[node-l] Research Opportunities on EPSRC funded Project

[Chris Speed]

Dear all and everyone,

A series of research opportunities are available to support a large EPSRC
project exploring social memory in the emerging culture of the Internet of
Things. 

Research Associate, UCL. Fulltime. Duration: 3 years. Start: Sept 09
Research Associate, UCL. Fulltime. Duration: 2 years. Start: Sept 09
Project Administrator, ECA. Fulltime. Duration: 3 years. Start: Aug 09
Studentship, Fulltime. Dundee. Duration: 3 years. Start: Sept 09
Studentship, Fulltime. ECA. Duration: 3 years. Start: Sept 09

Please visit: 
http://www.youtotem.org
And then click on links to find application details
Various deadlines are in place.

TOTeM

³Spimes are manufactured objects whose informational support is so
overwhelmingly extensive and rich that they are regarded as material
instantiations of an immaterial system. Spimes begin and end as data.
They¹re virtual objects first and actual objects second.²
Bruce Sterling, Shaping Things, (2005)

The TOTeM project is located within the emerging technical and cultural
phenomenon known as OThe Internet of Things¹. The term is attributed to the
Auto-ID research group at MIT in 1999, and was explored in depth by the
International Telecommunication Union who published a report bearing the
same name at the United Nations net summit in 2005. The term, OInternet of
things¹, refers to the technical and cultural shift that is anticipated as
society moves towards a ubiquitous form of computing in which every device
is Oon¹, and every device is connected in some way to the Internet. The
specific reference to Othings¹ refers to the concept that every new object
manufactured will also be able to part of this extended Internet, because
they will have been tagged and indexed by the manufacturer during
production. It is also envisaged that consumers will have the ability to
Oread¹ the tags through the use of mobile Oreaders¹ and use the information
connected to the object, to inform their purchase, use and disposal of an
object.

The implications for the Internet of Things upon production and consumption
are tremendous, and will transform the way in which people shop, store and
share products. The analogue bar code that has for so long been a dumb
encrypted reference to a shop¹s inventory system, will be superseded by an
open platform in which every object manufactured will be able to be tracked
from cradle to grave, through manufacturer to distributor, to potentially
every single person who comes into contact with it following its purchase.
Further still, every object that comes close to another object, and is
within range of a reader, could also be logged on a database and used to
find correlations between owners and applications. In a world that has
relied upon a linear chain of supply and demand between manufacturer and
consumer via high street shop, the Internet of Things has the potential to
transform how we will treat objects, care about their origin and use them to
find other objects. If every new object is within reach of a reader,
everything is searchable and findable, subsequently the shopping experience
may never be the same, and the concept of throwing away objects may become a
thing of the past as other people find new uses for old things.

The project team are:

?    Maria Burke, Salford
?    Andrew Hudson-Smith, UCL
?    Angelina Karpovich, Brunel
?    Simone O¹Callaghan, Dundee
?    Morna Simpson, Dundee
?    Chris Speed, (PI) Edinburgh College of Art





Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC009201


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