Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
The European Commission has published a new plan, called i2010 for ‘the completion of a Single European Information Space’. The Commission proposes an 80% increase in funding for ICT research focused on areas where Europe has recognised strengths: nano-electronics, embedded…
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…
The Fused Space design competition was inspired by the question: can artists and designers do a better job than the marketing industry in creating new application for ITC in public space? The 300+ entries satisfied juror John Thackara that…
Companies tailor new offerings to preteens and their parents. With an estimated 80 percent of adults between 18 and 65 owning a cell phone, the potential for growth in the cell phone market is slowing. By contrast, only 10 percent…
The narrow, cobbled streets of Cordoba in southern Spain are no place for a car, but Alfredo Romeo, a Spanish entrepreneur wanted to change that and set up a business with “blobjectsâ€, electric hire cars that are proving popular with…
Cellphones are already used for music downloads, text messaging, and video games. But here in South Africa, they are beginning to perform another function: personal piggy bank. With the new technology, a grandmother in rural area can receive money from…
The increasing ubiquity and popularity of mass SMS-enabled but temporary political affiliation may actually end up bringing its demise. These are not true bottom-up, spontaneous, grass-roots expressions of networked solidarity, nor even representations of groups willing to follow up on…
John Thackara reports: Five threats are identified in a report from a powerful European consortium: Surveillance of users; spamming; identity theft; malicious attacks (on AmI systems); and a cultural condition they describe as ‘digital divide’. The research consortium –…
Developed by LeapFrog Enterprises, a maker of educational toys, the amazingly clever Fly “pentop” computer is just what it sounds like: a talking computer hidden within a pen the size of an electric toothbrush. The gadget, which contains an actual…
Africa is the world’s fastest-growing cellphone market, a boom that has taken the industry by surprise. From 1999 through 2004, the number of mobile subscribers in Africa jumped to 76.8 million, from 7.5 million, an average annual increase of 58…
For all its rough spots and blog pretensions, Current is for-profit public-access television, an attempt to add grass-roots diversity to a television universe that is ever more controlled by a few media conglomerates. Current is easily mocked, but it is…
[A number of] museums are busily implementing a variety of forms of ubiquitous (a.k.a. pervasive) computing to assist customers. […] What the museums learn about things such as delivering personalised multimedia content to mobile users, luring visitors to lesser-known exhibits…
To prepare students for an evolving information-based society, architects are designing innovative schools to support new models of teaching and learning. Read full story (Related story: Students at Roy Lee Walker Elementary School don’t just study textbooks to learn about…
Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life is the title of a new book published by MIT Press that attempts at understanding how mobile technology shapes Japan’s culture — and our own. Co-edited by University of Southern California research…
Mobile phones have made people less organised and more willing to be late when meeting their friends, according to a survey.Nearly one in five people admitted to being unreliable about timekeeping because they had the “safety net” of a mobile.…
Polar Electro, the innovative leader in heart rate monitoring, and adidas, one of the world’s leading sports brands, have formed a partnership that will introduce the world’s first completely integrated training system. Called “Project Fusionâ€, it seamlessly integrates Polar heart…
The latest ‘Big Bang’ in information-sharing is free, and its flagship already gets more traffic than the New York Times and USA Today combined: Meet the ‘wiki.’ Read full story
This month, NTT DoCoMo, Inc. will release a mobile phone able to slow down speakers’ voice speed. The key targeted users are the elderly, reveals Tech-on. The speed converter technology slows down speakers’ voice speed up to 0.7x, so the…
The Work Foundation’s iSociety project is a definitive and independent analysis of the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs) on our everyday lives. The UK-based project is especially focused on the ways that information and communications technologies (ICTs) are…
The forthcoming 2005 State of the Future report will outline what it considers to be the 15 greatest challenges facing humanity. Jerome Glenn, director of the Millennium Project, gives us a preview and a glimpse of some of the changes…