antoine /research Group
The Social Cost Tracker
Participatory Culture Collaborative Research Group
Peek inside the Social Cost Tracker:
Poster for The Soul of the New Machine Conference at UC Berkley
The Social Cost Tracker is a non-commercial, open-source mobile technology application designed to promote just labor and ecological practices by connecting product producers and consumers. This will be achieved by delivering first person multimedia accounts from participating producers, workers and NGOs to consumers who have the option of accessing this information at the point of purchase. The Social Cost Tracker will simultaneously foster activism in the field and storefront by providing a direct line for reporting production, distribution and waste management practices that will influence consumer purchase decisions.
This open source design is another key difference between the Social Cost Tracker and existing applications such as the Good Guide. User submitted data will be screened via quality control mechanisms to ensure accuracy and prevent potential profit or competition based bias. Consumers may also choose to voluntarily submit their purchasing data to a database for statistical analysis that will be used to assess the effectiveness of the Social Cost Tracker in impacting consumer-spending habits. This information may then be used to promote informed consumption practices that take into account the social and ecological costs of current modes of production and distribution.
The Social Cost Tracker will connect individuals and communities by developing creative database architecture that can aggregate SMS text and multimedia input from individual participants and massive databases provided by advocacy group partners. The project will contribute to the field of mobile technology development by resolving existing issues reading blurry barcodes with fixed lens mobile cameras. The Social Cost Tracker research group will compile the qualitative multimedia information using new media social documentary techniques. This format of organizing and presenting the information will not only deliver compelling content to mobile devices but will take into consideration the technical possibilities and limitations presented by this platform. All of these technological innovations will be available to other non-profit groups working for social justice.
The Social Cost Tracker is currently being developed by University of California Santa Cruz graduate students from the Departments of Engineering, Digital Arts and New Media, Social Documentary, and Anthropology. This interdisciplinary team is working under the guidance of faculty members Sharon Daniel, Professor and Chair of Digital Arts New Media MFA program, and James Davis, Associate Professor, Computer Science, School of Engineering. Professor Daniel’s research involves collaborations with communities that focus on the use and development of information and communications technologies for social inclusion. This involves designing and building online archives and interfaces that make the stories of technologically disenfranchised communities available across social, cultural and economic boundaries like the webby award winning “Public Secrets” 
http://publicsecret.net and the participatory media project “Palabras” http://palabras.ucsc.edu which has been used and exhibited internationally. Professor Davis’ proven record of research includes innovation in computational photography, computer vision, and methods for acquiring digital representations of the real world. Davis developed early panoramic stitching methods, which are now commonplace in consumer cameras. He has begun initial development on the barcode reader application and barcode database for the Social Cost Tracker with graduate students in the School of Engineering at UCSC. During the spring of 2008 they developed a working prototype of the price-tracker bar code recognition software and product bar code database for Nokia cell phones.
Submitted by The Social Cost Tracker Research Group
Sharon Daniel sdaniel@ucsc.edu
James Davis davis@cs.ucsc.edu