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Technology: From the Greek: τέχνη where it meant craft, skill, trade, art, cunning, wile, means, describing something that is built or created. Etymologically related to Text and Architecture. Occasionally described as an “extension of our body” (McLuhan), technology is mainly an amplifier of our actions, sometimes vilified and sometimes dignified. Since humans are more inclined and talented at making a mess than cleaning up, technology has a strong inclination for amplifying Entropy over clarifying Information. Not everybody shares this point of view. A true Tech Optimist will defend the overall positive impact of technology at all costs. Often, tech optimists will claim that technology is morally neutral, ignoring that technology is designed and produced by humans with a certain morally relevant purpose.
Orlando and Oliver studied philosophy together 30 years ago. Their shared love for philosophy, design, and technology reunited them to discuss AI and the future.
As China starts outdoing us economically, technically and strategically, we are turning Chinese, slowly losing the spiritual, cultural and political texture that made us different.
Every time we read a computer-generated text, part of our life gets sucked into a little black electric hole.
Everybody that has an interest in influencing public opinion will happily pay a handful of Dollars to amplify their voices. Governments, political groups, corporations, traders, and just simple plain trolls will continue to shout through bot armies—as long as it is so cheap.
Bitcoin rose from 1,000 to 19,000 in a couple of months. Today it fell back to 10,000. If time is money, then what happened to people’s time? Is it lost?
The most important ingredient for a Web Trend Map is missing: The Web. Time to bring some of it back.
Step by step, Facebook has cut the news from its feeds. Yesterday, they confirmed that they will focus on content from friends and family while de-emphasizing news. How come? A brief history of the odd partnership between Facebook and the news industry and what it means for us.
Artificial Intelligence is a complex riddle for all sorts of experts. It’s full of magic, mystery, money, mind-boggling techno-ethical paradoxes and sci-fi dilemmas that may or may not affect us in some far or near future. Meanwhile, it already shapes our everyday life. Things already go wrong. And no one is responsible. What can we do?
The excerpts from recent Alan Kay emails are a gold mine. The text itself is a raw cut-up from a series of private emails. Kay argues that fundamental innovation and following objectives run counter to each other. Very much like art, fundamental research needs to be free from objective purpose.
To spice up our monster essay on icons, we created an icon monster shooter arcade game. Planned as a one week hackathon, it turned into an amazing one year adventure. Here is what UX designers learned creating an arcade game.
Will information technology affect our minds the same way the environment was affected by our analogue technology? Designers hold a key position in dealing with ever increasing data pollution. We are mostly focused on speeding things up, on making sharing easier, faster, more accessible. But speed, usability, accessibility are not the main issue anymore.
How do you deal with erroneous tweets? Not any erroneous tweets, your erroneous tweets. The tweets that you misspelled or, worse, that contain information you later discover is false, or a late night knee-jerk response you regret in the morning.
Our call to question the common practice of blindly adding social media buttons to every page got a lot of attention, and found many friends across the board. This proves we are onto something. Let’s look at some of the more critical reactions.
Werkzeuge sind Verlängerungen des Körpers: Die Brille ist eine Verlängerung des Auges, der Hammer eine Verlängerung der Hand, der Hut eine Verlängerung des Kopfhaars. Was ist ein Computer? Die Verlängerung unseres Geistes? Steve Jobs meinte, der Computer sei ein Fahrrad für den Geist. Eine schöne Vorstellung. Wenn man aber schaut, was insbesondere das Mobiltelefon mit uns macht, dann wirkt der zeitgenössische Computer eher wie ein Hamsterrad.
There is a difference between checking Google Maps on your iPhone and asking a stranger for directions. It matters whether you listened to Beethoven’s 9th in a concert hall or in your living room, whether it plays from a vinyl LP or from your iPod. King Lear is not the same experience when seen at the theatre, studied on paper, or scanned on a Kindle.
I'm not a nuclear expert. I am a 40-year-old Swiss web designer, with a degree in philosophy, living in Tokyo. And I'm a father of a two-year-old boy. I was nonchalant about nuclear energy so far, but recently, I've read a lot about it; it's hard to understand the discussion.
Computer, Smartphone, Tablet-PC, IP-TV, Spiele-Konsole, Navigationsgerät und vielleicht sogar im Display des neuen Backofens. Das Web soll uns ganz wie von Bill Gates vorhergesehen überall Information übermitteln. Ob das wirklich Sinn macht, ist eine andere Frage.
Here is the lecture iA's Oliver Reichenstein gave in 2010 at Keio University on creativity, information, and innovation.
How do you navigate content on the iPad? Scroll or flip? In 1987, the biggest neck beards in tech held a conference on the Future of Hypertext and there were two camps, “Card Sharks” and “Holy Scrollers”. They had an epic battle over this question: Should you scroll or flip pages on the screen? Who won the fight?
Do architects design houses or do they design “inhabitant experiences”? The bullshit answer is “They design inhabitant experiences”. The pragmatic answer is: “They design houses”. The cautious answer is: Architects design houses that lead to a spectrum of experiences, some foreseen, some not. But they do not design all possible experiences one can have in a house.
Last week at Media2010, Marc Frons (Chief Technology Officer, Digital Operations, New York Times), Nic Fulton (Chief Scientist, Thomson Reuters), and I were asked several questions on the future of news…
Am 12. Januar 2010 meldete Google in einem Blogeintrag wie ein Blitz aus heiterem Himmel, dass man eine "neue Herangehensweise" an China ins Auge fasse. Man sei nicht weiter bereit, die Suchresultate der chinesischen Google-Suchmaschine zu zensurieren.
2009 ist sicher in unseren Erinnerungen verstaut, die Nullerjahre sind überstanden – Zeit für einen Ausblick.
Obwohl ich immer wieder grosse Projekte leite, habe ich nie intensiv über das Handwerk der Projektleitung nachgedacht. Ich sehe aber, dass selbst gestandene Projektleiter immer wieder scheitern.
Diesem Artikel ging eine schockierende Selbstbeobachtung voraus. Lange habe ich mich geweigert, den 140-Zeichen-Dienst Twitter auch nur aufzurufen, geschweige denn zu – das Wort auszusprechen fällt mir heute noch schwer – twittern.
Die 100jährige Internetfirma wird ein Pharmakonzern sein, stets auf der Suche nach der nächsten grossen Rezeptur. Oder ein Filmstudio, das 10 Produktionen im Jahr finanziert, um einen Blockbuster zu landen.
Der wichtigste Antrieb, sich für ein soziales Netzwerk wie Facebook anzumelden, ist das Bedürfnis, Leute auszuspionieren, die man nicht physisch trifft.
In einem Nachmittag zusammengeflickt war die erste Web Trend Map, die zweite kostete uns eine Woche und die dritte verschlang bereits einen ganzen Arbeitsmonat. Die Web Trend Map Nummer 4, erscheinen soll sie im Februar 2009, hat bereits jetzt mehr Vorbereitungszeit in Anspruch genommen als alle ihre Vorgängerinnen zusammen.
Das ultimative Tool für Internetfreaks, die Web Trend Map 2008, ist nun als A0-Poster erhältlich.
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The release of music for free online is certainly no new thing, with many bands finding success through file-sharing. That fill-sharing kills the record industry is also nothing new, however Radiohead recently made it official by showing that it's possible the make and reach millions without either.
After looking closer at what made the web in 2006, it is time for some bold predictions.
Since the PR giant Edelman and Technorati are working together they are both trying to become an industry reference for statistics on the blogosphere. The question is how reliable is Technorati’s data?
Web 1.0 started as a streaming publish-to-read medium; web 2.0 has established itself as a publishing platform for everyone. Now web 3.0 is said to be a technologically advanced Internet, where the user executes and the machines do the thinking.
Since Mondays are typically low energy days, I’d like to share this story with, to reassure you: If you have a strong vision—no one can stop you.
In 2001, usability guru Jakob Nielsen—according to USA Today “the next best thing to a true time machine”—was convinced that by 2007 books would be gone and “fully replaced with online information”. Was he being serious?
We now have over 75 million websites we can go to, but still we only visit six of them regularly, as we just learned from a study recently made public by Directgov. Their findings make us think of a new phase of the Internet.