Democratic Parties: An Interview With UCLA Computer Scientist Kevin Eustice

from the the-lowest-common-denominator-dj dept

If the ecstatic attention techblogs showered on the nascent Smart Party system last week is any indication, there are thousands of geeks out there who, like me, got their first peek at an iPhone and immediately began fantasizing about a spontaneous, democratic, distributed jukebox that would emerge anywhere friends with shiny gadgets gathered. Smart Party polls all WiFi-enabled music players in the vicinity to figure out what's on user playlists, and then plays music off a central system (even pulling tunes directly from each user's device) tailored to the taste of the group. It's like a DJ who automatically knows what will most please the crowd. But as far as UCLA computer science grad student and Smart Party co-creator Kevin Eustice is concerned, plebiscitary soundtrack software is just a tiny part of a broader project, aimed at crafting an open architecture that will enable a whole range of mobile, location-sensitive social networking applications. Below the fold, my interview with Eustice on music, math, and the future of ubiquitous computing. If you're reading via RSS or from the front page, click on "Read More" to get the full interview.

Filed Under: democracy, dj, music, parties, shared, ubiquitous computing