Practices around privacy (and Nokia)
A few days into the brouhaha about Nokia-Siemens Networks equipment being used for surveillance in Iran, Nokia user researcher Jan Chipchase reflects on the controversy, and delves into the subject of privacy.
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Category Culture
Charles Leadbeater essay: The Art of With
Charles Leadbeater explores what the advent of the web, collaborative practice and open source ways of working mean for the arts and art organisations in this excellent 20-page essay commissioned by Cornerhouse. “The 20 century avant garde was built on…
Intel’s Genevieve Bell on humanising technology
Malaysian newspaper The Star devotes plenty of space to user-centred design in three stories that feature the work of Genevieve Bell, Intel’s user experience director. “Marrying†anthropology and science “I still write and publish my work in academic journals. To…
The rise of the sensor citizen
Anne Galloway was one of the excellent presenters at the recent LIFT conference in Geneva. So it is with much pleasure to notice that she has written the latest contribution to Vodafone’s Receiver Magazine. In her critical contribution ‘The rise…
The revolution will be fetishised
Now that the refrains of “Twitter Revolution” and “the first uprising powered by social media” are fading into the distant memory that is 24 hours ago, we can start debating, says Jonathan Salem Baskin, what impact, if any, it had…
A range of new products will be created from social data
LinkedIn founder and CEO Reid Hoffman says in an interview on Nokia’s Ideas Project that the unprecedented accumulation of social network data provides fertile ground for the cultivation of products and applications that leverage and yield analytics from user identities…
Technology is for revolution (and repression)
Far from being a tool for oppression, as often portrayed in old science fiction, technology has become a means of liberation, argues the Financial Times. “Technology gets a bad rap in the old media. In books and films, it is…
As blogs are censored, it’s kittens to the rescue
The New York Times discusses extensively the “Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship”, as propounded by Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. His idea is deceptively simple: most people…
Mobile impact
Last week I quoted from Robert Fabricant’s contribution to a Fast Company discussion roundtable on the impact of the mobile phone. Robert has meanwhile posted the full text of his response to the questions. Here another quote: “Density and connectivity…
Thomas Crampton on his transition from journalism to digital strategy
Thomas Crampton, a former correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, was asked to address an OECD gathering in Paris about his transition from journalism to digital strategy, focusing on his experiences within a traditional media…
UK report on how cities use innovation to tackle social challenges
British Council press release: Breakthrough cities is a groundbreaking report on how cities can mobilise creativity and knowledge to tackle compelling social challenges. The report was commissioned by the British Council from the Young Foundation. Geoff Mulgan and Charles Leadbeater,…
Even the BBC believes that we are all hackers now
My quest of understanding the mainstreaming of hacker culture is now also endorsed by the BBC: “The maze of electronics on a typical circuit board can be difficult to decipher, but as hackers and tinkerers grow in number, an industry…
Four new Dott07 case studies
The UK Design Council just published — a little late — four short case studies based on the experience of Dott07, a year of community projects, events and exhibitions based in North East England and curated by John Thackara, that…
Large scale user testing project as part of the Digital Britain initiative
According to NewMediaAge, the UK Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the government body for business innovation in technology, and NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, will collaborate on digital user-centred test-bed projects, as part of the Digital…
The social life of health information
The Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a report that shows how Americans’ pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources. Americans’ pursuit of health takes place within a widening network…
The rules for balancing technology and relationships
Emma Cook asks in The Times of London if our increasing desire to stay in the loop is distracting us from the people who should matter the most in our lives. “According to research carried out last year by Professor…
Identity crisis in the West and innovation in the developing world
Nokia’s Ideas Project published two feature stories today: Digital We: A (Multiple) Identity Crisis We create new digital identities almost without limit – at the same time new technologies urge us to blur them. Is it a new digital arms…
Smartphone rises fast from gadget to necessity
The increasing popularity of BlackBerrys, iPhones and their kin owes as much to sociology as technology. Steve Lohr reports in The New York Times. “The smartphone surge, it seems, is a case of a trading-up trend in technology that is…
Products are worthless
A somewhat controversial post by Helge Tennø, strategic director and digital planner at digital agency Screenplay in Oslo, Norway. “Products are just stuff, and represent nothing of value on their own. It is first when they are introduced to a…