an article in Wired News reports that facial surveillance plans have been scrapped for the upcoming super bowl. last year some firms made headlines by scanning everyone’s faces to catch criminals. they found 19 people with criminal records out of the 100,000 that were there–enough to justify invading everyone’s privacy? regardless, the point made by…more
in the same vein as yesterday’s note, an article today is reporting that computers have an adverse effect on learning in our schools. IT skills are up; basic math and english skills are way down. the real challenge then becomes: how to use computers to stimulate other ways of learning, not how to use them…more
just a quick note for now–i’ve been making the argument lately that it doesn’t matter what you KNOW; what matters is what you CAN know on command, for instance with an instantaneous connection to the internet hardwired to your brain. but the problem with that is i’m not sure that attitude will create the kind…more
So the topic for today was how to use current web services to improve the way that we communicate in real space. We have all these tools to help us to send e-mail, to chat online, and store files on websites, but we haven’t used the same principles to build our real-life workspaces. In large…more
steve jobs has repeatedly made the argument that apple is not interested in making a PDA. he bases this on the assumption that the mobile phone, not the mobile computer, is what portable devices are converging upon. with the combination of the iPod as a music tool, your cell phone as a communication tool, and…more
we now have a blog for the ISIS project at the private ISIS team website. team members can sign in and post to the blog, to make it a live, rich, and archived source for internal team information.
this slashdot thing reminded me of rheingold saying (and me believing) that trusting people could come from their rating by others . . . but of course i forgot that i don’t trust most “others” to begin with . . .
some pretty cool stuff in the ny times today. looks like the technology ISIS is exploring is, surprise surprise, also being researched and implemented by for-profit advertising agencies. the coolest one mentioned was Thinking Pictures, an MIT Media Lab spinoff with a guy named Stephan Fitch in charge. They were one of the first companies…more
The ISIS promotional video featuring “Bill, Student Leader” is now online at the ISIS video archive.
New tools from Google Labs! And a new beta product search site!