censu:

Leo Caillard

ART GAME

This recent work is a reflection on the problem of our new digital world.Currently, at any stage of its creation, any idea or concept is digitally adapted.What will be retained in the future? What will happen to all of these billions of megabytes we stock on computers? In 10 years? In 500 years? Colliding the esthetic of modern minimalist Apple products with the classical architecture of the Louvre Museum, the viewer is forced to assess the question of new creation in our modern society.

(via thenextweb)

David Karp, Sequoia partner Roelof Botha talk with TechCrunch founder (and Tumblr investor) Michael Arrington.

Via TechCrunch.

Good article on the historical and social influences on technology adoption. Science Professor Bernard Carlson, (University of Virginia, USA) tells engineering students: “they are going to produce sociotechnical systems,” meaning they need to understand how people “interact with technology.” MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER writes: Society shapes the development and use of technology (this is a function of social determinism; for example, cars didn’t really become ubiquitous until they became easy to operate and cheap to buy), but technology also shapes society (technological determinism; think of the way cars then essentially created the suburbs). Over time, the two interact with and change each other, an idea known as technological momentum, which was introduced in 1969 by Thomas P. Hughes, a historian of technology. According to Hughes’s theory, the technologies we end up using aren’t determined by any objective measure of quality. In fact, the tools we choose are often deeply flawed. They just happened to meet our particular social needs at a particular time and then became embedded in our culture. “Why Your Car Isn’t Electric.” Source: The New York Times. Link via +Gaythia Weis  High-res

Good article on the historical and social influences on technology adoption. Science Professor Bernard Carlson, (University of Virginia, USA) tells engineering students: “they are going to produce sociotechnical systems,” meaning they need to understand how people “interact with technology.” MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER writes:

Society shapes the development and use of technology (this is a function of social determinism; for example, cars didn’t really become ubiquitous until they became easy to operate and cheap to buy), but technology also shapes society (technological determinism; think of the way cars then essentially created the suburbs). Over time, the two interact with and change each other, an idea known as technological momentum, which was introduced in 1969 by Thomas P. Hughes, a historian of technology. According to Hughes’s theory, the technologies we end up using aren’t determined by any objective measure of quality. In fact, the tools we choose are often deeply flawed. They just happened to meet our particular social needs at a particular time and then became embedded in our culture.

“Why Your Car Isn’t Electric.” Source: The New York Times.

Link via +Gaythia Weis 

“Just as coaching requires individual attention, education, at its core, requires one mind engaging with another, in real time: listening, understanding, correcting, modeling, suggesting, prodding, denying, affirming, and critiquing thoughts and their expression. A set of podcasts is the 21st-century equivalent of a textbook, not the 21st-century equivalent of a teacher. Every age has its autodidacts, gifted people able to teach themselves with only their books. Woe unto us if we require all citizens to manifest that ability.”

Don’t Confuse Technology With Teaching - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

(via nothingman)

In Humanity 2.0, Professor Steve Fuller outlines how he would have once been referred to as a ‘humanist’, but now he sees himself as a transhumanist. The Humanity+ Organisation describes transhumanism (or ‘H+’) as ‘the ethical use of technology to transcend limits of the human body’.

In this video, Fuller talks about how humans have experienced a dichotomised view of our humanity: on the one hand we feel embedded to our animal nature (the legacy of Darwanism on how we think of ourselves), and on the other hand, we use concepts like consciousness, rationality, the mind and the soul to signify those qualities which we feel transcend other animal species. These are the elements of human imagination and human experience which societies feel deserve to be explored and preserved.

From Marx, Durkehim and Weber’s analyses of how industrialisation changed social structures; to the rise of sociobiology in the 1960s and 1970s (such as The Naked Ape); and to the sociology of post-Fordist technologies (Guns Germs and Steel and I Cyborg), sociology has wrestled with the idea that technology somehow fundamentally transforms our humanity.

Here’s more about Fulller’s Book:

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: what does it mean to be ‘human’ in the 21st century? As definitions between what is ‘animal’ and what is ‘human’ break down, and as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and nano- and bio- technologies develop, accepted notions of humanity are rapidly evolving. Humanity 2.0 is an ambitious and ground-breaking book, offering a sweeping overview of key historical, philosophical and theological moments that have shaped our understandings of humanity. Tackling head on the twin taboos that have always hovered over the scientific study of humanity - race and religion - Steve Fuller argues thar far from disappearing, they are being reinvented. 

Fuller argues that these new developments will force us to decide which features of our current way of life - not least our bodies - are truly needed to remain human, and concludes with a consideration of these changes for ethical and social values more broadly. 

Watch the rest of Fuller’s videos here. Book here.

Via University of Warwick. 

Interpol arrests 25 people suspected to be members of Anonymous

The Huffington Post reports that Interpol has arrested 25 people alleged to be members of the Anonymous hacker group. The arrests took place around Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol’s Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime. The suspects, aged between 17 and 40, are suspected of planning coordinated cyberattacks against institutions including Colombia’s defense ministry and presidential websites, Chile’s Endesa electricity company and national library, as well as other targets.

Source: Huffington Post.

The Smithsonian Museum in the USA has used a 3D Printer to clone an exhibit statue. The technology will allow the famous museum to make perfect “museum quality” replicas to enable exhibitions to travel, meaning more people will be able to experience their joys and wonders. So great!

Via Mashable.

thenextweb: Social Figures According to Facebook, these are their current use statistics: We had 845 million MAUs as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 39% as compared to 608 million MAUs as of December 31, 2010. We had 483 million daily active users (DAUs) on average in December 2011, an increase of 48% as compared to 327 million DAUs in December 2010. We had more than 425 million MAUs who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011. There were more than 100 billion friend connections on Facebook as of December 31, 2011. Our users generated an average of 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day during the three months ended December 31, 2011. (via Facebook has 845 million monthly users, and other interesting S-1 facts - The Next Web) High-res

thenextweb:

Social Figures According to Facebook, these are their current use statistics: We had 845 million MAUs as of December 31, 2011, an increase of 39% as compared to 608 million MAUs as of December 31, 2010. We had 483 million daily active users (DAUs) on average in December 2011, an increase of 48% as compared to 327 million DAUs in December 2010. We had more than 425 million MAUs who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011. There were more than 100 billion friend connections on Facebook as of December 31, 2011. Our users generated an average of 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day during the three months ended December 31, 2011. (via Facebook has 845 million monthly users, and other interesting S-1 facts - The Next Web)

Megaupload Shutdown: Why Internet Piracy Will Prevail

ibtnewyork:

Internet piracy can not be stopped. Megaupload had about 150 million registered users when it was shut down. A recent study from the British market intelligence firm Envisional showed that sites like Megaupload, called cyberlockers, made up for 5.1 percent of global bandwidth consumption while BitTorrents made up for 11.4 percent of global bandwidth consumption. http://bit.ly/AAd9sy

“We experience a concert differently when we know we can post photos on Facebook and videos on YouTube; hence the music-venue-plague of glowing document-screens held high instead of hands. We see the food we just prepared differently when we know we can post a photo of an especially delicious-looking meal to Facebook. As I’ve posed before: think of traveling with and without a camera in your hand: the experience is at least slightly different. Today, we are always living with the camera in-hand; we can always document our lives via status updates, tweets, check-ins, photos, videos, etc. Like those on reality TV, social media users are deeply influenced by the fact of near omnipresent documentation potential.”

Nathan Jurgenson, “The Data Self (A Dialectic)” (via rethinkcapitalism)

(via sociolab)

Using Crowdsourcing Technologies to Research Crowdsourcing

vehpus:

Ever since I began to take an interest in crowdsourcing as a self appointed research subject, I’m just seeing ideas pop up everywhere. Today I found an article that lists at least ten examples of how ordinary people, when properly coordinated, lead to giant leaps in scientific research, due to the ability to process a huge amount of data in ways that computers aren’t able to, and perhaps never will. It is a true testament to the power of humans working together. 

Today this inherent capability of croudsourcing is apparently used to research the phenomenon itself. The article linked to this post describes an ongoing experiment run using Amazons Mecanical Turk platform, which allows any individual to either crowdsource a task or to perform others’ tasks. 

The experiment tried to simulate a newsroom process using “Turks” (the crowdsouced workers) in research and editing positions. The whole task is coordinated using a computer algorithm. However rather then try to develop this as a business, the people behind the experiment are trying to better define the potential merits and limitations of the method itself. 

I think this whole trend is facinating - I just hope that by the time I try to join it I’ll have something worthwhile to contribute :).