Placethings, a student created social media platform for mobile devices is a finalist in the Accelerator Competition at South by Southwest (SXSW), the world’s premier emerging technology event held each March in Austin. “Accelerator at SXSW searches coast to coast and across oceans for the next big thing in the tech business by the most ambitious talents in the world” Placethings competed with hundreds of other companies to become a finalist and will present at SXSW on March 15.

About Placethings: Placethings mobile media platform creates personal, shareable layers of media on top of real world locations, connecting places with “stories.” Tell people about your trip, guide them through a city, tell stories about where you’ve been, what happened, and what is important with video, pictures, sound, and beautiful, shareable maps. More about Placethings

Placethings was developed in EMAC’s MobileLab research group and was co-created by undergraduate ATEC student Nicholas Spencer and EMAC graduate student John Syrinek in collaboration with Professor Dean Terry. The project is a transdiciplinary and includes contributions from students in The School of Engineering and Computer Science and the School of Management. The project is supported by the Office of Research and RIM, makers of Blackberry and has also been featured at Mobilize.

A collaborative project between University of Texas at Dallas MobileLab and Ericsson. The wireless body sensor network was shown as part of CTIA in Las Vegas. A trans disciplinary research effort, the student and faculty participants came from the Arts & Technology Program, the Emerging Media Program (both part of the School of Arts & Humanities), and the School of Engineering and Computer Science.