August 26th, 2009
The 22 August 2009 edition of The Economist includes the article “Snap it, click it, use it” which describes how mobile phones are increasingly being used to read bar codes on products which then present detailed information to consumers. The article begins:
NEGOTIATING his way across a crowded concourse at a busy railway station, a traveller removes his phone from his pocket and, using its camera, photographs a bar code printed on a poster. He then looks at the phone to read details of the train timetable displayed there. In Japan, such conveniences are commonplace, and almost all handsets come with the bar code-reading software already loaded. In America and Europe, though, they are only just being introduced.
See the full article at http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14257721
Posted in Mobile Devices, Technology, UI | No Comments »
August 8th, 2009
Ivan Antipov, who has developed a Fair Tracing prototype for Android, has now posted his software on SourceForge. That means you can download the code and will hopefully feel inspired to develop it further!
Posted in Fair Tracing project activities, Mobile Devices, OII, Open Source Software | No Comments »
July 28th, 2009
The exhibition features retrospective display of Feral Trade goods (2003-present) alongside ingredient transit maps, video, bespoke food packaging and other artefacts from the Feral Trade network.
The exhibition notes tell us:
“The term ‘feral’ denotes the project’s wilful wildness (as in pigeons) as opposed to romantic or nature-wildness (wolves): it offers street-wise survival tactics for urban environments. Since the first registered Feral Trade import of 30kg of coffee direct from the growers in El Salvador to the Cube Microplex in Bristol in 2003, Kate Rich has used social networks to traffic edible produce from around the world. Feral Trade participants become mules, carrying food items with them on trips they would have taken anyway and delivering them to depots (usually friends’ and colleagues’ flats or workplaces) in the growing network.”
“The process is facilitated by an online database, handcrafted by the artist, where couriers log their journeys. This forms the sole physical infrastructure for an alternative freight network, which operates without any material assets (vehicles, staff, communications devices, depots). It enables producers, couriers and buyers to track not only the transit of their own produce but all grocery movements in the network; outputting waybills that document the details of sources, shipping and handling with the kind of microattention that ingredient listings normally receive.”
See/eat it at:
http://www.http.uk.net/exhibitions/FeralTradeCafe/index.shtml
Posted in Events, General, Supply Chains, Tracing & Tracking | 1 Comment »
July 6th, 2009
Last but not least, we have Vishal Shah’s MEng report on his Fair Tracing Facebook application. Vishal has done a really good job in exploring the social media potential of fair trade — looking at how users can discover new ethical products through friends’ recommendations.
Vishal has been working with the project for two years, previously as an EPSRC summer student, so he deserves special thanks!
Posted in Coding, Fair Tracing project activities, OII, Open Source Software, UI | No Comments »
July 5th, 2009
Ivan Antipov has been working on some Fair Tracing software for his BSc Computer Science degree. He has written an Android application both for accessing information on the consumer end, and to allow producers to upload information into the FT database. This is a great demonstration of how small-scale farmers could interact with this kind of ethical product information system. You can read more in his report — thanks Ivan!
Posted in Coding, Fair Tracing project activities, Mobile Devices, OII, Open Source Software, UI | No Comments »
July 5th, 2009
Junaid Haq has been working for the last year on a Fair Tracing application for the iPhone as part of his MEng computer science degree at UCL. You can now see the results of his work in his report — well worth a read. Thanks Junaid!
Posted in Coding, Fair Tracing project activities, Mobile Devices, OII, Open Source Software, UI | No Comments »
June 22nd, 2009
Guiseppe Constanza is completing his MA Communication Design degree at University of the Arts London Central Saint Martins with a project called foodtracer.
Food tracer uses d-touch visual markers which can be read at point of sale with a mobile phone. It is designed to address several “ethical issues” such as carbon cost, packaging, local food, Fair Trade and organic. Many of Guiseppe’s ideas take the thinking behind the Fair Tracing project into exciting new directions. He says: “Fair Tracing has been an importnat source of inspiration for me”.
Have a look at Guiseppe’s project website: http://www.giuseppecostanza.it/foodtracer/index.htm
Foodtracer is also on display at the Central Saint Martin’s 2009 Finalist Exhibition, June 22-25 between 10am -8pm at Candid Arts, 3 Torrens Street, London, EC1V 1NQ
Posted in Data Visualisation, Design, General, Tracing & Tracking, UI | No Comments »
June 18th, 2009
With the Fair Tracing Project entering its final “dissemination” phase, we have double-checked that our presentations and publications are up-to-date. In many cases, we now provide links from the items directly to the full presentation or publication.
Yet more presentations and publications are planned, and will be blogged as they become available.
Posted in Fair Tracing presentations, Fair Tracing publications | No Comments »
June 16th, 2009
Journalist Mason Inman from the
New Scientist magazine interviewed Fair Tracing Project Manager
Dr Dorothea Kleine for his article “Barcode’s could reveal your food’s credentials” which has just appeared in this week’s issue. In it, Inman cites the Fair Tracing project:
“Meanwhile, an online initiative called the Fair Tracing Project aims to publicise how farmers in poor countries are treated by the multinational companies that sell their produce in the west. Farmers use mobiles to upload photos and videos “so they can tell a story about the labour conditions they’re working under”, says Fair Tracing team member Dorothea Kleine of Royal Holloway, University of London. Kleine and her colleagues add this to data on how the goods travel from farm to store, including the amount that packagers, shippers, and retailers get paid along the way.
So far they have completed case studies on Chilean wine (see diagram) and Indian coffee. Customers in stores should eventually be able to photograph a product’s bar code with their phone, and be directed to the relevant charts and videos.”
This is the second time Fair Tracing appeared in the New Scientist, and this time we were also able to point to the other projects we collaborate with in the newly formed Ethical Consumer Information System (ECIS) network. Of these, the GoodGuide Project (www.goodguide.com) was also mentioned in the article.
Posted in Chile, Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing publications, General, India, Tracing & Tracking, Wine | 2 Comments »
June 1st, 2009
This is a useful survey of Fair Trade (thanks, Marcelo!):
This publication offers a guide to Fair Trade through the exploration of 49 sites which include the official organizations of the movement, alternative traders, labeling organizations, government and multilateral bodies, NGOs and academic research across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Guide makes no claim to be representative, many sites being chosen for their intrinsic interest (availability of information, documents), but it does we feel capture the breadth and diversity of the movement and makes accessible a wealth of documentation on the key aspects of the movement, from facts and figures to analysis and debates.
Posted in General | No Comments »
