1. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos Viral Communications group MIT Media Laboratory CFP Bi-Annual Meeting San Jose January 2008

2. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Project goal Organize the presence, profile and social interaction of humans and objects in physical proximity and make it accessible and useful

3. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Social Networking Not really new: “The Network Nation”, S. Hiltz, M. Turoff (Addison-Wesley, 1978, 1993) Others followed: –USENET –classmates.com –sixdegrees.com –myspace.com –facebook.com –linkedin.com –…

4. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies How social really is Facebook ? Ypod: 98 friends, 108 total messages Colleague in MOTOROLA friend in Greece friend in UK others: None of people that I interact with on daily basis 72 friends in MIT: Where is my social interaction?!?

5. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies How social really is Facebook ? Facebook usage maximizes between 9pm-12am and plummets between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon Traffic also increases during summer/winter breaks “Rhythms of social interaction: messaging within a massive online network”, Golder, Wilkinson, Huberman Fraction of messages sent to recipients in the same school in 2005 Is Facebook really a tool for initiating social interaction, or for merely maintaining it?

6. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Bottom-up approach to Soc. Networking Primary characteristic of social interaction for vast majority of humans? Location of participants to most popular social networking tools/platforms? Examples: –You can find the location of a building in a city, but have no idea on which side its entrance is –You look for people with common interests, but fail to discover those sitting next to you on the train –You live in large apartment building, but have no means of establishing social interaction with neighbors (other than door2door, if you dare) –Two strangers at the airport take separate taxis to go to the same location, etc. Common physical location Virtual location

7. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Bottom-up approach to Soc. Networking 1.We build a mesh network of humans and objects in physical proximity 2.Each entity participates by means of a device that carries a public profile about its owner (human’s interests, location of a door, etc) 3.The confederation of all profiles in the network yields a new type of data that is specific to the profiles and the location of the entities 4.We can query this data to draw useful information, discover entities based on their location and help establish social interaction

8. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Proposed solution: Cerebro Suppose there is a number of users and/or objects in physical proximity

9. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Proposed solution: Cerebro Cerebro discovers the presence of all other entities and offers asymmetric information resolution about the layout of the network (boosts scalability)

10. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Proposed solution: Cerebro A profile is stored at each entity and it is accessible throughout the network We have organized data that was previously unavailable into useful and accessible information

11. MIT Media Lab - Viral CommunicationsP. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies Proposed solution: Cerebro Multiple mesh networks tunneled together form a “Parallel Internet”

12. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications Assumptions User carries some WiFi device that is (almost) always on User regularly updates her profile to match her day-to- day needs/mood/interests P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

13. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications The Result On the Street –Potential clients are literally declaring products/services they need –Discover your peers, combine your (buying) power –Express any of multiple identities based on different contexts –Communication in emergency situations P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

14. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications The Result At Home –Discover neighbors with similar interests, share playlists, integrate into TV set –Integrate into alarm systems and communicate emergency situations to neighbors At the Workplace –Organize and search for know-how by physical location P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

15. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications The Challenges Extreme scalability Efficient search for information Reflect users social norms onto the behavior of the device Security P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

16. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications Progress so far Achieving scalability “on a diet”: Connected 100 nodes in mesh network using a single frame per node, per 10 seconds (15kb/sec in the worst case) Portability: Cerebro runs on x86, OLPC XO, Nokia N800 and ARM-based embedded computers (python) P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

17. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications Next steps Introduce a multi-radio device and demonstrate communication symmetry between humans and objects: –Discover some object (your door at office, your car or your scooter) –Express one of your identities (by means of RFID) –Establish communication and exchange profiles: Get statistics from your home entrance (who’s inside?) Sync your MP3s with your car/scooter Customize your car/scooter settings P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies

18. MIT Media Lab - Viral Communications Questions? P. Ypodimatopoulos Parallel Internets and Ultra-Local Economies