In cooperation with Common Cause Collective, we are investigating how best to deploy pervasive computing technology within farmers' markets. One of the project partners, the Software Systems Lab at the University of Sussex, has built a toolkit that allows fast development of applications utilising hand-held augmented reality and the web.  The hand-held device is used to recognise trigger patterns in its video feed, and the software will then overlay information on the recognised pattern, and will allow the user to add additional comments or to rate the supplied information.  Our initial applications are a virtual Visitors' Book, allowing users to relay their experiences to other customers, and the "Ask Us About..." application, where the stall-holders describe non-obvious services and product features that customers may like to know more about.  We are currently trialling the application, and hoping for a public deployment by June.

The overarching theme of the project is how best to facilitate genuine trust relationships in market situations, enabling customer and vendor to quickly form well-founded beliefs in each others' integrity.   Farmers' markets are particularly interesting to us since they have as an underlying premise that people wish to buy food direct from producers, and to form a better understanding of the supply chain for the products they buy.  Other project achievements are the electronic gavel for auction houses, and the development of a complete system for mobile recommendations.