Does tourism kill the toured? An unexpected overnight in Barcelona at the weekend reminded me that cities should be be careful what they wish for. Barcelona is the most-quoted example in the world of a city that has used design and creativity to make itself attractive to tourists. But having [continue …]
I generally hate the Olympics but it does sometimes generate curious and interesting side events. Turin, which is hosting the winer Olympics, is hosting the the first electronic Town-Meeting in Italy. In “Young words happening” (great title by the way) young (under 35) people from all over the world [continue …]
I’m running a workshop at Experimenta in Lisbon this Friday on ‘designers in the age of fear’. The design research economy is being massively distorted by our inability to make sound judgements about risk and priorities. For example, Googling “design” and “homeland security” today yields a score of 10,900,000. Enormous [continue …]
“Quiet in class!”. Silent attention to Teacher’s every word was the required mode of interaction when I was at school. Only speak when spoken to. Teachers themselves were judged by the quietness of their workspace; a noisy classroom meant they were not in sufficient control. All that seems to be [continue …]
About one hour after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s article, I attended a small group meeting of Doors persons in London. I cannot report that we avoided discussions of abstract knowledge, or ideas for the sake of ideas – but we had a good time. Kristi van Riet made this mini-movie:
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I carried two psychological burdens on the promotional tour for my book earlier this year. One was the knowledge that a competitor is published every thirty seconds; every day I was on the road, the ranks of new titles swelled by 2,880. My second burden was awareness that Rick [continue …]
The papers today say that rebuilding after Katrina will cost the same as the war in Iraq. In the unlikely event that so much money is forthcoming, what will it be spent on? Are new freeways and malls the wisest way to rebuild? Before firms like Halliburton start pouring concrete, [continue …]
If mobility is a new place, then this event is the place to be.
Capturing the Moving Mind is a conference on board the Trans-Siberian train. It’s about new forms of movement and control, war and economy, in the current situation. An opening discussion of the blurring borderlines between art, [continue …]
What might the Internet be like in 2010? Darren Sharp, whom some of you met at Doors 8 in Delhi, is co-author of a hefty new Australian report called Smart Internet 2010. An executive summary is here. The 2010 Report provides, in narrative form, a range of expert [continue …]
Two of the most striking images from New Orleans feature helicopters. In one shot, a helicopter is dropping 15,000 bags of sand onto rushing waters that will obviously wash them away. In the second, the president projects a concerned gaze onto the diaster from a similar height. Engineering to control [continue …]
A quck reminder about the conference Urban Screens being organised by Mirjam Struppek in Amsterdam in three weeks from now. Presentations address the growing acreage of large digital moving displays that increasingly pervade our public spaces. Can the mainly commercial use of these screens be broadened to include cultural [continue …]
A mesmerising shopping list of new ‘research infrastructures’ has been sent to the the European Commission by a committee of top scientists. These new toys – sorry, ‘tools’ – range from an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) for optical astronomy, to a research icebreaker called Aurora Borealis, and a [continue …]
What exactly is an ‘information society’ and do we want to live in one? The European Commission has published a new plan, called i2010 for ‘the completion of a Single European Information Space’. The Commission proposes an 80% increase in funding for ICT research focused on areas [continue …]
Can new technology improve the quality of public space? We know that technology changes the ways we use public space, but the most important ways tend not to have been consciously designed – they just happened. The widespread use of text-2-meet, for example, was not anticipated by the people who [continue …]
Only a month to go before the first Municipal Wireless Conference. Among the speakers lined up by organiser Esme Vos are Jonathan Baltuch, founder of a firm called MRI which creates economic development blueprints for municipalities; James Farstad, consultant to the city of Minneapolis’ citywide wireless project; Greg Richardson [continue …]
The one application of Ambient Intelligence that sparks the imagination of young designers seems to be wearable computing. An American designer, Natalia Allen, reckons there’s an emerging ‘fashion tech industry’, and a Canadian artist, Joanna Berzowska, is excited by the potential of what she calls ‘soft computation’: electronic textiles, responsive [continue …]
What are the dark scenarios for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) ? Five threats are identified in a report from a powerful European consortium: Surveillance of users; spamming; identity theft; malicious attacks (on AmI systems); and a cultural condition they describe as ‘digital divide’. The research consortium – whose members include the [continue …]
A plaintive request arrives from London: Diana Deal, conferences administrator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, has been ‘deluged with emails’ about the Critical Debate between Rem Koolhaas and myself on 14 October – but it’s not Diana’s job to sell tickets. For that, please enter 14 Octobner at the [continue …]
What would it mean to organise live art events that did not require large concrete museums or that people travel long distances to particpate? In early 1980s Moscow, private apartments were turned into collective immersive experiences during a project called APTART. I learned about APTART, (which someone [continue …]
If you are worried about the cost of living, try this: The cost of the average cremation in Britain is expected to rise by up to £100 (160 euros) after a government announcement that it wants to halve the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere by crematoria. It seems [continue …]
A gift from Brenda Laurel has cost me dear. The eminent design professor at Art Center, in California, sent me a copy of a new report called ‘Tweens: Technology, Personal Agency, Engagement’. The result of a year-long research project sponsored by HP, the book is an intriguing portrait [continue …]
Is the collective intelligence of the web overrated? A couple of nights ago, 18 people turned up for dinner. We pushed three tables together and sat together around an irregular rectangle. It felt, to me at least, as if the shape and dimensions of the ad-hoc table did little to [continue …]
If we are to re-localise food, a new generation of information systems will be needed as support. Many of today’s food systems rely on closed networks in which access to information is controlled by entities (such as supermarkets) that are not keen on cooperatives and localisation. The good news is [continue …]
During my visit to the MIT campus a few weeks ago Doug Sery, my editor at MIT Press, pointed out two large and expensive-looking buildings that were being constructed to house neuroscientists. A generation ago, the glamour building on the block was MediaLab – so we should probably ask: What [continue …]
An eminent insects expert is to study aspects of biological and religious diversity in order to find ways of conserving the natural environment. Until recently Head of Entomology (the study of insects) at London’s Natural History Museum, Dr Dick Vane-Wright is the recipient of a NESTA Fellowship. ‘I suspect [continue …]
In the UK’s National Health Service, billions of euros (the published figure is two, the likely total is 15) are being spent in a new attempt to digitise and integrate patient medical records. Insiders tell me the latest project is doomed to fail, as did previous attempts, because turf-wars between [continue …]
It was thanks to the new blog for Wikimania – the first international wikimedia conference which starts tomorrow in Frankfurt – that I learned about the latest exaggerated claim about contribution of mobile phones to knowledge.Cellphedia is billed as ‘the 1st Ubiquitous Social Encyclopedia…(it) creates the ability to [continue …]
For the past year a network of six design schools in different parts of Europe has been collecting real-life examples of social innovation for a project called Emude, in which Doors of Perception is a partner. A lot of work has still to be done analysing these stories to figure [continue …]
As designers and social innovators, should we take any notice of technology policy? Wouldn’t it be best to ignore the think-tanks and telcos, and concentrate on doing great projects in the real world? A 90% focus on projects would probably be healthy. But we also need to keep half an [continue …]
Creating and distributing podcasts doesn’t sound easy. As a potential producer, I’m hesitating. But Evan Williams (who started Blogger and therefore, presumably, helped start blogging) has co-founded Odeo as a one-stop site where non-technical people like me can find and subscribe to podcasts, and create new podcasts of their [continue …]
This podcast thing is a boon for bloggers. My interview with Carol Coletta, host and producer of the nationally-syndicated (in the US) public radio show Smart City Radio is now available online. I’ve said it once to Carol so I don’t need to say it again here: Apparently [continue …]
Outside Baghdad, and almost everywhere one might travel in the world, the risk of being killed in a road accident greatly exceeds the risk of being killed by a terrorist.
John Adams – Britain’s leading academic expert on risk, and author of a seminal book by that title – wrote a [continue …]
It’s so thrilling to be modern. My interview with Moira Gunn on the US radio show Tech Nation is now online and thereby downloadable as a podcast. The idea of podcasting Doors-type conversations is attractive, and I’d be interested to hear your response to the idea. (The complete [continue …]
I frequently warn of the dangers that lie ahead for the organisers of design conferences, trade fairs, festivals and biennials. A growing number of me-too events is competing for our attention, and there’s a real danger we’ll all switch off. Since I last wrote about the subject a month [continue …]
Half of all the energy consumed by human beings is used in or by buildings – but for the most part invisibly. Worldchanging has profiled a neat monitoring system by David Vogt at Kondra Systems that sets out to answer the questions: ‘how much [continue …]
The most important potential impact of wireless communications will be on the resource ecologies of cities. Connecting people, resources, and places to each other in new combinations, on a real-time basis, has the potential to reduce drastically the amount of hardware—from gadgets, to buildings—that we need to function effectively. The [continue …]
Overheard in The NYU Bookstore, Washington Place: Girl on cell: ‘So I went up to my Professor just now? And I was telling him I’ve chosen a country for my project. He was like,”Africa? That’s not a country.” I was like, “Come on, what was all that Live 8 [continue …]
A couple of weeks ago I reacted harshly when Philips, purveyor of high-end goggleboxes and hairdryers, blamed ‘poor consumer sentiment’ for the company’s disappointing results. Now, British economists are expressing ‘fears for consumer confidence’ following the July 7 bombings in London. ‘Some people may feel that conspicuous consumption is not [continue …]
I know it’s the silly season for news, but a tech story on BBC News today wins my prize for the year’s most witless tech waffle. Headlined “UK ‘could become hi-tech titan'”, the story refers to a report (unnamed and unreferenced) by consulting firm Deloitte that urges “swift [continue …]
Food ‘miles’ in the UK have risen dramatically over the past 10 years, are still rising, and have a significant impact on climate change, traffic congestion, accidents and pollution according to a report published yesterday, and reported in today’s Guardian. Food transport accounts for 25% of all the miles [continue …]
“The anthropologist starts by observing everyday life, with all its odd little patterns, and tries to work out how computers might fit into thatâ€. (That was Gillian Tett in the FT). It sounds innocuous if you believe the insertion of computing into a daily life activity to be an ethically [continue …]
Is this true? Gary Yonge reports from New York in today’s Guardian that US newspapers are warning of threats to America from ‘Londonistan’. “Articles on front pages of newspapers across the country describe the UK as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism that threatens global security” writes Yonge; (the [continue …]
I like to keep track of the total I get when Googling “design” + “homeland security”. The number six months ago was 1,310,000. Today, the score stands at 3,090,000. By a complete coincidence, the budget for Homeland Security rose to $41 billion by the end of 2004. Commenting on this [continue …]
The service design and art worlds are filled with amazing proposals for the civic use of wireless communications. But most of these will remain hypothetical unless efforts succeed to make wireless freely available – rather than a costly privatised utility. Esme Vos, Amsterdam-based editor of municipalwirelerss.com, is organising the first [continue …]
If you prefer interacting with people to gazing raptly at perspex building facades, you’ll enjoy the amazing street art festival in Chalon-sur-Saône, 21-24 July. Later on (23-25 September) Label Rue is a B2B street art festival in Ganges, South of France. Label Rue, a smaller [continue …]
A breathless email from Tony Perkins invites me to Stanford to watch lions eat Christians. Or so it sounds. Tony writes that his conference, Always On, is about “the sweet spots in the technology markets…where innovation is disrupting behavior and creating new business opportunitiesâ€. His website concludes, “come play [continue …]
A range of African NGOs and organisations has expressed frustration and concern in response to statements from G8 that world leaders would solve Africa’s problems with limited debt relief and increased aid. Writers and campaigners from a range of African countries have expressed their views in the Alternatives Commission for [continue …]
Someone told me (offline) that my reaction to Live8 yesterday was unduly critical. Isn’t it better for people to be charged up and optimistic about a big challenge, such as poverty, rather than overwhelmed and demotivated? It’s a tricky call. I still agree with George Monbiot that Live8 will have [continue …]
“Everyone is, suddenly, globally, politicised” froths an embarassing article about Live8 by Euan Ferguson in todays Observer. Puleese.The atmosphere this morning reminds me of Princess Diana’s funeral. The emotions released yesterday are heartfelt – but narcissistic. It feels good to feel. Watching a rock musician in a [continue …]
If you’re too damn mean to shell out a measly $4,400 to join those manly TED guys in Oxford, five pounds ($9) buys you access to BACKSTAGE.BBC.CO.UK Open Tech 2005 in London on 25 July. Organised by NTK (Need To Know), this event is about “technologies that [continue …]
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