Sun Dial, a mobile application to alert muslims to prayer
Religious technology may seem like an oxymoron, but as more people obtain mobile phones, iPhones and other devices to help them manage their lives, it’s only natural that many of them will be using their gadgets to help them enrich their spiritual life as well.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a mobile application known as Sun Dial, which alerts Muslim users when it’s time to perform the five daily prayers known as salat. The device is currently being discussed this week at the human-computer interaction conference, CHI, in Boston.
“We have to understand religion because it’s such a central part of peoples lives,” explained Susan Wyche, doctoral candidate in the College of Computing and GVU Center at Georgia Tech.
– Read full story
– Download paper (“Sacred Imagery in Techno-Spiritual Design”)
The researchers have clearly been inspired by the excellent paper “No more SMS from Jesus: ubicomp, religion and techno-spiritual practices” by Intel researcher Genevieve Bell.
*Sigh*, “religious technology” is not an oxymoron. Consider this:
http://romishpotpourri.blogspot.com/2009/02/church-and-science-fact.html
Was there some small voice in your head that said “I probably shouldn’t write this” when you made the snarky comment about “religious technology”?
Really, please just stick to your subject matter in the future.
The term “religious technology” is not mine, but a quote from the Science Daily story.