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<div><font color="#000000"><b>MIT Real Time Rome project to debut at
Venice Biennale</b></font><br>
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<div>For Immediate Release</div>
<div>Contact: Patti Richards</div>
<div>Phone: 617-253-8923</div>
<div>Email: prichards@mit.edu</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>PHOTO, GRAPHIC AVAILABLE</div>
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<div>CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--<font color="#000000">Real Time Rome, a
pioneering MIT project that promises to usher in a new era of urban
mapmaking, will have its worldwide debut at the Venice Biennale, the
prestigious biannual exhibition of contemporary art and design that
runs from Sept. 10 to Nov. 20.<br>
<br>
The MIT project utilizes data gathered, in real time and at an
unprecedented scale, from cell phones and other wireless technologies,
to better understand the patterns of daily life in Rome, and to
illustrate what ubiquitous connectivity in an urban environment looks
like.<br>
<br>
"In today's world, wireless mobile communications devices are
creating new dimensions of interconnectedness between people, places
and urban infrastructures," said project director Carlo Ratti,
director of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT. "The goal of Real Time
Rome is to use this connectivity to map the city in real time, which
may ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of how modern cities
function."<br>
<br>
Real Time Rome features seven large animations, projected on
transparent plexiglass screens. One screen shows traffic congestion
around the city, while another screen shows the exact movements of all
the city's buses and taxis. Another screen is able to track Romans
celebrating major events like the World Cup or the city's annual White
Nights festival (Notte Bianca, which will happen on Sept. 9, the
evening before the Biennale opening). Additional screens show how
tourists use urban spaces and how cars and pedestrians move about the
city.<br>
<br>
Ratti believes these types of visualizations will help reduce the
inefficiencies of present day urban systems and open the way to a more
sustainable future: "Our hope is that projects like Real Time
Rome will give city dwellers more control over their environment by
allowing them to make more informed decisions about their
surroundings. Imagine being able to avoid traffic congestion, or
knowing where people are congregating on a Saturday afternoon. In a
worst-case scenario, such real time systems could also make it easier
to evacuate a city in case of emergency."<br>
<br>
Ratti's team obtains its data anonymously from cell phones, GPS
devices on buses and taxis, and other wireless mobile devices, using
advanced algorithms developed by Telecom Italia, the principal sponsor
of the project. These algorithms are able to discern the
difference between, say, a mobile phone signal from a user who is
stuck in traffic and one that is sitting in the pocket of a pedestrian
wandering down the street. Data are made anonymous and aggregated from
the beginning, so there are no implications for individual
privacy.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
"The exhibit will hopefully trigger many more urban studies that
take advantage of the already existing data on mobile phones and
transportation systems, in order to create a deeper understanding of
how cities are being used," said project curator Andres Sevtsuk,
a graduate student in urban studies and planning.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
Ratti describes Real Time Rome as a new kind of mapmaking. Along with
other powerful interactive maps, such as Google Earth, Real Time Rome
is backed up by huge databases that will ultimately make it possible
to conduct highly customized searches and view displays in real
time.<br>
<br>
"We are very excited to carry out our experiment in Rome, the
city where Gianbattista Nolli refined modern cartography in 1748,"
Ratti said. "Maps of the future will be large databases that will
enable us to extract fragments that suit our needs, much like we can
do today on the web, and will also tap into the coming revolution in
RFID (radio frequency identification) technology."</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
Real Time Rome is produced by MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory, an
initiative that studies the impact of new technologies on cities.<br>
<br>
Other MIT projects will also be on display at the Biennale, in the
same location as Real Time Rome. They include including an
interactive bus stop with wireless Internet; designs for digitally
enhanced public spaces in the Milla Digital in Zaragoza, Spain; a
smart car and public transportation system by the MIT Media Lab and
Design Lab; and new computer interfaces by the Tangible Media Group at
the Media Lab.<br>
<br>
"All these projects from MIT deal with specific aspects of the
urban environment and digital technology," said Sevtsuk.
"Together they start to form a multifaceted picture of how
real-time communications can change urban design."<br>
<br>
Following the Venice Biennale, the SENSEable City Laboratory will
launch the SENSEable City Consortium, a major research initiative
aimed at bringing together city and public administrators, network
operators, electronic hardware and software producers and urban
hardware manufacturers in MIT's unique research environment.<br>
<br>
The principal sponsor of Real Time Rome is Telecom Italia. Technical
partners are the Rome public transportation authority (ATAC), Google,
Samarcanda Taxi and the city of Rome.<br>
<br>
The Real Time Rome team at the SENSEable City Lab is composed of
Ratti, Sevtsuk, Burak Arikan, Francesco Calabrese, Assaf Biderman,
Filippo Dal Fiore, Saba Ghole, Daniel Gutierrez, Sonya Huang, Sriram
Krishnan, Justin Moe, Carlo Ratti, Francisca Rojas, and Najeeb
Tarazi.<br>
<br>
<br>
For more information, visit
senseable.mit.edu/realtimerome/.</font></div>
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