This is the cunning strap line accompanying the release of Ofcom‘s recent information-rich report on the communications market. The adoption of fully-featured mobile phones (Blackberry, iPhone, Android) has rocketed in the past 12 months.More
The secret life of games
Broadcast media have latched onto the public desire to get behind the scenery and see what goes on in private. Most of us have an appetite for knowing how things work, or at least seeing the preparations for the big event, how the frocks got onto the catwalk, the coach psyched the team, the camera…More
Phone hacking enigmas
News of the World journalists gaining unauthorised access to people’s answer phone messages has led to a shut down of the operations of one newspaper, allegations of police bribery, several high-level resignations, and a new found bravado by those who used to fear the Murdoch press. The apogee of these developments came at about the…More
What were the skies like when you were young?
Now I can see clouds, little fluffy clouds, distinctly, well-formed and illuminated, or at least I can reproduce skies in digital photography, thanks to the HDR, High Dynamic Range photography feature built into many digital cameras and smartphones.More
E-motion
Devices for Electroencephalography (EEG) to map the locus and strength of emotional responses in the brain are now available for a few hundred pounds, eg Emotiv EPOC neuroheadset. Sensors positioned over the wearer’s scalp pick up the minute wave patterns produced by brain activity. According to the advertising: “It uses a set of sensors to tune…More
LOL Security reproduces the trickster function
According to its manifesto, LulzSec is (or perhaps was) an “organization” committed to online hacking because it finds it entertaining: “You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it. We release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it.” LulzSec seem…More
Obliquitous computing
Augmented reality has gone mainstream, especially with the distribution and promotion of mobile phone apps such as Aurasma. This handy software exploits the camera feature of your smartphone to superimpose images onto the everyday world of objects as seen on your mobile screen. So with the camera active, I move my iPhone around the living…More
Reality re-structured
Mass media entertainment gives the word “reality” a real hammering. Hammering provides a useful metaphor. One of the ways the empirically minded commonly assert the incontrovertible reality of the world is to thump on something solid. Catching up with just 15 minutes of the BAFTA winning “structured reality” tv show The Only Way is Essex…More
Computer-supported collaborative distraction
Communicating with others via laptop, mobile phone or tablet computer while I’m supposed to be listening to a lecture, contributing to a meeting, or socialising face-to-face can be desperately unproductive, and profoundly anti-social. The cure for a wandering mind is to unplug according to recent reports (THE). But social media can nudge the architectural design studio…More
All watched over by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand fascinates architects. It’s one of the few novels (and films) with an architect as the central character. Loosely modelled on the heroic figure of Frank Lloyd Wright, it elevates and glamorises architects and buildings, or at least supposedly original and authentic highly creative iconic architects … and architecture.More