Yesterday Dutch navigation systems company TomTom announced (in Dutch) a new service: users can subscribe to a live traffic updates (every three minutes) that will tell them exactly how long the trip will take under the present road conditions. The service is marketed as a way to ‘regain control’ over daily practicalities such as navigating through the city. ‘People will be able to determine their own fate’, a spokesperson claimed, perhaps somewhat overconfident.

It made me think of current media theory by for instance Michael Bull, who researched personal stereo and iPod users. Users reported that these technologies gave them a sense of control as well. They could adjust the soundtrack to their mood, or use the stereo as a Simmelean ‘defense mechanism’, to bring the contingencies of everyday life in the metropolis back to maneagble proportions. Personal stereo’s could be seen as ‘recentering devices’, placing the subject in the middle of his own universe whereever he is.

It seems that part of the success of mobile and perhaps in the future also locative media is this exact sense of control they provide. Macro-economical developments, many people feel, are beyond our control. But what we have lost to globalization and the waning of grand narratives, we can now regain in the micro-coordination of our private lives. At least, that is what we are promised.