The Children of Cyberspace

The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s - NYTimes.com

One obvious result is that younger generations are going to have some very peculiar and unique expectations about the world. My friend’s 3-year-old, for example, has become so accustomed to her father’s multitouch iPhone screen that she approaches laptops by swiping her fingers across the screen, expecting a reaction.

Oppression by Technology

Free yourself from oppression by technology - opinion - 27 December 2009 - New Scientist

Are we being served by these technological wonders or have we become enslaved by them? I study the psychology of technology, and it seems to me that we are sleepwalking into a world where technology is severely affecting our well-being. Technology can be hugely useful in the fast lane of modern living, but we need to stop it from taking over.

TREEHOUSE: A Found e-mail Romance for iPhone

Networked_Performance — TREEHOUSE: A Found e-mail Romance for iPhone

TREEHOUSE: A Found e-mail Romance designed for the iPhone in four Appisodes™:

GET THE SCOOP (NY) - New media producers First Fifteen [F15] are releasing the provocative, true e-mails of a love affair carried out 14-years ago during the advent of the Internet (to be enjoyed in the privacy of your own phone).

The Technium

Kevin Kelly on The Technium: Penny Thoughts on the Technium

I‘m interested in how people personally decide to refuse a technology. I’m interested in that process, because I think that will happen more and more as the number of technologies keep increasing. The only way we can sort our identity is by not using technology. We’re used to be that you define yourself by what you use now. You define yourself by what you don’t use. So I’m interested in that process.

Cellphone Timeline

Timeline: The Selling of the Cellphone -- and Warnings Unheeded - Interactive - NYTimes.com

Since 1984, when car phones came into fashion, they were quickly marketed to drivers as a means to mobile freedom. Studies would soon show that using a phone while driving could be a distraction for motorists. Still, the industry resisted legislative action to ban handsets in cars, as warnings about distracted driving went unheeded.

Build Your iPhone App

Red Foundry iPhone Apps

Now anyone can build a killer iPhone App! A quality iPhone app can cost as much as $50,000 to develop, but thanks to Red Foundry now you can do-it-yourself for just a few dollars per month. Give it a try for FREE NOW!

Anyone can use Red Foundry, and you don’t need to know anything about programming. If you have a web browser and fingers to click a mouse, then you already have everything you’ll need to build an iPhone app with Red Foundry.

Immobile on the Phone

Complaint Box | Immobile on the Phone - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

This is a city of people who are constantly on the move. But lately I have noticed many who are completely immobile. Their favorite places to stand are on the subway stairs, either at the top, bottom or halfway up; at times, they camp smack-dab in the middle of the sidewalk. Regardless of where these people choose to stop, they are all engaged in the same activity: talking on their cellphones. And while they chatter away, like statues newly bestowed with the gift of speech, the rest of us are obliged to perform something akin to interpretive dance to make our way around them.

ElectroSmog: Sustainable Immobility

ElectroSmog International Design Competition – ElectroBlog: News about the ElectroSmog Festival:

Today we issued the call for the international design competition for sustainable immobility. We invite young designers, artists and other interested professionals and advanced students in design and art disciplines to submit proposals for designs for ’sustainable immobility’.

ElectroSmog is a new festival that revolves around the concept Sustainable Immobility. The festival will introduce and explore this concept in theory and practice. With Sustainable Immobility we refer to a critique of current systems of hyper mobility of people and products in travel and transport, and their ecological unsustainability.

The exploration of Sustainable Immobility is a quest for a more sustainable life style, which is less determined by speed and constant mobility. A lifestyle that celebrates stronger links to local cultures, while at the same time deepening our connections to others across any geographical divide, using new communication technologies instead of physical travel.

Mobile Interaction Course Design

I’m working on the design for two different mobile interaction courses to be offered next year. One is a Flash/Actionscript class that will be taught next semester. The second is one that I started designing last summer that will be offered online next summer. It is a mobile interaction design course that is heavier on the theoretical and sociological considerations in mobile application use and creation. When I have the structures and content in place, I may post the syllabi.

Flash-built apps heading for the iPhone

Flash-built apps heading for the iPhone | Macworld

This will make it much easier for me to incorporate app development into my Mobile Interaction Design courses:

New features in the upcoming Flash CS5 Professional will allow developers to write applications and compile the code to run on the iPhone and iPod touch. Applications can target the iPhone OS 3.0 and later.

New Mobile Misuse Flickr Collection

Collection: Mobile Misuse

I am slowly getting the past, present and future projects organized so that I can get some new pieces made (besides the iPod drawings - which are addictive to make).

More iPod Drawings in Process

QR Code Sand Castle

Trends in Japan - CScout Japan Blog: QR Code Sand Castle, by Sinap

Can a mobile phone read a QR code created not digitally, but out of sand? This is a question that arose while communication “architects” Sinap Co. Ltd. were brainstorming new strategies for reaching customers in a world suffering increasingly from information overload. A QR code created by a natural substance, and one as fragile as sand, would make an impact, they thought. The question remained, would it actually be usable?

Software Art for the iPhone

iPhoneArt | Software Art for the iPhone

Noticing this shifting dynamic toward the mobile space, early pioneering web and software artist Lia began the website, iPhoneart.org, which aims to aggregate several artist-created applications that use the touch-screen and accelerometer functions of the devices in new and imaginative ways.

Jonah Brucker-Cohen

Rhizome article

Robert Whitman: local report

local report

Local Report is the latest in a series of communication media works that Robert Whitman has produced since 1972.

The basic structure of these works was for 30 people assigned to different parts of the city or calling area to call at five minute intervals and describe something they saw at the moment; these reports were then broadcast live. Whitman put the incoming calls directly on the air as they came in, his only intervention being to end the call when, as he puts it, “The caller has produced a coherent image.” Ninety calls over a thirty minute period produced the final work. The news reports capture the nature of a specific place and time, revealing it to audience and participants alike.