Category Technology (general)
Qualitative Yahoo! research on teens and technology
Head of Samsung Design Europe discusses design and innovation
As part of this week’s Index: 2005 events in Copenhagen, Denmark, CPH127 interviewed Joong Yeal Choi, Head of Samsung Design Europe and made it available in video. Mr. Choi has studied industrial design and design management at Seoul National University…
Kurzweil sees future when humans, tech will converge [The Mercury News]
Ray Kurzweil, one of the USA’s most acclaimed inventors, has some unusual ideas about how we’ll live in 25 years. Looking ahead 40 years, Kurzweil believes humans will evolve into semi-mechanical beings who can alter their physical appearance at will.…
Ars Electronica posts audio of over forty presentations
Reflecting on Sony’s integration of user experience and branding
Ian McArthur reflects in the CPH127 blog on Sony’s Qualia product series, and how it is an example of how “user experience†can be extended and elaborated on to integrate seamlessly with branding strategy. The effect in this case, he…
Smart cards make inroads in European transit [International Herald Tribune]
Bus to the train station, train to the city, subway to the office – all with one ticket. With advances in smart card technology and agreements between transport companies, that scenario is becoming a reality. “Being able to use a…
Next steps for Wi-Fi [International Herald Tribune]
In re-reading an article on the future of Wi-Fi from last week’s Herald Tribune, I was struck by a comment towards the end: “What doesn’t work is the complexity to get onto a Wi-Fi network. The ability to make wireless…
Exploring good experiences at the Gel 2006 and euroGel 2006 conferences
Mark Hurst of Good Experience contacted me today about the Gel 2006 conference. Gel is a conference and community, exploring good experience in all its forms — in business, art, society, technology, and life. The goal of the conference [which…
From hi-tech to my tech [The Guardian]
The Guardian published today a reflective article on how cell phones and the internet have fundamentally changed the way we live. But unfortunately the writer doesn’t state much more than his amazement at the speed of social change due to…
Hacking to improve Lego’s new tool [C|Net]
When Lego executives recently discovered that adult fans of the iconic plastic bricks had hacked one of the company’s new development tools for digital designers, they did a surprising thing: they cheered. Unlike executives at so many corporations, who would…
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,…
Mobile users clueless on data services [VNUnet]
Despite increasing numbers of data-enabled mobile phones it seems that users are lost when it comes to data services. In a survey carried out by mobile software company SurfKitchen not one mobile phone user could correctly identify the data package…
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…
HP research on emerging economies
The HP research on Innovation for Emerging Economies is done from Bangalore, India, where they tackle such issues as the access divide, the communications divide, the need for contextual design, the language divide and the lack of sustainable business ecologies…
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…
Intel’s anthropology army [ZDnet]
Like many large IT companies, Intel has tribes of anthropologists and social scientists on the books, and these people have considerable input on the way the company develops new products and platforms. The teams are especially prominent in Intel’s efforts…
Accenture research on user experience
Accenture Technology Labs, the technology research and development organisation within Accenture, is at the intersection of business and technology, exploring the impact of new and emerging technologies on business in the future. Its research in “workforce performance and user experience”…
Vodafone’s receiver magazine
Receiver is Vodafone’s magazine for future thinkers. It is conceived as a neutral space, where thinkers discuss future-oriented aspects of communications technologies. Started four years ago as a platform for exchange about how innovations in this sector affect societies worldwide,…
Using smell and touch to reduce car accidents [Reuters]
Whether it is wafting lavender or citrus scents to calm drivers and keep them awake, or vibrating seat belts to get them to slow down, smart cars in the future could help reduce road accidents. Dr Charles Spence, an experimental…