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Theme : technology
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Gadgets for doing good?
In November, Fast Company noted that CNN is airing a documentary about North korea with the footage and information gathered from dissidents using video cameras and mobile phones."With new technological wonders every month, it is easy to get caught up in Apple's newest iPod or Microsoft's new Xbox 360 or the next Motorola RAZR. It is more difficult to remember transformative technologies that do more than provide entertainment--they change lives."If it's possible to do this under Kim Jong Il's...
from : mollywebb
23rd January 2006
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Making Digital Durable
At the end of the middle pier is a lecture hall that seats about 300 people. In the lobby outside an audience waits patiently smiling and chatting, browsing a table that has become an impromptu book shop. Listening in on the conversations about IPOs and new web tools you soon realise that this is a technologically savvy crowd. There?s not a suit amongst them. You get the feeling these guys know their Perl from their Python.When the audience file in to the theatre, the stage is black with a...
from : paulmiller
21st November 2005
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Interuption Science
Strange things are happening in the Demos office today. Our email is bust so people are having to work out how to live without it. It's quite a shock to the system. But maybe it's not such a bad thing - there have been a couple of really interesting articles recently about interuption science and how it's beginning to influence the design of software and computer interfaces. It's a serious business. According to the Institute for the Future typical employees send and receive, on average, 178...
from : paulmiller
3rd November 2005
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Interestingness
Regular readers will know that Demos has a Flickr account and that we occasionally post photos of research trips, Demos events and us doing silly stuff. Now while there are a few decent photographers on the Demos payroll the thing that amazes me about Flickr is the incredible standard of some of the pictures and how easy it is to find the good ones.The feature that really proved it to me was when they added the 'interestingness' algorithm. Take a look - but beware you'll find yourself in there...
from : paulmiller
26th August 2005
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Use the force, Luke -- but not the dark side
There are lots of examples of new technical solutions that connect people (think Skype, SMS, you name it) having an affect on capitalism. "They may make some new economic system possible? says Howard Reingold in this Business week article. Open source communities understand their impact. MrAndrews on Kuro5hin: ?We always preach open standards, so let's get our hands dirty. Let's make an economy that only the internet could sustain. We need to define the mechanics, draft the standards, and put...
from : mollywebb
17th August 2005
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Mile high blogging
This is a first - for me at least - I'm posting this from 35,000 feet above Afghanistan. I'm currently on a Lufthansa flight and thanks to the new Boeing Skynet service, am savouring the joys of full broadband access (even the Demos VPN works!). Advert over. My real reason for posting is to say I'll be away from the office for the rest of May, carrying out some scoping research for our Atlas of Ideas project, which is exploring trends in science and innovation in China, India and South...
from : jameswilsdon
8th May 2005
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Ratings Revolution
This weekend?s edition of the NYT Magazine ran a long and fascinating article by Jon Gertner about something I?d never really thought about: TV ratings. If you?ve ever wondered how they come up with those numbers for how many people watched a particular episode of Dr Who vs Ant and Dec?s Saturday Night Takeaway, this is the piece for you. Although admittedly I?m not sure whether similar methods are used in the UK. What?s interesting is how technology is creating new ways of measuring the...
from : paulmiller
12th April 2005