Simultaneous localization and mapping technology is commonly used within mobile devices and household appliances—it allows our vacuum robot to navigate the living room and enables us to view augmented reality content on our smartphones. By examining simultaneous localization and mapping–based devices and contrasting them against more traditional forms of cartographic practices, we argue that simultaneous localization and mapping technology not only opens up interior spaces for geographic examination but also calls into question the categorical difference between inside and outside itself. As with simultaneous localization and mapping, the mathematical construction of the surrounding space happens in the moment of its detection, simultaneous localization and mapping exhibits a moment of radical situativeness that is freed from the constraints of a stabilized, external database. We propose that this moment of situativeness, which is also inscribed into the resulting highly mobile and fluid visualizations, is the defining feature of a new kind of geomedia that simultaneously establish a vertical and a horizontal geography.
“Big Tech” platform companies like Alphabet (Google), Apple, and Amazon are deeply invested in the future of automobility—from developing car-specific interfaces and self-driving technology to establishing business partnerships with automakers. Far from business-as-usual, we explain how Big Tech is reshaping the traditional automotive industry by making the car “platform ready,” as imposed on the web before it. The article considers how this novel transformation of automobility is increasingly significant for critical scholars of social media, platforms, and platformization, as bespoke forms of mediated, datafied, and platformized, sociality emerge. Specifically, we identify six levels upon which this platformization of automobility is unfolding and through which Big Tech is reorganizing the automotive industry according to platform logics concerning programmability, modularity, connectivity, data collection, and developmental partnerships. We do so by analyzing academic and technical literature, industry reports, and initiatives with a stake in platform automobility. Finally, we suggest directions for further research into Big Tech’s stake in the future of automobility, as these new dynamics begin to reshape the automotive industry at large.
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