Space/Time Perception Through Digital Media: The Cubinator Project

Virtualization of our daily tasks, as well as of communication processes, social activity, production, economics, media consumption, etc. probably have more impact on our temporal and spacial awareness and sensorial processes than we normally realize.

Why don’t we actually read anymore?

I still remember the good ‘old’ days in which I would go weekly to the library, sit there for hours and bring home a huge pile of often non-fictional books. I would get caught in the narrative, loose myself in the material and read the books I borrowed in less than a week. Unfortunately this isn’t the case anymore. Nowadays I don’t seem to get through a book easily. I get bored, can’t focus myself, get frustrated when in my opinion the author doesn’t seem to get to the point fast enough, loose the author’s argument(s) and miss CTRL+F so I can search on keywords in the book. What has happened? Let’s face it: we aren’t used to read anymore

Google Wave: A new way of creating dialogue

Google Wave is an online communication tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more [1]. In detail a wave means that:

Gaming: The interpassive interplay between user and environment

The interplay between the user and the game is tended to be thought as of being an active and interactive one. But how accurate is this conception? Through the work of Slavoj Žižek I will argue that there are deeper underlying aspects that question if the interplay between the user and, in this case, the game ‘The Sims’, is ultimately an interactive or interpassive one.

Why are we using Twitter anyway?

The last couple of years online communities have been developing applications for users to share daily updates about their life, thoughts and whereabouts. Hyves provides a ‘WieWatWaar’ and Facebook has it’s own ‘Wall’ where users can update their friends. Twitter does it the light-weight way. Twitter is a microblogging website that allows an easy and light-weight form of communication. It enables users to broadcast and share information about their activities, opinions and status. But why are we using Twitter anyway? Is it a tool to nourish our social needs or is technology increasing our needs to keep track of out friends every minute of the day?

Merging Social Media into the field of Online Dating

Personally on-line dating is not my cup of tea, and my boyfriend would kill me if I would consider it, but for some reason the phenomena itself keeps grabbing my attention. The basic concept of dating sites has not really changed a lot through the years, apart from the matchmaking algorithms that can differ from one site to another. On the average dating site, you can fill in a profile, upload a photo of yourself – preferably a photo showing you at your best of course – and fill in some extra personal information (the colour of your eyes, weight and height, sex preferences and so on). Based on this information your ideal match can be found.

The accuracy or inaccuracy of Wikipedia

The accuracy of information on Wikipedia is one of the most fundamental points for it’s success. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia uses Google to check entries of their users on accuracy. After some research I also found out that Wikipedia checks entries on the way it is written (encyclopaedically or not). Non-encyclopaedic written articles are ‘flagged’ and removed after two weeks if no one edits it. This is part of the conventions of Wikipedia.