What do YouTube, Wikipedia, IMDB, Tripadvisor, Linux, iStockphoto and Firefox all have in common? They exist through the collective efforts of millions of ordinary users like you and me. The strategy behind the success of these websites is crowdsourcing: “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large…
Stephen Baker’s The Numerati, published in 2008, tells the story of our modern world’s “binarization;” how every individual is deduced to ones and zeroes through the trails of data we leave behind which are consequently gathered, analyzed and categorized by number crunchers, better known as data miners, in order to predict behavior. The…
Title: Check In / Check Uit – de digitalisering van de openbare ruimte
English version: Check In / Check Out – the Public Space as an Internet of Things
Authors: Christian van ‘t Hof, Rinie van Est, Floortje Daemen
Publisher: Ratgenau Instituut, NAi Uitgevers
Published:…
In December 2007, composer and artist and writer Paul D. Miller a.ka. DJ Spooky a.k.a That Subliminal Kid boarded a decommissioned naval ship and traveled to Antarctica. The book that resulted from this journey is The Book of Ice, but the book is not about that journey.
Book Review on Sherry Turkle: Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
Sherry Turkle is a MIT technology and society specialist who is interested in the influence of technology at human life and behavior. Alone Together is the 3rd part of -what Sherry Turkle calls- her trilogy on exploration and research…
A few weeks ago I completed and submitted my Masters thesis, ending my yearlong study at the University of Amsterdam’s New Media MA program. Our cohort will officially graduate this Tuesday, 20 Sept, 2011.
Here it is, if anybody’s interested…
Ashiq Khondker – Virtualized Subjectivity in Contemporary Art Practice (PDF)
Abstract:
This paper will attempt to address issues of
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I would like to start off this review by mentioning that Rework is not your average new media literature. In fact, from the perspective of the authors it can be considered as business and economics book. However, if we read between the lines, and take the background of the authors into account, we might see that
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Note: this is a review on a Dutch book called De nieuwe regels van het spel. This book is not available in English. Visit the RMO website for more information.
In this advisory report, the Dutch Counsil for Social Development, an advisory commission to the Dutch government, explores the role of the Internet in public…
In this book, ‘Designing culture: the technological imagination at work’, Anne Balsamo, Professor of interactive media at the University of Southern California, calls for a new approach to technological innovation arguing that culture must be taken into account when it comes to participating in any form of technological development and innovation. The ‘technological imagination’…
The book combines technology and architecture in the simple sense that the future of our cities need the urban space to be ubiquitous. Aware and smart so it will manage the urban space where people are failing to conserve it. The Architectural League of New York has made an exhibit in 2009. The purpose of this exhibit was to make…
Basic Internet Security successfully aims at two things - it points out that anybody involved in some kind of Internet activity should be concerned with at least some security measures, while keeping it easy and simple for both the beginners and the slightly more advanced. A hands-on must-read for everybody doing stuff online.
“Every form of contemporary art contains a kernel of life, a possibility for growth or development, even if a few decades later we may scarcely be able to sense it, thanks to the canonization of the once-contemporary – whether twentieth-century or Renaissance – as modern art. Experience is not the same as mentality: it is not a structure but a
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PressPausePlay discusses how digital technology has affected the creative industries including music, film art and even literature.
I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am trying to find my voice. (Maybe I should just steal it).
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.” (Polonius’ advice Laertes in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3)
Our voice is important. Implicit in this quote is the knowledge that our voice communicates…
How does new media influence the cultural development of the society and which influence do they have on the identity of a society? Which possibilities of knowledge to they open up and which risks are involved? The Cultural Logic of Computation by David Golumbia sides with the technology and culture criticizers. He fosters the fear that the society delegates too…
Cory Doctorow’s novel could be described as a thriller for the MMORPG generation. The author / co-editor of Boing Boing, describes a near future scenario, in which professional gamers in developing countries stage revolts, first in-game, and later, in real life (or, as Doctorow would prefer, IRL) and eventually a virtual financial coup, as…
With 19 million articles Wikipedia is the biggest and most popular encyclopedia that has been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Since its launch in July 2001 it has been the object of research. In 2010 computer scientist Joseph Reagle wrote a book named the Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia in which he examines the unique collaborative community culture of Wikipedia.
An infinite series of bifurcations, forking paths, choices (to be) made. Every choice made rules out other possibilities. But do we make these choices, or are they made for us? Is there a real choice? In Precarious Rhapsody, Franco Berardi traces back these chains of bifurcations and unravels the many (psycho)pathologies that accompany them. How have the social, economic and…
"I wanted to write a book that got the reader inside Google and learned about its thought process, the way it planned and built products, its visions for the future, and the way it struggled with issues like China, competitive challenges, regulation, and the (perhaps) inevitable inertia that plagues companies as they get big. To do that I needed unprecedented access, and Google took a risk and gave it to me. "
In december 2004, an alleged spokesmen of Dow Chemical named ‘Jude Finisterra’ appeared on television to apologize for the Bhopal disaster, a 1984 industrial disaster in India that resulted in thousands of deaths. Two hours (an a lot of uproar) later, Dow Chemical released a press statement where they stated that an interview with one of their employees never occured.…