What is Steampunk?

"Steampunk is a burgeoning subculture that draws on the elaborate aesthetics and romantic worldview of 19th‑century England to envision how things might have looked had a few key technologies been developed further. It conjures a gaslit cityscape filled with steam-powered robots, mechanical computers, ray-gun-toting aeronauts, and monocled mad scientists."

IEEE Spectrum: The Steampunk Contraptors

Genevieve Bell talk (in bed)

I just discovered this video from 2006 today. I haven't watched it, but the title sounds intriguing. Sounds like that British talk show with the lady who interviews people in bed.

Mobile computing is literally going to bed with users, so at the cool BED club in New York, PodTech's Michael Johnson literally hopped into bed with Genevieve Bell, a senior researcher and anthropologist for Intel. She's the director of Intel's user experience group for Digital Home. Bell and a team of anthropologists traveled the world in a 36 country study of how technology is used on an everyday and personal level.

PCs in Bed & Beyond: Genevieve Bell, Intel's Top Anthropologist | PodTech.net

The Telectroscope

Really cool art installation. A "tunnel" between New York and London allow people at both ends to see each other 24/7. Check out the Telectroscope web site

Before sunrise on Tuesday morning, a strange sight began to appear on Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn: a six-foot-tall metal drill bit seemed to emerge from the wooden pier, covered in genuine East River mud and revolving slowly beneath the glow of the Manhattan skyline. On Wednesday it will grow into a 12-foot-tall industrial-looking behemoth erupting just in front of the quaint Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. And on Thursday? Imagine an enormous brass and wood telescope, 37 feet long by 11 feet tall, connected to a mirrored dome, like a child’s drawing of something that will see into the future. Voilà: the Telectroscope will have materialized.

A fanciful device born equally of history and imagination, it will visually connect New Yorkers to people in London, where an identical scope will sit on the banks of the Thames in the shadow of Tower Bridge. Spectators who step right up will have a real-time, life-size view across the pond 24 hours a day, until June 15, thanks to ... no spoilers, yet. (The queue will generally be first come first served, but to make an appointment to connect with a friend in London, visit telectroscope.net.)

The Victorian-looking contraption is the invention of Paul St George, a 53-year-old artist based in London — or, if you believe the gadget’s supposed history, of his great-grandfather Alexander Stanhope St George. According to his very own fake Wikipedia entry, Alexander (born July 8, 1848; died Oct. 12, 1917) was “a British inventor and researcher” who came up with a feasible design for a device to connect places on opposite sides of the world visually through a very long tunnel, and even began digging under the Atlantic to make his creation work. According to Paul St George — well, all of this is according to Paul St George.

A Telescope Stretches From Brooklyn to London - New York Times

When the Ex Writes a Blog, Dirty Laundry Is Aired - New York Times

People who fight back in a divorce over the internet. Tricia Walsh Smith makes a YouTube video; others blog.

When the Ex Writes a Blog, Dirty Laundry Is Aired - New York Times

Sex workers go Web 2.0

In response to the Spitzer sex scandal, sex workers "organized a media blitz through blogs, Tumblr, Twitter and shared Google Docs. They kept tabs on which reporters approached the topic with respect and which didn't. And perhaps for the first time, they made their voices heard in mainstream venues like Fox News and CNN -- organizations that cannot be dismissed as fringe or adults-only media."

Sex Drive: IPhones, Twitter Let Sex Workers Spread Their Gospel

Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020

Microsoft Research thinks that we'll be closely integrated with machines in the future (= cyborg!).

From BBC News:
"A Microsoft-backed report that draws from discussions with 45 academics from computing, science, sociology, and psychology predicts that by 2020 fundamental changes in the field of human-computer interaction will increasingly integrate humans with machines, and machines will be able to anticipate what we want from them. The keyboard, mouse, and monitor will be replaced by more intuitive forms of interaction and display such as tablet computers, speech recognition, and touch-operated surfaces. Devices will be embedded in everyday objects, clothing, and our bodies. Our digital footprint will increase as we share more and more aspects of our lives through digital photography, podcasting, blogging, and video, raising questions about how much information we should share and store about ourselves. An always-on network will channel mass-market information directly to us while analyzing our personal information. The report calls this the era of hyper-connectivity and predicts that it will lead to a growth in "techno-dependency." The report compares the widespread introduction of the calculator, widely blamed for a fall in mental arithmetic abilities, with what may happen as computers become more intelligent and take on new responsibilities. "Without proper consideration and control it is possible that we---both individually and collectively--may no longer be in control of ourselves or the world around us," the report warns. The report, "Being Human: Human Computer Interaction in the Year 2020," is available at http://research.microsoft.com/hci2020/download.html."

Technology is invisible to youth

Youth don't like technology, but I bet that they like the social connections it affords.

While young people embrace the Web with real or virtual friends and their cell phone is never far away, relatively few like technology and those that do tend to be in Brazil, India and China, according to a survey.

Only a handful think of technology as a concept, and just 16 percent use terms like "social networking", said two combined surveys covering 8- to 24-year-olds published on Tuesday by Microsoft and Viacom units MTV Networks and Nickelodeon.

"Young people don't see "tech" as a separate entity - it's an organic part of their lives," said Andrew Davidson, vice president of MTV's VBS International Insight unit.

"Talking to them about the role of technology in their lifestyle would be like talking to kids in the 1980s about the role the park swing or the telephone played in their social lives -- it's invisible."

The surveys involved 18,000 young people in 16 countries including the UK, U.S., China, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

via Usability News, July 28, 2007