Ars Electronica posts audio of over forty presentations
Ars Electronica posted over forty mp3 audio files (or "podcasts") of presentation that took place at its recent festival, 1-6 September 2005.
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Culture
Participatory design, branding and ethics (as applied in Barcelona)
In a blog that talks about participatory design and how users can contribute to the design of services, we cannot sidestep the ethical issue. Often people’s creativity and cultural contributions are used against their own interests. In a long and…
Sacred World Foundation
The Sacred World Foundation was founded several years ago by Ranjit Makkuni, a visionary and designer and a former leading researcher at Xerox PARC. It is a state of the art research and design think tank, located in New Delhi,…
Glocalmap.to – social tagging for mobile phones
Glocalmap.to (site currently in Italian only) is a large-scale cultural “social tagging” project that integrates web mapping, thematic tagging and mobile phone messaging, to create a new urban narrative for the city of Turin. It allows citizens and visitors alike…
Intel’s People and Practices Research Lab
Intel’s People and Practices Research Lab engages the techniques of social science (including anthropology and ethnography) and design in order develop a deep understanding of how people live and work. This knowledge is then translated into insights for guiding corporate…
A major setback in Japan deflates Vodafone’s one-size-fits-all strategy [The New York Times]
Service problems, a botched rollout of its third-generation phone network and a skimpy lineup of new handsets have driven away Japanese Vodafone customers in droves. The company admits that its biggest misstep was a decision to focus its lineup in…
Why technology misses the masses
The latest MORI research into consumer technology, commissioned by European technology public relations consultancy Hotwire, has concluded that consumer technologies will not reach their full market potential until vendors can successfully engage with women and the over 45s. According to…
Teens prefer mobiles to TV, survey shows [Cellular News]
Survey results released from ACE*COMM indicate most North American parents aren’t supervising the mobile phone use of their teenaged children. Seventy-one percent of teenagers surveyed admit they enjoy unrestricted use of their mobile phones. The Itracks survey also found that…
Anthropologists help Intel in emerging markets [Red Herring]
In a bid to eventually sell more chips, Intel has set up four new offices in Bangalore, Cairo, Sao Paulo and Shanghai that are staffed with anthropologists and engineers to help design computers with features for emerging markets. The four…
Koreans find secret cybersauce [Wired News]
There’s more to online social networks than matchmaking, and South Korea’s Cyworld is showing the way. The online service blends homepage building and social networking with a host of other online activities, including Sims-like role-playing. Owned by South Korea’s SK…
Europe Zips Lips; U.S. Sells ZIPs [The New York Times]
The U.S. looks at privacy largely as a consumer and an economic issue; in the rest of the developed world, it is regarded as a fundamental right. Read full story
Indigenous people bridging the digital divide [World Changing]
Indigenous peoples are using both digital and narrative media to preserve and express their cultures and beliefs. Often this involves adapting media and technology to what the people need, rather than pushing them into a pre-digested or “mainstream” model of…
Gore’s webby TV network debuts [Associated Press | Wired News]
Much of the talk around Al Gore’s new Current TV network has been broadly philosophical, like the former vice president’s statement that “we want to be the television homepage for the internet generation.” With its debut Monday, Current TV will…
I screen, you screen: the new age of the music video [The New York Times]
Videos have taken on an exciting if uncertain life of their own, far away from the mother ship that launched them. They thrive at online music sites, they’re sold in record stores, they connect strangers across the Internet. And just…
Teens spurn e-mail for messaging [BBC]
US teenagers prefer instant messaging rather than e-mail to stay in touch with each other, research shows. A Pew Internet and American Life Project study found online teens are increasingly tech-savvy. Nearly nine out of 10 teenagers say they use…
Proctor & Gamble targeting teens with clever blogs [Fast Company]
On a blog called sparklebodyspray.com, the pastel geometric images of four faceless girls emphasize the four authors, code-named Vanilla, Tropical, Rose, and Peach. Vanilla and her crew aren’t people at all. They’re the names of four perfume sprays, targeted to…
Context
Context-based Research Group was established in 1999, the goal was simple – to help marketers and product designers do better work through the power of ethnography. Margaret’s Walking Stick is Context’s perpetual anthropology / ethnography education project. Each month contains…
Join the circus [Fast Company]
At a time when audiences for all performing arts are declining, Cirque du Soleil has taken a particularly moribund segment of the market — the circus — and created an entertainment juggernaut, with a burgeoning record label, a retail operation,…
Co-opting the creative revolution [BBC]
Digital technology is providing people with the tools to produce and share content like never before, and it is set to throw the relationship between them and institutions into turmoil, say experts. “I am predicting 50 years of chaos,” said…
Simulated society may generate virtual culture [New Scientist]
A society of virtual “agents†— each with a remarkably realistic personality and the ability to learn and communicate in their own language — is being crafted by scientists from five European research institutes who hope to gain insights into…