Call for papers: IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

Call for Papers

2013 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society

Social Implications of Living in a Smart World

June 27-29, 2013

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ISTAS'13 invites original and unpublished work from individuals active in the broad theme of the conference. Authors should submit their papers online. All papers that conform to submission guidelines will be peer reviewed and evaluated based on originality, technical and/or research content/depth, correctness, relevance to conference, contributions, and readability. Acceptance of papers will be communicated to authors by email.

We welcome submissions for ISTAS's Technical Program in the following areas and not limited to:

Wearable Computing: cell-phone view, webcams, necklacedome, wearcams, wearcomp, wristwatch computer, point-of-view technologies, mobile CCTV, EyeTap, Google Glasses, sensors, nanotechnology, biomedical devices, implantables, skinput, affective computing, body area networks, cyborgs, interaction-design

Augmediated Reality: vision systems, graphical-based systems, multimedia, interactive systems, location-based services, geolocation mapping, Web 3.0, 4G, sensory inputs, biofeedback, augmented reality, diminished reality, mediated reality, reality mining, remembrance agents, humanistic intelligence, artificial intelligence

The Veillances: surveillance, counter surveillance, dataveillance, sousveillance, equiveillence, inequiveillence, mcveillance, uberveillance, veillance studies, obtrusive, unobtrusive, secret, covert, priveillance, uber analytics, big data

Everyday life: data logging, moblogging, glogging, lifelogging, 24x7 ubiquitous audio-visual recording, state/condition monitoring, permission (opt-out/opt-in), private space, public space, transparent society

Social concerns: privacy, social sorting, data-driven analytics, security, fair use/availability, equity, consent, complexity, rates, power/control, government authority, RF transmissions, resilience, regulatory issues, legislation, sustainability, autonomy, living off the grid, transhumanism

Additional papers on other traditional fields of interest to SSIT also are welcome.

ISTAS '13 will be a transdisciplinary event for engineers, designers, scientists, artists, researchers in the social sciences, law and humanities, decision makers, entrepreneurs, inventors, commercializers, etc., as well as polymaths, and anyone who is a DASSTEMist (Designer, Artist, Sustainist, Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, and Mathematician).

Important Dates

Papers up to 5000 words	January 31, 2013
Abstract only (presentation only)	February 28, 2013
Author notification	March 31, 2013
Final camera-ready copy	April 29, 2013
Conference	June 10-12, 2013

A selection of extended papers will be published by invitation only, in a special issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine in March 2014 guest edited by Steve Mann and Katina Michael. The author guidelines for the special issue in IEEE T&S Magazine can be found here.

Call for abstracts: Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

Call for AAG 2013 Abstracts: 

Geographic Information Ethics and GIScience

http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/aag_ethics13.html

Following successful sessions at the 2009-2011 AAG meetings on ethics and GIScience, we are organizing sessions to continue and expand discussions of this important topic. Ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight geospatial/geographic technologies as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, these sessions provides a forum to engage ethical issues. For instance:

• Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
• Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
• Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
• Georeferenced photos, tweets and volunteered (and unvolunteered) geographic information can reveal private information. Those data that are increasingly publicly available and used to study societal phenomena raise significant privacy concerns. 

Papers in this session again engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

• case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues; 
• issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
• codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
• GIS professional development;
• reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T

These sessions are co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.

To participate: 

1. Please register for the AAG 2013 meeting and submit your abstract online following the AAG Guidelines (http://www.aag.or/cs/anualmeeting/call_for_papers).
2. Please send your paper title, PIN, and abstract no later than Wednesday, October 20 to Rodolphe Devillers (rdeville@mun.ca), Francis Harvey (fharvey@umn.edu), or Dawn Wright (dwright@esri.com).

"Imagining Tomorrow's Computers Today"

ScienceNOW's Jop de Vrieze has published an interesting interview (July 15, 2012) with Brian David Johnson, "principal engineer and futurist" at Intel, the world's largest chip manufacturer, about how people will interact with computers in the near future. Not surprisingly, the interview is upbeat, with a focus on how Intel can anticipate what people will want from more-advanced computers. Here's the passage I find most suggestive about ethical issues.

Q: You study the interaction between humans and computers. What do you foresee to the next ten, fifteen years?

B.D.J: Looking at the past, technology has been about command and control. In the future it will be about relationships. Our technologies will get to know us and we'll become more tightly connected. That has an impact on what we do productivity-wise, but even more it connects us to the things and people we love. Siri, the personal assistant built into your iPhone, is an early example of that. You literally talk with your phone and it can talk back to you. 

Q: In what way does the development of chips play a role in this?

B.D.J: As we move closer to 2020, the size of computational chips is becoming so small that it is approaching zero. This means we could literally turn anything into a computer. Your tea glass, the table, you name it. There is a switch coming, where we do not have to ask: “Can we turn that into a computer,” but we know we can and we wonder: Is there a use to do it? That is what we have the social scientists for. We do not study markets, we study people.

"In the future [technology] will be about relationships." The computers in our every possession, including tables, beds, and clothing, will be an extension of ourselves and will know us well. As will anyone who has access to the personal, "private" data stored and transmitted by our computerized objects.

Intel doesn't study markets; it studies people and their interactions with computers. Is Intel interested at all in the interactions of people, corporations, and governments, with other people's computers?

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Will Google's Personal Assistant Be Creepy or Cool?"

This piece by Jenna Wortham (New York Times, June 28, 2012) asks an astute question.

I hadn't heard about Google Now before. It appears to be a kind of pocket butler that will come with the next version of Android. It will connect disparate information about your location, your calendar, and your preferences to give you advice on how to get through the day. Google has a Flash video that makes the thing easier to understand than any merely verbal explanation.

This e-butler (my coinage), according to Wortham, has the potential to "feel like a menacing stalker."

Google Now may also cause people to realize exactly how much data and information Google actually has about their routines and daily lives. And that might cause some people to be very, very uncomfortable, regardless of how useful the service is.

Wortham ends the essay with a particularly nicely written passage on the world of tomorrow (or five minutes from now):

We’re at the beginning of an era, the adolescence, of just beginning to understand what information we want to share and keep private, and when we don’t have a say in the matter. But we’re learning that our data exhaust, the small particulate matter that we deposit around the Web and world through our browsers and mobile devices, is becoming a very powerful tool in aggregate, and that large companies are hoping to use it to their advantage.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director