MEIC6

Please join the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre on Wednesday February 24, 2010, from 3-7pm, for MEIC6. A forum to further the conversation in mobile innovation, we will be looking towards the future of the mobile experience. Join us for an afternoon of engaging discussion with industry leaders and researchers.

Schedule

3pm - Opening Remarks

3:05pm - Keynote with Gerald Karam, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Networking and Services Research, AT&T Labs.

iLoveIt: Riding the accelerating adoption of Smartphones::   Smartphones, like the Apple iPhone, RIM Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre and the Motorola Droid are changing people’s very perception of the use of mobile handsets. An confluence of events has led to this sea change of experience and growing adoption: just the right technology showing up (e.g. touch screens), wireless networking capability, regulation (or the lack of), business models, service pricing, and a snowball effect of smartphone purchases with improved application value.  The future looks really exciting because the day when the saturated mobile phone market becomes a saturated smartphone market is not so far off.

What then? Are we just going to be talking on the phone? Texting? Browsing the web? Playing games? Watching videos? That much computing and communications power in so many hands, screams out for different thinking - different ways we can enhance the human experience and day to day utility of our $70/month habit.  Conversely, the resources that came together to make this dream possible have some bounds – no one can afford the system where everyone is watching whatever video they want over their smartphones all the time, wherever they are - if it could be built at all. Will the system just come to some form of screeching halt, or perhaps, a slide into the ordinary. And maybe ordinary is  enough. There are more questions than answers. But it’s an fascinating game we can all play, because we’re all part of the adoption curve.

4:00 pm - Research and Case Studies

Geoffrey Shea, OCAD

Geoffrey Shea is a media artist, designer, musician, researcher and Assistant Professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design, where he co-directs the Mobile Experience Lab. Shea’s cell phone controlled artwork is currently on display at the 2010 Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver. In his presentation, Shea will review the strategies and outcomes of several art/research projects undertaken in conjunction with the Mobile Experience Lab, including Portage, Tentacles and the most recent work, PLAY: The Hertzian Collective.

Marlon Rodrigues, Polar Mobile