You know that maxim that "necessity is the mother invention" (it goes back at least to 16th-century England, according to Phrases.co.uk). Well, South African journalist Tony Shapshak recently showed in a TED Talk in Edinburgh how necessity is the mother of (tech) innovation, and that innovation is certainly not just happening in Silicon Valley, Bangalore, or the Zhongguancun part of Beijing, but … [Read more...] about ‘The gold’ of connected learning, innovation worldwide: The learners
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The flap over Talking Angela the chatbot app
If you're a parent, you know how little kids often want to be like their older sibs and other "big kids" they look up to. And that goes for technology too, of course. Enter Talking Angela, an iPhone and Android app designed for teens (and the teenager in all of us) but not for little kids. Though I can see why little ones would find Angela the talking cat fascinating. Yesterday morning I found … [Read more...] about The flap over Talking Angela the chatbot app
About the worldwide ‘selfie’ phenomenon
A nice switch from that other Guardian piece I blogged about was one about the Selfiecity Project. Have you heard of it? It was a project about a global phenomenon reinforced by Oxford Dictionaries declaring "selfie" the Word of the Year late last year (not to mention President Obama's selfie at Nelson Mandela's memorial service). Selfiecity was a project at City University of New York that … [Read more...] about About the worldwide ‘selfie’ phenomenon
Posting, sharing, shooting video: Study
Posting videos in apps and Web services has become a mainstream online activity, and not just for our kids. More than three-quarters (78%) of US adults watch online videos and the percentage of them who post them has more than doubled since 2009, from 14% to 31%, according to the Pew Internet Project. "That includes 18% of adult internet users who post videos they have created or recorded … [Read more...] about Posting, sharing, shooting video: Study
Spreading out emotional risk in digital social spaces
It's a kind of digital-age product segmentation or mitosis (remember learning about how cells divide and multiply in biology class?), all the different communication options that have come with the rise of digital media – texting, liking, social gaming, social networking, tweeting, snapchatting, skyping, etc. Each one seems to be associated with a certain level of emotional investment and risk, … [Read more...] about Spreading out emotional risk in digital social spaces