Collaborative Urban Computing: Serendipitous Cooperation between Users in an Urban Environment

Recent technical advancements in computing devices and communication networks, combined with changes in the way people use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems, have transformed the ICT industry. In this paper, we present the Collaborative Urban Computing (CUC) paradigm which supports serendipitous cooperation between a set of users physically located in an urban environment and all sharing a common goal. Advantages and disadvantages of the CUC paradigm are elaborated on a proof-of-concept CUC service, which we call Collaborative Downloading.