The world has changed. We used to talk about the online world and the real world. There is no longer such a distinction. Our realities are a synthesis of things in the physical world, things in the digital realm and stuff in our heads. The biggest part, as it's ever been, is the stuff in … Continue reading Mixed reality
Category: Social
The world of work isn't somewhere where people just exclusively work. They talk about all sorts of stuff- what they watched on TV last night; the results in their favourite sports; politics; love; life... In my research for Who Shares Wins I found a possibly apocryphal tale of the adoption of email in a law … Continue reading The power of tittle-tattle
I've written in the past about the stack of old, bound editions of the magazine Punch that appear to be the closest my branch of the Ballantines have as a legacy to pass from generation to generation (if only I'd been part of the distilling branch of the family). Whilst interesting, the archive is strangely … Continue reading Disposing the future
The recent hubbub in politics about security services back doors into end-to-end encrypted messaging service has got me thinking. Putting aside the issues of technological impossibility, as we enter into a world in which more and more devices are connected, a storm of questions about the morals, ethics and necessity of back doors into things could … Continue reading Back doors
Earlier this week I had a connection request on LinkedIn from someone under the nom de plume of Unemploy Bot, claiming in its headline "I will take your job soon!". Normally I'd shun such nonsense, but there was something about Unemploy Bot that tickled me. I accepted the request, and got into a short conversation, … Continue reading Adaptability
I've been using LinkedIn since 2004. It's been a constant past of my working life for those 13 years. I've been a subscriber for about 7 years. In that time my monthly subscription has crept up surreptitiously to now be more than double what it was when I started paying for additional access to the … Continue reading LinkedOut
Every picture tells a story. These days in the realm of social networks, click rates and the hunt for audience it's more like every picture sells a story. Imagery is vital to online content. The featured images that get scraped and then catch the eye as articles are tweeted and favorited. The decorative fly in … Continue reading Robot propaganda
Another fascinating day at Julia Hobsbawm's Names Not Numbers event in London. It's a hugely eclectic day, yesterday spanning the role of theatre in politics, advances in the life sciences, David Bowie, the neuroscience of truth and an interview with the artist Maggi Hambling who I think has now become my favourite sweary creative (wrestling the … Continue reading The influence of the network
A new week, a new book. This week it's Steven Johnson's Wonderland: How play made the modern world. Johnson's thesis is that much technological innovation attend from the pursuit of happiness and distraction rather than from hard-headed economic need. In one of the early chapters he charts how the work of automata manufacturer Jacques dear … Continue reading The Thinking Duck
Another year flies past... If you go into a branch of McDonald's these days (an occasional guilty pleasure, I'll admit it), then you are increasingly likely to find that the restaurant has been upgraded to the new automated model. Big touch screens enable customers to place their orders, pay, and then queue up to receive … Continue reading Yearnote 2016
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