Posts filed under 'Tech'
The Mars Desert Research Station project is fascinating in all its enthusiastic, slightly nerdy, and energetic frenzy to find out what it would mean to live on Mars. Now, they have also had a socalled FLAME (family living analysis on Mars) team out in the Utah desert for some research on what it would mean having a family living on Mars. Aside from the expected (primary geological) research, the FLAME team is focused on psycho-social aspects of living together, of coping with frustration and other interesting issues. Perhaps designing for interactions with smart environments on the Mars habitats, creating better potential for peacefull co-habitation in a tincan placed on one of the more unforgiving places in the solar system will come to be a major challenge for human-factors specialists and HCI people sometime during the next decade. I do hope, however, that they will recruit beyond the usual suspects in space exploration: engineers, biologists, and other natural scientists. If people are supposed to live, work, and enjoy themselves in a hermetically closed, high-tech habitat (a wicked problem if there ever was one), input from the “softer” (man, I hate that adjective) sciences will be extremely valuable. Anthropology, sociology, even psychology + a healthy dose of design thinking will be needed if we’re one day supposed to reach the stars!
March 6th, 2008
Thursday, I defended my thesis on “Trust Within Technology: Risk, Existential Trust, and Reflective Designs in Human-Computer Interaction”…the doctor is in the house! Find the abstract here...
bliss…
November 4th, 2007
Asking what things do in a way that carefully navigates between the Scylla of essentialist, dystopian accounts and the Charybdis of shiny, utopian futures is a daunting task. I believe that Peter Paul Verbeek of Twente University, Holland, has managed this navigational task quite beautifully in his book with the succinct title What Things Do (with the less poignant, but somewhat explanatory post-dash: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design. From Karl Jaspers demonization of technology through Ellul’s and Borgmann’s nostalgia to Latour’s theories of artefactual agency, Verbeek manages to aptly join fierce theoretical insight with design knowledge and visionary design practices. For example, drawing on products by the Dutch environmentalist design community “Eternally Yours”, he sketches out a novel way of understanding objects as not only semiotic or symbolic (i.e. emitting life-styles or choices) but also as “material”, as things that we form relations to and that relate to us in return, guiding and misguiding us, teaching, pleasing, shaping and generally mediating our relations to our world. He shows how the concept of mediation (drawing on US philosopher of technology Don Ihde’s relativist version of phenomenology which he occasionally calls post-phenomenology) is useful for understanding technologies as existential materials - as things that are not only there for us to use on the world, but that take an active part in shaping our world. Designing, in this perspective, then naturally entails ethical as well as practical and experiential perspectives. Verbeek’s book is not an introduction to existential phenomenology vis-a-vis technology, but, rather to my liking, presents a clear cut (if complex) argument for a deeper understanding of things, and how philosophy can position itself as a reflexive/pragmatic inquiry.
February 19th, 2007
This is weird:
Speed cameras in the Scottish Borders may soon be monitored by security cameras to protect them from vandals.
…not only do we increasingly try to make account of ourselves, we’re also training our technologies to make themselves accountable. Ad absurdum! Interesting.
February 5th, 2007
According to this article from New Scientist, people become more altruistic (in not exploiting the “commons” when paying for coffee in apsychology department kitchen) when a simple pair of photocopied eyes was felt to be watching. The researchers seem to conlude that the “innate altruism” thesis might be on the wrong track. Personally, I’d like to beleive that we are naturally altruistic, and that it speaks more of psychology faculty and students. Also, what kind of altruism are we talking here - the kind of “turn the other cheek” unconditional altruims or the kind of reciprocal altruism (as in tit-for-tat in game theory?). In terms of InC, what are the implications of altruism and cooperation for Social Software, Creative Commons and stuff like that. I’m sure there’s at least a Pscyhology of Animal Behaviour masters here.
June 29th, 2006
Is it just me, or does the new LabLand appear to anyone else as a thoughtless rework of mid-20th century technological determinism, like in the New York world’s fair theme of 1939 (yes, 1939!) “Come see the WORLD OF TOMORROW” or in the 1940 To New Horizons movie (proudly sponsored by GM - and incredibly corny)? A question to ponder: Will LabLand have movies starring blonde-haired kids going “Whoa, the future sure looks bright Mary, now that we can play in the pool and work on our laptops at the same time…”. If we believe the kind of corporate gadget engineered future - courtesy of Sony, Samsung and whatnot, I also believe that we have lost a crucial critical perspective which means we cannot see how technology shapes and remakes our lives in sometimes unwanted ways - Reminds me of this picture by Jofish. Sorry, could only find it via google image - you’d get the idea!
For the english speakers and readers, here’s a rough translation of the LabLand primer:
LabLand will at all times show the times ahead of us. With constantly updated exhibitions, new themes, new technologies, and new attractions, LabLand will be ahead of the future. In time LabLand will be placed prominently in the international consciousness as a tangible and fascinating view of the human of tomorrow.
…so it goes - just because I recently reread it. Perhaps because “so it goes” is the way we are made to react to the burgeoning of technoligical devices in our lives, and because we should perhaps rather go “what for”…and I’m not a Neo-Luddite!
This is also posted at the InC blog
May 20th, 2006
I’ve said it for a while now, but now it’s an official rumor - the WiFi equipped iPod is coming. At least the chip set to make it work. Of course having WiFi connected will probably drain the batteries in less than it takes to say itunesmusicstoreisgettingannoyingnowthatyoufindalotofsmalllabelsdoingtheirown…such as thisone(check the Hapna releases - they’re great!), thisone or even thisone.
February 23rd, 2006
Environmentally aware pigeons become bloggers. Carrying GPS and simple mobile transmitters, 20 pigeons traverse the skies of San José, transmitting air pollution levels, photos and create a dynamic map of air quality. This is pretty brilliant use of blogs and pigeons, methinks!
February 10th, 2006
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