that children will access inappropriate sites” without a computer accessed the Internet us- 2003 Current Population Survey, 3.6 percent and “privacy and security concerns.” ing some other device. of the single-race Black population 3 years and older and 1.0 percent of the single-race Asian population 3 years and older were Hispanic.

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U.S. Census Bureau 3 not have a computer (83 percent). holds had Internet access. Southern proportions of Internet access in the For 41 percent of these computer- households had the lowest rates of home: about 40 percent.8 less households, “don’t need it, not access: 59 percent had a computer interested” was the primary reason and 52 percent had an Internet for not having Internet access. For connection. COMPUTER AND INTERNET about one-fourth of these house- USE AMONG CHILDREN holds, the lack of a computer was Since 2000, rates of computer use the primary reason. have become more uniform across Historically, access to computer the country, narrowing the technol- and Internet technology has been As shown in Figure 2, disinterest in ogy gap between the West and discussed separately from its actual the Internet is related to the age of the South. The difference between use. Since almost 9 in 10 children the householder. Of the 20 million the two regions decreased from living in a household with a com- householders who stated they were 10 percentage points in 2000 puter used it in 2003, the difference not interested in the Internet, over (57 percent in the West and between access and use is mini- 60 percent (12.7 million) were aged 47 percent in the South) to mal (Table C). The percentage of 55 and older. Householders aged 8 percentage points in 2003. children living in a household with 15 to 44 without Internet access a computer who used it increased most frequently cited “costs are too Households in Utah, Alaska, New from 75 percent in 1993 to 9 high” as the reason. Hampshire, and Washington were 86 percent in 2003. among those with the highest rates of computer ownership (about Regional and State Rates of 72 percent, Figure 3), while the 8 Utah’s rate of computer ownership was Computer and Internet Access higher than that of other states except for rates in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alaska, New Hampshire, and Washington. While households in the West had Louisiana were among the lowest Mississippi’s rate of computer ownership was lower than that of other states except the highest rates of access to these (about 50 percent). Alaska and New for Arkansas and Louisiana. Alaska’s rate of technologies, households in the Hampshire were also among the Internet access was higher than that of other states except for New Hampshire. Missis- Northeast, Midwest, and South were states with the highest proportions sippi’s rate of Internet access was lower than close behind (Table A). In 2003, of households with access to the that of other states except for Arkansas. 67 percent of households in the Internet (about 65 percent). House- 9 For more information on computer use in 1993, see the detailed tables at .

Figure 2. Selected Reasons for No Internet Access in Household by Age of Householder: 2003 (In millions) 5.6 Don’t need it, not interested Costs are too high No computer or computer inadequate

3.9

3.2

2.7 2.8 2.8

2.2 2.2 2.1 2.0 1.8 1.8 1.6 1.7 1.4 1.4 1.1 1.2 0.9 0.8 0.8

Under 25 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65–74 75 and over

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003.

4 U.S. Census Bureau Figure 3. Households With a Computer and Internet Access by Region and State: 2003 (In percent) Households with Internet access Households with a computer 90-percent confidence interval 90-percent confidence interval Midpoint Midpoint

REGION West Northeast Midwest South

STATE Utah Alaska New Hampshire Washington Colorado Connecticut Idaho Minnesota Maine Oregon Virginia Nebraska California Maryland Vermont Wyoming New Jersey Iowa Arizona Delaware Massachusetts Wisconsin Kansas Hawaii Rhode Island South Dakota United States North Dakota Nevada Florida Georgia Missouri Pennsylvania Illinois Michigan New York Montana Indiana District of Columbia Texas Ohio Kentucky North Carolina Tennessee Oklahoma South Carolina West Virginia New Mexico Alabama Louisiana Arkansas Mississippi 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003.

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6 U.S. Census Bureau ����� �� Children’s access to a computer at computer use rates between these at home and at school. Among �������� ��� �������� ��� ��� �������� � �� �� ������ ���� home and at school has increased groups with access to a computer children who used a computer in �������� �� ���������� in recent years. In 1993, 32 percent was 82 percent and 89 percent, one location, more used a computer of children had access to a com- respectively. at school than at home, 24 percent �������� �� ���� �������� �� ���� �������� �� ������ puter at home and 61 percent used compared with 6 percent. Adding �������� �������� �������� �������� ����� � �������� a computer at school. In 2003, Children’s family income had a all three groups (at home, at school, �������������� ����� ����� ����� ���� ����� about three-quarters (76 percent) similar relationship to computer in both locations) together, more ���� �������� ���� �������� ����� �������� ���� ����� ������ ����� �� �� ���� ���� of all children 3 to 17 years lived in presence in the household. Forty- than 9 in 10 schoolchildren used a � � ����� ������ ������� ����� ������ ������� �������� �������� ������ ������ ����� ����� a household with a computer, and seven percent of children with computer somewhere, leaving ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� 83 percent of the 57 million en- family incomes under $25,000 lived 7 percent who did not use a com- rolled children used a computer at in a household with a computer, puter in any location. ��� � �� � ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� school, giving this generation more compared with 97 percent of those � �� � ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� exposure to technology than their with family incomes of at least Schools give computer access to �� �� �� ����� � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� $100,000. Eighty percent of chil- children who do not have it at �� �� �� ����� � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� predecessors. dren in families with lower incomes home. As illustrated in Figure 5, ��� ���� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� Despite these increases, rates of used the computer if one was schools provided computer access ������ � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� access to and use of computers in the household, compared with to all groups regardless of family

������������� ������ continued to vary among groups 90 percent of children from families income, race, and Hispanic origin. ����� ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� (Table C). In 2003, the percentage with higher incomes. ����� ������ Children from family households ������������ � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� of children living in homes with a with incomes of $100,000 or more ����� ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� computer ranged from 70 percent Computer Use at School and at ����� ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� for young children (aged 3 to 5) enrolled in kindergarten through �������� ���� ����� � � � � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� Home to 79 percent for older teenagers 12th grade had the highest rates ��������� ���� (aged 15 to 17). Among children School affects children’s access of home computer use, 92 percent, ������ ��������� � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� to and use of computers. Among �������������� ������ � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� who lived in a home with a com- compared with 41 percent of chil- ���� ������������ �� puter, older children were more schoolchildren enrolled in kinder- dren from households with incomes ���� ������� � � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� garten through 12th grade (K–12), below $25,000, a difference of ������ ������������ likely than younger children to use �� ������� ������� � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� the computer—usage was nearly about 8 in 10 used a computer at about 50 percentage points. At ��������� ��������� � � � � � � � � ��� ��� ���� ���� ��� ���� ���� ��� ���� ���� ���� ���� universal among older children, 95 home, and about 9 in 10 used a school, 91 percent of children from ����� �� ������ percent, compared with 67 percent computer at school in 2003 families with the highest incomes ���� ���� ��� ����� � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� (Figure 4). used a computer, compared with ��� �� ��� ����� � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� of younger children. ��� �� ��� ����� � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� 84 percent of those with the lowest ��� �� ���� ����� �� Rates of children’s home computer More than half (64 percent) of incomes, a difference of 6 percent- ������ � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� schoolchildren used computers both ��� �������� �� ������ � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� � ��� ��� ���� ���� access and use varied by race and age points. Hispanic origin. Non-Hispanic White ����������� ���������� �� ����������� or Asian children (each about ���� ���� ���� ������ 85 percent) were more likely to Figure 4. �������� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� Use of Computers Among Children Enrolled in Grades ���� ������ ��������� have a computer at home than Black ���� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� or Hispanic children (each about K–12: 2003* ���� ������� �� (In percent) ����������� ������ � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� 54 percent). Among those who lived ���������� ������ � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� in households with a computer, the Use at home 83.4 �������� ������ � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� differences in usage rates within ������ ������ �������� those households were 88 percent ����� �������� � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� Use at school ���� ���� ������� � � � � � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� for non-Hispanic Whites and about 92.3 ��������������� � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� 82 percent each for Blacks, Asians, ��������������� � � � � � � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� and Hispanics. ��������������� � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� Use at both home and school 63.7 �������� �� ���� � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ��� �������� � � � � � � � � � � � � ����� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� Educational attainment of the householder continued to show a ������ Use only at school 23.6 ��������� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ����� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� relationship to the presence of a ������� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� computer in the household. While ����� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� 47 percent of children living with Use only at home 5.7 ���� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ������ ������ ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ������ ���� ���� ���� ���� a householder who had less than a � ������� ����� �� ��� ��������� high school education had a com- � ������� ����� �� �������� ���� � �������� �� ����� No use 7.0 � ������� ����� �� �������� ���� �������� ������ �� ����� puter, 94 percent of the children in � ������� ����� �� �������� �������� �� ������� � ������� ����������� �������� households where the householder had a bachelor’s degree or more * The percentages for home and school computer use differ from the corresponding percentages ������� ���� ������ ������� ������� ���������� ������� ������� ����� in Table C because this figure excludes children who were not enrolled in grades K–12. education had a computer available Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003. to them at home. The difference in

U.S. Census Bureau 7 Figure 5 illustrates a similar effect 80 percent of non-Hispanic White diminished, with 89 percent of non- among children by race and Hispan- children using a computer at home, Hispanic White children and about ic origin. The highest and lowest compared with about 48 percent 85 percent of Black and Hispanic rates for computer use at home dif- each of Black children and Hispanic children using computers there. fered by 33 percentage points, with children. At school, the differences

Figure 5. Computer Use at Home and School Among Children Enrolled in Grades K–12 by Family Income, Race and Hispanic Origin, and Type of School: 2003 (In percent)

Computer use by family income* 91.6 More than $100,000 88.1 $75,000 to $99,999 Home use 84.5 67.2 $50,000 to $74,999 41.2 $25,000 to $49,999 Less than $25,000 90.5 90.1 School use 88.7 87.5 83.8

97.2 96.2 Total use 95.6 92.9 87.6

Computer use by race and Hispanic origin 80.3 White alone, non-Hispanic 75.3 Home use Asian alone 47.3 Black alone 49.5 Hispanic (any race) 89.2 79.9 School use 85.1 83.5

95.6 91.6 Total use 88.6 88.3

Computer use by type of school 82.7 Home use Attends private school 67.9 Attends public school 85.2 School use 87.4

93.8 Total use 92.9

*Among children in families. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003.

8 U.S. Census Bureau The 15-percentage-point difference between public and private school- Figure 6. children in home computer-use Types of Computer Use at Home for Children 3 to 17 rates disappeared when the children Years by Age: 2003 were at school. The percentage of (Percentage of children who use a computer at home) students who used a computer at public school was marginally higher 66.1 than that of children who used a 13.5 computer at private school (87 School 45.8 percent compared with 85 percent), assignments 84.0 10 reversing a historical trend. 90.8

Eighty-three percent of children 64.4 aged 3 to 17 with a computer at 32.1 home used it to play games, the Internet 47.7 most common single use, followed 73.9 by school assignments (66 percent) 86.3 and connecting to the Internet (64 percent, Figure 6). Children used a broader range of computer 44.6 applications as they aged. Playing 10.8 games was the most frequent activ- E-mail 20.3 ity among the youngest children 52.8 (85 percent). For the oldest chil- 77.0 dren, school assignments and accessing the Internet were more 83.1 common activities (91 percent and 85.2 86 percent, respectively). Play games 87.7 85.1 Children who accessed the Inter- 73.9 net, whether at home, school, or elsewhere, most often used online connectivity to complete school 45.4 assignments (75 percent). The next 12.5 most common Internet use among Word 24.7 processing children was playing games 56.4 (65 percent), followed by e-mail or 69.2 instant messaging (60 percent).11

Graphics or COMPUTER AND INTERNET manipulate 43.4 USE AMONG ADULTS audios* 3 to 17 years Overall, use of computers by adults (people 18 years and older) was 3 to 5 years Spreadsheets* 21.0 less prevalent than use by children. 6 to 9 years Sixty-four percent of adults used a 10 to 14 years computer at some location (home, 15 to 17 years school, or work) in 2003, compared Manage household 4.4 with 86 percent of children (Tables finances* C and D). Due to the large propor- tion of very young children who *Asked only of children aged 15 to 17. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003.

10 For more information on computer use in earlier years, see . the Internet, a larger proportion of portion of adults (people 18 years 11 For more information on children’s ac- adults than children used the Inter- and over) using a computer any- tivites on the Internet, see the 2003 Detailed Table 9A at . compared with 56 percent). in 1984, to 36 percent in 1993, to

U.S. Census Bureau 9 ����� �� �������� ��� �������� ��� ��� ��� ���������� �� ����� ��� ������ ���� �������� �� ����������

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10 U.S. Census Bureau 64 percent in 2003. From 1997 (the first year in which the CPS col- Figure 7. lected information on Internet use) Population 18 Years and Older Using a Computer at Home to 2003, use of the Internet among by Sex: 1984 to 2003 adults jumped from 22 percent to (In percent) 60 percent. 83.5 Men 81.8 81.5 80.1 Among adults, two-thirds Women 72.1 (66 percent) had a computer at 70.0 69.6 home, and among those, 83 percent 65.2 63.1 used the computer. Fifty-nine per- 61.1 cent of adults had Internet access at home, and 82 percent of them 51.4 used it. More than half of working 42.8 adults used a computer at work (56 percent), and 42 percent used the Internet on the job. Among adult students, 85 percent said they used a computer at school, and 66 percent used the Internet there.

As was the case for children, adults’ use of these technologies varied with their socioeconomic and demo- 1984 1989 1993 1997 2001 2003 graphic characteristics. Adults with Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 2003. an advanced degree, for example, had the highest rates of computer use anywhere. Asian or non-His- 1997 and reversed in 2001, favor- egory accounted for 29 percent of panic White adults (about 69 per- ing women by 2 percentage points. all women using computers at work. cent each) were more likely to use a Similarly, women’s Internet use at computer than Blacks or Hispanics home exceeded men’s in 2003. The percentages of women and men (51 percent and 41 percent, who use computers at work also respectively). At work, women have had higher differ by occupation group. Among rates of computer use than men men, the group with the highest People 65 and older had lower since the CPS first collected data percentage of workers using a com- rates of computer use (28 percent) on computer use in 1984, when puter was professional occupations. and Internet use (25 percent) than 29 percent of working women used For women, the most computer us- was the case for other age groups. a computer on the job, compared ers were in the management, busi- Adults 18 to 24 years of age were with 21 percent of working men. ness, and financial occupations. most likely to use a computer or the In 2003, 63 percent of women and Internet someplace (75 percent and 51 percent of men used a computer Internet Use for 71 percent, respectively). at work. Forty-seven percent of Communication and Commerce women and 39 percent of men used Computer Use by Sex the Internet on the job in 2003 Over the last few years, computer (Table E). and Internet technologies have In 2003, more women than men merged into a communications used a computer at home by a small Some of the historically higher rates device for both home and work margin, reversing the computer of women’s computer use at work life. By 2003, more adult computer use “gender gap” exhibited during may derive in part from the type users accessed the Internet than 12 the 1980s and 1990s. In 1984, of jobs they have held. In 2003, performed any other computing men’s home computer use was 20 the technology use-intensive office task: 89 percent of home users and percentage points higher than that and administrative support occupa- 75 percent of those at work (Table of women (Figure 7). This gap tions accounted for 23 percent of F). Nearly 9 in 10 adult Internet us- decreased to 3 percentage points in all working women and 6 percent ers (88 percent) used the Internet to

12 of working men. While office and send or receive e-mail, and nearly For more information on computer use by sex in the 1980s and 1990s, see Computer administrative support occupations 8 in 10 (78 percent) used the Inter- Use in the United States: 1984, Computer Use net to get information on products in the United States: 1989, and Computer Use accounted for 7 percent of men in the United States: 1997, at .

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12 U.S. Census Bureau

���� ������ ������ The proportions of the population performing tasks online, and the Figure 8. activities they choose, demonstrate Population 18 Years and Older Using the Internet some of the ways the technology is for a Specific Task: 1997, 2001, and 2003 affecting society: (In percent) 22.1 • The Internet has become a major Total using 55.3 venue for the dissemination of Internet 59.5 news. In 6 years, the proportion of adults who used the Internet 11.5 to find information on “news, E-mail 48.6 weather, or sports” increased 54.5 from 7 percent in 1997 to 40 per- cent in 2003 (Figure 8), and the Information on products 41.7 proportion using the Internet to or services 46.5 find information on government News, 7.2 or health services increased from weather, sports 37.4 12 percent to 33 percent.13 information 40.1

• The Internet is also changing in- Information on 11.5 terpersonal communication. More government/ 26.4 health services* than half (55 percent) of all adults 32.8 used e-mail or instant messaging Purchase 2.1 in 2003, compared with products or 25.7 12 percent of adults in 1997. services** 32.3

• The Internet has become an 1997 integral part of the economy. Play 19.3 games 21.5 2001 Eighteen percent of adults con- 2003 ducted banking online in 2003. 10.4 Twelve percent of adults used the Bank online Internet to search for a job. Near- 17.6 ly half of adults (47 percent) used the Internet to find information View TV or 10.2 movies, listen on products or services. About to radio 12.5 one-third of adults (32 percent) actually purchased a product or 9.4 service online, compared with Search for a job 11.7 2.1 percent of adults who used the Internet for “shopping” in 1997. School 6.2 assignments 6.8 SOURCE OF THE DATA Trade stocks, 5.2 The population represented (the mutual funds 4.3 population universe) in the Com- puter and Internet Use Supplement 0.6 Take a course 2.3 to the October 2003 Current Popula- online tion Survey is the civilian noninsti- 3.9 tutionalized population living in the United States. The institutionalized Telephone 3.2 population, which is excluded from calls 2.1 the population universe, is com- *Data from 1997 derive from the answer “Search for information such as government, business, health, education.” 13 Data from 1997 derive from the answer **Data from 1997 derive from the answer “Shopping.” “Search for information such as government, Note: Data from 1997 derive from the question “What do you use the Internet for at home?” business, health, education” to the question “What do you use the Internet for at home?” Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, October 1997, September 2001, and In 2001 and 2003, household members were October 2003. asked about specific uses of the Internet any- where, not at home.

U.S. Census Bureau 13 posed primarily of the population in how able and willing respondents MORE INFORMATION correctional institutions and nursing are to provide correct answers, and Detailed tabulations with character- homes (91 percent of the how accurately answers are coded istics of households, children, and 4.1 million institutionalized people and classified. To minimize these adults by computer presence in the in Census 2000). errors, the Census Bureau employs home, computer use, Internet use, quality control procedures in sample and other variables are available on Most estimates in this report come selection, the wording of questions, the Internet at the Census Bureau’s from data obtained in October 2003 interviewing, coding, data process- Web site . Once from the Current Population Survey ing, and data analysis. (CPS). Some estimates are based on the site, in the “Subjects A-Z” on data obtained from the CPS in The Current Population Survey area, click on “C,” and then on earlier years, including October weighting procedure uses ratio es- “Computer Use and Ownership.” 1984, October 1989, October 1993, timation whereby sample estimates October 1997, December 1998, are added to independent estimates CONTACT August 2000, and September 2001. of the national population by age, For additional information on The U.S. Census Bureau conducts race, sex, and Hispanic origin. This these topics, contact Jessica Davis, this survey every month. weighting partially corrects for bias Education and Social Stratification due to undercoverage, but biases Branch, 301-763-2464 or via e-mail may still be present when people ACCURACY OF THE at . ESTIMATES who are missed by the survey differ from those interviewed in Statistics from surveys are subject ways other than age, race, sex, and USER COMMENTS to sampling error and nonsampling Hispanic origin. How this weighting The Census Bureau welcomes the error. All comparisons presented procedure affects other variables in comments and advice of data and in this report have taken sampling the survey is not precisely known. report users. If you have any error into account and are signifi- All of these considerations affect suggestions or comments, cant at the 90-percent confidence comparisons across different sur- please write to: level. This means the 90-percent veys or data sources. confidence level for the difference Chief, Population Division between estimates being compared For further information on the U.S. Census Bureau does not include zero. Nonsam- source of the data and accuracy of Washington, DC 20233-8800 pling error in surveys may be attrib- the estimates, including standard uted to a variety of sources, such as errors and confidence intervals, or send e-mail to: how the survey was designed, how contact Jana Shepherd of the Demo- [email protected] respondents interpret questions, graphic Statistical Methods Division via e-mail at .

14 U.S. Census Bureau

U.S. Department of Commerce FIRST-CLASS MAIL Economics and Statistics Administration POSTAGE & FEES PAID U.S. CENSUS BUREAU U.S. Census Bureau Washington, DC 20233 Permit No. G-58

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Penalty for Private Use $300

DATA MEMO

BY: Research Specialist Mary Madden (202-419-4500)

RE: Internet penetration and impact April 2006

Internet penetration has now reached 73% for all American adults. Internet users note big improvements in their ability to shop and the way they pursue hobbies and personal interests online

The importance of the internet in key areas is growing

As one measure of the impact of the internet, we have repeatedly asked online Americans whether or not the internet has improved various aspects of their life. Over time, internet users have become more likely to note big improvements in their ability to shop and the way they pursue their hobbies and interests. A majority of internet users also consistently report that the internet helps them to do their job and improves the way the get information about health care. Some key findings are listed below:

• The share of online Americans who say the internet has greatly improved their ability to shop has doubled—from 16% to 32%—since March 2001.

• The share of online Americans who say the internet has greatly improved the way they pursue hobbies and interests has grown to 33%, up from 20% in March 2001.

• The share of online Americans who say the internet has greatly improved their ability to do their job has grown to 35%, up from 24% in March 2001.

• The share of online Americans who say the internet has greatly improved the way they get information about health care has grown to 20%, up from 17% in March 2001.

1 Thinking about how using the internet affects you overall…How much, if at all, has the internet improved…?

Health Info Only a little 2005 Some 2001 A lot Your Job 2005 2001 Hobbies 2005 Impact Areas 2001 Shopping 2005 2001

0 102030405060708090

Percentage of adult internet users

Source: For 2005 data, Pew Internet & American Life Project November-December 2005 Tracking Survey, n=1,931 adult internet users, 18 and older. Margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points for results based on internet users. For 2001 data, Pew Internet & American Life Project March 2001 Longitudinal Callback Survey, n=862 adult internet users, 18 and older. Margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points for results based on internet users.

Those who use the internet most cite the biggest improvements

In all four categories (health information, job, hobbies and shopping), the internet earns the highest marks among the most frequent users. For instance, daily internet users are twice as likely to report that the internet improves their ability to do their job “a lot” when compared with those who only go online several times a week (45% vs. 17%). Likewise, 39% of daily internet users report that the internet has improved the way they pursue their hobbies and interests “a lot,” while about half as many (21%) users who go online several times per week say this.

Equal shares of men and women note the positive effects of the internet in commerce and the workplace; about a third of both groups say the internet has improved their ability to shop or do their job “a lot.” Improved access to healthcare information is more likely to be noted by women (22% of female users say the internet has improved the way they get health care information “a lot” vs. 17% of male users), while greater numbers of men tout their improved ability to pursue hobbies and interests (38% of male users say the internet has improved the way they pursue their hobbies and interests “a lot” vs. 27% of female users).

For shopping, younger users are more likely to report big improvements overall, but older users report more growth over time. However, with hobbies, users under the age of 50 report both the most positive effects and the biggest increases since 2001. Those who note the way the internet helps them to do their job report relatively little variation according to age. Only those who are age 65 and older (and likely to be retired) are dramatically less likely to praise the internet’s role in their job. Health care also generally

2 yields comparable positive marks across the generations, with the most change since 2001 registering among the youngest (18-29) and oldest (65+) users.

Internet penetration reaches a new high-water mark

While the share of internet users who report positive impacts has grown, the sheer size of the internet population also continues to increase. Surveys fielded in 2006 show that internet penetration among adults in the U.S. has hit an all-time high.1 While the percentage of Americans who say they use the internet has continued to fluctuate slightly, our latest survey, fielded February 15 – April 6, 2006 shows that fully 73% of respondents (about 147 million adults) are internet users, up from 66% (about 133 million adults) in our January 2005 survey. And the share of Americans who have broadband connections at home has now reached 42% (about 84 million), up from 29% (about 59 million) in January 2005.

Percentage of U.S. Adults Online

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

v-97 Jul-96 No Mar-00 Feb-01 Jan-02 Sep-02 Feb-04 Jan-05 Sep-05 Jan-06 b-Apr-06 y-June-95 ril-May-98 y-June-05 Fe Ma Ap July-Aug-00 Aug-Sept-01 May-June-04 Ma March-May-03

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys, March 2000-April 2006. All surveys prior to March 2000 were conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press.2

1 Two surveys in 2006 (one fielded January 9 – February 6, 2006, and the most recent survey fielded February 15 – April 6, 2006) show that 73% of adults use the internet. 2 For 1995, internet users include those who ever use a home, work or school computer and modem to connect to computer bulletin boards, information services such as CompuServe or Prodigy, or computers at other locations. For 1996 to 1998, internet users include those who ever use a home, work or school computer and modem to connect with computers over the internet, the World Wide Web, or with information services such as America Online or Prodigy. For 2000 to 2004, internet users include persons who ever go online to access the Internet or World Wide Web or to send and receive email. For 2005, internet users include those who at least occasionally use the internet or send and receive email.

3 As noted recently in our Generations Online report, internet use still varies significantly across age groups. While 88% of 18-29 year-olds now go online, 84% of 30-49 year-olds, 71% of 50-64 year-olds, and 32% of those age 65 and older say they use the internet. In a separate survey conducted in Oct-Nov 2004, we found that 87% of 12-17 year-olds use the internet.

Those in the lowest-income households are considerably less likely to be online. Just 53% of adults living in households with less than $30,000 in annual income go online, versus 80% of those whose income is between $30,000-50,000. Adults who live in households earning $50,000 or more exceed the national average for internet penetration; 86% of adults living in households with annual income between $50,000 and $75,000 use the internet, compared with 91% of adults living in households earning more than $75,000.

Education also remains an important indicator for internet use. While 40% of adults who have less than a high school education use the internet, 64% of adults with a high school degree go online. Among those who have some college education, 84% use the internet, and 91% of adults with at least a college degree go online.

About The Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit initiative, fully-funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts to explore the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, health care, schools, the work place, and civic/political life. The Project is non-partisan and does not advocate for any policy outcomes. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.pewinternet.org/.

Methodology

The newly reported results in this report are based on data from a series of telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between November 2005 and April 2006. For results based on the full sample of 3,011 adults, 18 and older, conducted November 29 - December 31, 2005, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2 percentage points. For results based on internet users (n=1,931), the margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. For results based on the full sample of 4,001 adults, 18 and older, conducted February 15 - April 6, 2006, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2 percentage points. For results based adult internet users (n=2,822), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

The sample for the most recent survey (February 15 - April 6, 2006) is a random digit sample of telephone numbers selected from telephone exchanges in the continental United States. The random digit aspect of the sample is used to avoid “listing” bias and provides representation of both listed and unlisted numbers (including not-yet-listed

4 numbers). The design of the sample achieves this representation by random generation of the last two digits of telephone numbers selected on the basis of their area code, telephone exchange, and bank number.

Sample was released for interviewing in replicates, which are representative subsamples of the larger sample. Using replicates to control the release of sample ensures that complete call procedures are followed for the entire sample. At least 10 attempts were made to complete an interview at sampled households. Calls were staggered over times of day and days of the week to maximize the chance of making contact with potential respondents. Each household received at least one daytime call in an attempt to find someone at home. In each contacted household, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest male currently at home. If no male was available, interviewers asked to speak with the oldest female at home. This systematic respondent selection technique has been shown to produce samples that closely mirror the population in terms of age and gender.

Non-response in telephone interviews produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population, and these subgroups are likely to vary also on questions of substantive interest. In order to compensate for these known biases, the sample data are weighted in analysis. The demographic weighting parameters for the most recent sample (February 15 - April 6, 2006) are derived from a special analysis of the Census Bureau’s March 2005 Annual Social and Economic Supplement Survey. This analysis produces population parameters for the demographic characteristics of adults age 18 or older, living in households that contain a telephone. These parameters are then compared with the sample characteristics to construct sample weights. The weights are derived using an iterative technique that simultaneously balances the distribution of all weighting parameters.

For more information about the March 2001 Longitudinal Callback Survey, please see: http://207.21.232.103/PPF/r/55/report_display.asp

For more information about the latest trends in internet use, please see: http://www.pewinternet.org

5 Backgrounder

Riding the Waves of “Web 2.0” More than a buzzword, but still not easily defined

By Mary Madden and Susannah Fox Pew Internet Project October 5, 2006

“Web 2.0” has become a catch-all buzzword that people use to describe a wide range of online activities and applications, some of which the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been tracking for years. As researchers, we instinctively reach for our spreadsheets to see if there is evidence to inform the hype about any online trend. What follows is a short history of the phrase, along with some data to help frame the discussion.

Let’s get a few things clear right off the bat: 1) Web 2.0 does not have anything to do with Internet2: 2) Web 2.0 is not a new and improved internet network operating on a separate backbone: and 3) It is OK if you’ve heard the term and nodded in recognition, without having the faintest idea of what it really means.

When the term emerged in 2004 (coined by Dale Dougherty and popularized by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive International),1 it provided a useful, if imperfect, conceptual umbrella under which analysts, marketers and other stakeholders in the tech field could huddle the new generation of internet applications and businesses that were emerging to form the “participatory Web” as we know it today: Think blogs, wikis, social networking, etc..

And while O’Reilly and others have smartly outlined some of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 applications —utilizing collective intelligence, providing network-enabled interactive services, giving users control over their own data—these traits do not always map neatly on to the technologies held up as examples. Google, which demonstrates many Web 2.0 sensibilities, doesn’t exactly give users governing power over their own data--one couldn’t, for instance, erase search queries from Google’s servers. Users contribute content to many of Google’s applications, but they don’t fully control it.

Instead, the Web 2.0 concept was intended to function as a core “set of principles and practices” that applied to common threads and tendencies observed across many different technologies.2 However, after almost three years of increasingly heavy usage by techies and the press, and, as the writer Paul Boutin notes, after “Newsweek released the word, Kong-like, from its restraining quotes,” critics argue that the term is in danger of being rendered useless unless some boundaries are placed on it.3

Technology writers and analysts have, in fact, devoted countless hours to the meta-work of using Web 2.0 applications (blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.) to debate and refine the definition of the term. Still, there has been little consensus about where 1.0 ends and 2.0 begins. For example, would usenet groups, which rely entirely on user-generated content, but are not necessarily accessed through a Web client, be considered 1.0 or 2.0?

1 In one sense, it doesn’t really matter that this bright line has been so elusive or that some savvy marketers simply use the label to distance themselves from the failures of Web 1.0 companies. That the term has enjoyed such a constant morphing of meaning and interpretation is, in many ways, the clearest sign of its usefulness. This is the nature of the conceptual beast in the digital age, and one of the most telling examples of what Web 2.0 applications do: They replace the authoritative heft of traditional institutions with the surging wisdom of crowds.

So what were those crowds doing online in the Web 1.0 era that was so different from what they’ve started to do over the past couple of years? Why bother with the new theoretical meta tag?

To be sure, there has been an explosion of businesses and applications that behave differently from the static Web of yore – Flickr, Wikipedia, digg, and Bit Torrent are just a small sampling among a growing wave of players and investment in this field. Data gathered by the Pew Internet & American Life Project over the past two years provides a rough user-centric portrait of online activities that demonstrate Web 2.0 characteristics:

Contenders for Web 2.0 Activities

Some of these activities have been around for a long time, but might qualify as Web 2.0 because of their opportunities for content creation and interaction. % Internet Users Who Activity Survey Date Have Done This Used the internet to get photos developed or 34 September 2005 display photos Rated a product, service or person using an 30 September 2005 online rating system Shared files from your own computer with others 27 May-June 2005 online Shared something online that you created 26 yourself, such as your own artwork, photos, December 2005 stories or videos Taken material found online—like songs, text or 18 images—and remixed it into your own artistic January 2005 creation 14 Created or worked on your own webpage December 2005 Created or worked on webpages or blogs for 13 others, including friends, groups you belong to, or December 2005 for work Used online social or professional networking 11 September 2005 sites like Friendster or LinkedIn Created or worked on your own online journal or February-April 8 blog 2006 Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys. Margin of error ranges from ±2% to 4% for each sample.

Some activities under our Web 2.0 umbrella have been gaining in popularity. In 2001, 20% of internet users (or about 23 million American adults) used an online service to develop or display

2 photos. By 2005, when the internet population had swelled to 145 million adults, 34% of internet users (or about 49 million American adults) had done so.

However, the applications used to upload, share and now tag photos have changed dramatically over the past year. Data gathered by Hitwise demonstrate the radical growth of a decidedly Web 2.0 socially-integrated photo service such as Photobucket diverging from the stagnant market share of a “traditional” online photo site like Kodakgallery.

Photo 2.0: Photobucket Makes Gains as Kodakgallery Idles

Even more dramatic is the past year’s traffic report for Wikipedia, one of the poster children for Web 2.0. The online encyclopedia whose content is shaped by the wisdom (and folly) of its users has launched into an upward trajectory that contrasts sharply with the sluggish growth of its corporate cousin, Encarta. In spite of, or perhaps because of the reputation speed bumps of the Encyclopedia Britannica and John Seigenthaler Sr. controversies during the past year, Wikipedia’s audience is now growing faster than ever. More users want to contribute to and edit entries, and more people are interested in reading them.

The Wikipedia entry on Web 2.0 is, of course, one of the richest sources of information on the term. MSN’s free online version of the Encarta Encyclopedia, in comparison, doesn’t yet have a Web 2.0 entry.3

3 Reference 2.0: Wikipedia Soars as Encarta Dwindles

And while market share figures reveal part of the story, the demographic portraits disclose another important cog in the Web 2.0 machine: Like Soylent Green, these definitive4 applications, are, as blogger Ross Mayfield recently noted, “made of people.” But more than that, they’re made of young people.5

Wikipedia Traffic by Age: Four weeks ending 8/26/06

4 Encarta Traffic by Age: Four weeks ending 8/26/06

Despite all of this commotion over collaboration, participation and emancipation from static information, remnants of the linoleum-like Web 1.0 user experience still lie beneath the colorful rug of Web redux. Asynchronous email exchanges still top the charts of daily internet activities. We’ll say that again: Sending and reading email is still the most frequently reported internet activity by the average internet user, despite the growth in real-time communications like IM, text, and social network site messaging. Fully 53% of adult internet users sent or read email on a typical day in December 2005 – a figure virtually unchanged since 2000 when 52% of online adults emailed on a typical day. That’s more than instant messaging, blogging and online shopping—combined.

Even the omnipotent search engine can’t compete with email; only 38% of online adults use search on the average day. And while the volume of email messages with friends and family may be waning for those who have migrated their communications to social networking sites, those of us who wish to communicate with anyone over the age of 30 would be wise to keep an inbox up and running for the time being.

Whatever language we use to describe it, the beating heart of the internet has always been its ability to leverage our social connections. Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster struck a powerful social chord at the right time with the right technology, but the actions they enable are nothing new. A trip to the Geocities homepage on the “Wayback Machine” circa December 19, 1996 (courtesy of The Internet Archive) yields this decidedly quaint statement from the company: “We have more than 200,000 individuals sharing their thoughts and passions with the world, and creating the most diverse and unique content on the Web.”6 Replace “200,000” with “100 million” and you could almost imagine this sentence appearing on the MySpace homepage.

5 Social 2.0: MySpace Dominates as Geocities Crumble

The Geocities vs. MySpace comparison not only demonstrates the commonalities between the internet of 1996 and 2006, but it also provides a point of departure for understanding concepts of online presence in the Web 2.0 era. While the Geocities model relied on the metaphors of a place (cities, neighborhoods, homepages), MySpace anchors presence through metaphors of a person (profiles, blogs, links to videos, etc.). Geocities encouraged us to create our own cities and neighborhoods as points of entry to our personal worlds; MySpace cuts to the chase and enables direct access to the person, as well as access to his or her social world. And whether we call the current world 2.0 or 10.0, there’s no question that the internet of today will look positively beta to future generations.

1 “What is Web 2.0,” by Tim O’Reilly. Published on the O’Reilly website on September 30, 2005: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html 2 Ibid. 3 “Web 2.0: The new Internet ‘boom’ doesn't live up to its name,” by Paul Boutin. Published in Slate on March 29, 2006: http://www.slate.com/id/2138951/ 3 Search performed on September 12, 2006 at: http://encarta.msn.com/ 4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green 5 “Web 2.0 is Made of People!” by Ross Mayfield. Original blog post published September 29, 2005: http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/web_20_is_made_.html 6 Geocities December 19, 1996 archive available at: http://web.archive.org/web/19961219233429/http://www.geocities.com/

6 BIBLIOGRAPHY bibliography

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b.2 bibliography [contd]

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