This week, I went on another data walk in Coventry with some of our students in Digital Sociology. This meant that updating the Unheard City app in breaks while teaching another course.
The app needed an update as the target software development kit (SDK) was an old one that also meant an update to most of the libraries. The main one is the Google Play Services used to do the location aspects of the app, meaning that a critical application is linked to the platform that is often studied. I have just had an abstract accepted for a special issue of Computational Culture that is due next year that will go into this in deeper length.
On the street, we did encounter an issue:
One aspect of the project is that it uses older and recycled phones. The app has been stable on the oldest devices until this iteration. Maybe the number of applications caused an issue, the move to Kotlin, or the difference between SDK levels? Something to look at in the name of permacomputing? I need to see how the students worked with the data to know if the mobile lab worked for them.
As an instructor, it seemed to go well and built on the principles from the bits that went awry in the AI in the Street scan. Tomorrow, I dive into the data and some of the digital tools.
