On the Internet, we’ve reached a tipping point where more than 50% of all Internet traffic is no longer generated by humans – instead, it's generated by a motley mix of search engine spiders, bots, scrapers, scammers, hackers and, yes, spies. We are no longer talking about the Internet, we are talking about the Bot Net – a “bot-mediated reality” where algorithms and bots influence where we go, how long we spend there and with whom we communicate.
digital living Dominic Basulto robotics Internet technologyThere is only one measure of time that matters to the current Internet generation: the here and now. The Cult of Now is influencing everything that we do and every interaction we have on the Internet, especially since providing a live, real-time update is often no more difficult than pressing a button on a smart phone.
digital living Dominic Basulto InternetThe concept of privacy is undergoing a radical transformation, thanks to our continuing willingness to provide companies like Facebook and Google our data for free. If, before, we largely lived our lives in private, we now live our lives in public. In many cases, we no longer even know what is public and what is private, who has our information, and what they are doing with it.
digital living online privacy Dominic BasultoThe future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed. —William Gibson, quoted in The Economist, December 4, 2003
The question we need to ask ourselves about the future is not if it will be digital, there seems to be a unison agreement that it will – the question is what digital means? There are two scenarios:
communication future digital living Helge TennøEverything human made has at some point been technology. Examples of this are asphalt, waffles, language, pencil, science and the kitchen. Lately we’ve had advances in electronic engineering, which is often what people are thinking about when they use the term technology; the PC, mobile phone, the Internet and analytics.
digital living technology Helge TennøPeople who understand digital get how it has changed how they think about the role and reach of communication. It is a deep and structural change. But, this new thinking doesn’t turn out to be very digital – in fact, digital has very little to do with the digital things we do.
communication digital digital living Helge TennøThe real world has never been more real, with the latest proof being the release of the much-hyped Retina Display on the new iPad from Apple. This new tablet screen, boasting a jaw-dropping 3 million pixels of visual goodness, promises visual clarity greater than that capable of being processed by the human retina. In a review for The Washington Post, Joshua Topolsky compared the new Retina Display to "glowing paper."
Dominic Basulto digital living innovation technologyThe speed with which KONY 2012 went viral around the world has been stunning. Even if you don’t love the politics of Invisible Children's "Stop Kony" campaign, it’s hard to find fault with the execution of a viral video campaign that attracted 100 million YouTube views within a week, making it the most successful viral video ever in the history of the Web.
Dominic Basulto activism Internet digital living AIThanks to prominent politicians like Rick Santorum and Orrin Hatch, America has been having a contentious debate this week about what it means to be a snob in today’s society. According to Republican presidential candidate Santorum, the desire to attend college automatically qualifies you as a “snob,” while according to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the desire to wear a “hipster fedora” and drink a “double skim latte” qualifies you for indoctrination into snob society.
Dominic Basulto lifestyle digital living snobbery educationAmidst growing public perception that Facebook is using us to make billions of dollars using data we’re freely posting online, there is another sinking suspicion: Web startups we don't keep a closer eye on are monetizing all of our personal data behind our back. Each of us is generating an incredible amount of data on our PCs, laptops and mobile devices each day – whether it’s checking in, liking something online or conducting a search – and all of this data has value for advertisers and marketers.
Dominic Basulto data Internet social media digital living
