Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the UX research and design consultancy
Abstracts and posters of the first Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC, that took place on 14-15 November in Redmond, WA, are already online. The conference proceedings are also downloadable (pdf, 1.9 mb, 198 pages), be it for a limited…
Can computers help fight obesity? Can technology motivate you to waste less energy? Can communication devices help overcome racial prejudice? Can a virtual agent persuade you to break your smoking habit? Can a mobile phone help you study? Can a…
MIT Technology Review discusses the blossoming field of corporate ethnography as a way to study how people actually use technology and reports on the first-ever Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC), organised by ethnographers at Intel and Microsoft and held…
UC Berkeley and Yahoo! recently established a joint research laboratory, headed by Prof. Marc Davis, to explore and invent social media and mobile media technology and applications that will enable people to create, describe, find, share, and remix media on…
Changes brought about by the internet will be dwarfed by those prompted by the networking of everyday objects, says a UN report. The study looks at how the use of electronic tags and sensors could create an “internet of things”.…
A prototype of a cheap and robust laptop for pupils has been welcomed as an “expression of global solidarity” by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The green machine was showcased for the first time by MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte at the…
This Christmas, tech-peddlers are turning their gaze toward kids, with new lines of grown-up gadgets built for tiny hands. “There’s a shift in need in terms of what a child finds fun and entertaining,” says Jim Silver, editor of the…
At the Mandarin and other high-end hotels, new computer systems that connect individual rooms to network servers can now keep track of guests’ preferences and change the room conditions automatically. These “smart” systems can learn whether a frequent guest likes…
In a half hour audio interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Neil Gershenfeld of MIT says a revolution is on the horizon for manufacturing — that existing technologies and tools can bring capabilities once only held by huge factories…
We clearly have a love-hate relationship with digital technology, a new study confirms. We love how easily it allows us – through e-mail, sending photos and exchanging news and information – to communicate with friends and family, but we…
Plugged into it all From Japanese girls texting their friends to the BlackBerry-armed executive, it’s now who you are connected to, not who you know. But does this mean greater freedom or loss of control? Failed to fly Why do…
The new HomeLab allows Philips to test its new home technology prototypes in the most realistic possible way. The research facility, which is located on the Philips campus in the Netherlands, is essential in speeding up the time-to-market for technological…
As part of the process of opening up its new media production and development to independent producers, the BBC is collaborating with Creative London, ERDF Objective One, Yorkshire Forward, Screen Yorkshire, North-West Vision, and Unexpected Media on a pilot series…
Business Week just published an interview by Liz Danzico (AIGA) with author Peter Morville on his new book Ambient Findability and on what it means to be able to find anything from anywhere at anytime, thanks to ubiquitous computing and…
Being sent to your bedroom used to be a punishment: now it’s a teen dream. Through personal computers, mobile phones and gaming consoles, teenagers are spurning antisocial angst for a culture of “connected cocooning”. It’s a phrase coined by…
A few months ago I wrote about the Gel and euroGel conferences in 2006. Mark Hurst just posted a partial line-up of speakers. The euroGel 2006 conference which will take place on 1 September 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark, features: Han…
From wireless rat-catchers to search engines, from gambling specialists to e-mail developers, British companies are leading European innovation in the mobile phone industry, taking over the center of gravity in cellular entrepreneurship from the Nordic countries, many in the…
MIT has established seven so-called Fabrication Labs in places as distant as Norway and Ghana. Each lab has tool sets that, costing about $25,000, would be out of the reach of most fledgling inventors. Advocates of such “Fab Labs” think…
Under new policies and initiatives from its Ministry of Communications, Italy is turning to Wi-Fi and WiMAX to make broadband Internet access more universally available throughout the country. On October 4th, the Minister for Communications, Mario Landolfi, issued a new…
Samsung just posted the second edition of its lifestyle and innovation magazine DigitAll. While the first issue had a more open attitude than similar initiatives of competitors (e.g. Nokia, Motorola), by reflecting on the strategies of other companies, including Adidas…