Urban Mobs: a popular emotion cartography
15 March, 2010 - Urban Mobs is a technology, developed by Orange and faberNovel, analyzing and visualizing citywide mobile phone activity.
Today's modern communication tools are a privileged way to instantly share feelings. Wherever people are communicating, being it in France for the World Music Day or New Year's Night, Poland for St. John's Night or Spain and Romania at a football match, these cities live and breathe at their own communications pace. Urban Mobs provide a tool to study crowd communication activities and paint a “ popular emotion cartography ”.
These visualizations were demonstrated during the Dans la nuit, les images exhibition at Le Grand Palais in Paris, in December 2008
four visualizations for four big european cities
Urban Mobs - Paris text messages: this visualization represents the amount of mobile text messages sent during the world music day. There is a huge activity from 11 pm till the end of the night in the southwest of Paris due to a Tokio Hotel concert and a large public party organized by the Tv channel France2.
Urban Mobs - Krakow: visualization of mobile phone activity during the St. John's Night in Krakow, June 21st 2008. Inhabitants gather along the Vistula to celebrate the event.
Urban Mobs - Bucharest mobile phone calls: visualization of mobile phone calls during the Romania – Italy soccer match (June 13th 2008). You can easily notice the different game phases: kick off, half time, goal and end of the match.
Urban Mobs – Barcelona: visualization of mobile phone calls in Barcelona during the European Football Championship 2008 final and the day after the victory. You can easily notice the different game phases: kick off, half time, goal, end of the match and celebration of the Spanish team victory.
Orange and creation
Invention and innovation are essential elements in the creative arts. Artists create new esthetics and new techniques, along with new tools to bring their projects to fruition. Often one step ahead because they are innovators, they are also closely in tune with changes in society. These qualities are integral to the richness of creative work, and represent the common ground for experimentation by the art world and Orange. They are the essential reasons for the Group's commitment to this domain.
find out more
Urban Mobs website Orange Labs network
