Just found this article about "the future of futurology" in The World in 2008 of The Economist. It starts of by describing how the word “futurologist” has disappeared from the business and academic world, so has the so-called "futurology" discipline (although "there are still some hold-outs prophes...
Wrestling with what the [mobile phone] platform actually is
Reading the notes taken from Raph Koster's thoughts at MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 2: Mobile Media, I ran across this: "what’s kind of fascinating is seeing the wrestling with what the platform [mobile phone] actually is. (..) Broadcast? Input device? Truly interactive? Synchronous or asynchrono...
The use of wax
A bench in Zürich, conspicuously rubbed with wax by skateboarders... reduced friction, makes is easier to grind the bench. Why do I blog this? The tweaking of urban elements in an interesting practice to observe. What does that say about urban computing? possibly that a certain audience can modify...
"Remarkable hope in seams and scars"
As a complement to the discourse about showing the seams (and seamful design), I found these lines by Anne Galloway very relevant: "seams and scars point to where we have in the past made or become something else—and yet they also remind us that we can do so again in the future. If we treat them no...
Design research and social scientists
"Design Research for Social Scientists: Reading Instructions for This Issue by Hummels, Redström & Koskinen is an interesting introduction to the relationships between design research and social sciences. It's actually the introductory paper of a journal issue about that topic. A relevant excerpt: ...
Tangible UI and Minority Report
In his blogpost about "unconscious gestures", at a certain point, Matt Jones has a good rant about the cultural ownership on the touch interface of the iphone. As if all the other products which use touch/gestures had been copied ("with pride"): "That last remark made me spit with anger - and I alm...
Who need protection
Why do I blog this? this sort of element brings to some questions such as who needs to be protected? what object here is the most valuable? to whom? (Seen in Zürich this morning) ...
Electrical friday
2 encounters on friday afternoon made me wondering whether I should really pay attention to this topic: Where the first picture is a book about studies concerning social representations of "electricity", the second is about an exhibit about "what's behind the electric power plug" What I think abo...
"The future is already there" and goldsmith
A very interesting corollary to William Gibson's assertion "the future is already there, it's jut not evenly distributed" is discussed by Bill Buxton in "Sketching User Experiences: "we should not count on any deus ex machina. We should not expect any magic bullets. It is highly unlikely that there...
"Landscape Denatured: Digitizing the Wild" by Eric Kabisch
Had a glance this morning at Eric Kabisch's Masters Thesis called "Landscape Denatured: Digitizing the Wild". He basically describe 4 technologically enabled artworks that explore ways in which digital technologies impact society and culture, focusing particularly on the impacts of information tech...