digital living

March 29, 2012

The Internet's Cult of Now

There 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.

Dominic Basulto, digital living, Internet

March 26, 2012

You No Longer Have a Right to Privacy

The 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 Basulto

March 21, 2012

Two Thousand and Fourteen

The 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:

future, Helge Tennø, communication, digital living

March 18, 2012

Technology

Everything 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 Tennø

March 17, 2012

Thinking Doesn’t Start with Digital, but Digital Has Changed How We Think … (part 1)

People 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.

Helge Tennø, digital, digital living, communication

March 16, 2012

The New Digital Realism: Retina Display, Lytro and Senseg

The 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, technology

March 14, 2012

KONY 2012 and the Global Hive Mind

The 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, AI

March 4, 2012

The Arrival of the Digital Snob

Thanks 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, education

February 10, 2012

All Your Data Are Belong to Us?

Amidst 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.