Center for Research On Mediated Interaction (CROMI)

_A Vast Machine_, Chapter 10, “Making Data Global”

ron — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:29:32 +0000

p. 251–making data global: building complete, coherent, and consistent global data sets from incomplete, inconsistent, and heterogeneous datasources.–standardizing data collection and communication (reducing data ‘friction’). Must work against practical constraints (institutional traditions, funding, technical applicability, technical integration, differences of local interpretation of standards, operator training defects and incorrect implementation).

p. 252–making data global [...]

_A Vast Machine_, Chapter 1, “Thinking globally”

ron — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:49:12 +0000

p. 9–”Infrastructures” (via Star and Ruhdleder):

Embeddedness in other structures, technologies, and a social arrangements.

Transparency of support for tasks

Reach or stope beyond a single event

Learned as part of membership in a community of practice (COP)

Links with conventions of practice in a COP

Embodiment of standards (infrastructures with other infrastructures [...]

The Web Means the End of Forgetting

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:08:02 +0000

When historians of the future look back on the perils of the early digital age, Stacy Snyder may well be an icon. The problem she faced is only one example of a challenge that, in big and small ways, is confronting millions of people around the globe: how best to live our lives [...]

Sociologists invade World of Warcraft, see humanity’s future

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:33:37 +0000

The paper By Nate Anderson found that many real-world patterns of intimacy formation are recreated on the virtual stage. One interviewee recounted, “I and a guy I liked spent a lot of time flirting in game. One evening we discovered an abandoned hut near Ironforge [a major city in WoW] and spent the [...]

Wheelchairs That Listen

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:05:41 +0000

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers are developing a voice-operated robotic wheelchair for people with neurological disorders. MIT professor Nicholas Roy is leading the project with MIT professor Seth Teller and residents of the Boston Home outpatient facility. “Assistive technology tends to have a relatively high rate of abandonment,” Roy says, because they [...]

Pew Research: How the Internet will Change the World – Even More

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 15:44:41 +0000

In Pew Internet & American Life Project director Lee Rainie discusses the results of a survey of experts on how technology will develop and impact society in the year 2020. Technological improvements are anticipated, but accompanying them is an uncertainty among people and institutions’ adaptability to these improvements. Rainie says the maintenance [...]

Wired: How the Tablet Will Change the World

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:26:34 +0000

” … In addition to the lean-back sorts of activities one expects from a tablet (demonstrated by Jobs while relaxing in a comfy black armchair), there was a surprising pitch for the iPad as a lean-forward device, one that runs a revamped version of Apple’s iWork productivity apps. In many ways, Jobs claimed, [...]

First Monday: Vanguard, laggard or relic? The possible futures of higher education after the Epistemic Revolution

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:20:19 +0000

Some might find it interesting:

“The early twenty–first century networked information economy has generated new communicative fields and literacies, and new forms of knowledge production, sociality and creative expression.The emergence of decentralized techno–fields, such as Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and virtual gaming communities, on teaching, learning, institutional hierarchies and sources of authority, presents [...]