Search results for augmented

The annual meetings of the American Sociological Association were held this past week in Las Vegas. More than 5,000 sociologists converged from departments around the world to meet face-to-face in a massive conference hotel. Planning such an event is a massive undertaking with a vast array of logistical issues; yet, one facet of the meeting, Wi-Fi access (or, rather, its inadequacy), sparked a major debate.

First, we should mention that as conference organizers who have run up against the limits of a venue’s Wi-Fi infrastructure, we understand the difficulties in getting people reliably connected. During last Spring’s Theorizing the Web conference, the Wi-Fi crashed under such heavy pressure. However, we were working with a classroom building on a campus, not a massive conference hotel that already has Wi-Fi access built in. It is now the norm for major conference venues to have Wi-Fi available at a price. While the relatively small Theorizing the Web conference might not have a budget for universal Wi-Fi access, ASA could easily spread the cost over the massive number of those paying for registration (or even make a separate Wi-Fi registration fee). more...

There was a popular “bingo card” for the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association held last week in Las Vegas. It poked a bit of fun at sociologists and the meeting itself. Nathan Jurgenson’s reaction was that the card itself revealed much about the sociological discipline and the problems with the annual meetings. He wrote a post here on Cyborgology calling for a more positive bingo card that might be helpful to improve the conference experience rather than just complaining about what is wrong. It is easy to be annoyed, much harder to be constructive.

CUNY sociologist Jessie Daniels responded to this call, and, toegther, we have created a more constructive and useful Bingo card that looks specifically at how to improve a conference by augmenting one’s experience with Twitter.

The card describes how conferences in general benefit from engagement on both the physical and digital levels. Conversations taking place move onto the web, and discussions in the “backchannel” flow back into physical space. In fact, we noted this trend during the Theorizing the Web conference this past spring, calling it an “augmented conference.”

More on Twitter use at the ASA 2011 meetings.

Why is it that authorities are so quick to fear, blame and entirely eliminate electronic communications in the face of unpredictable gatherings of people?

Hosni Mubarak pulled the plug on the Internet during the Egyptian uprising in an attempt to do away with the protesting masses. After the recent riots in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron blamed social media and pondered shutting down electronic communications. And, most recently, San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (or BART) subway system turned off mobile coverage because there were rumors of protest. Authorities large and small across the globe are worried about people being more connected than ever.

Putting aside the important issue of free speech, I want to ask why BART officials feel that communication technologies are making people less safe in times of confusion? Is it part of a larger knee-jerk reaction to not understand social media and thus be scared of it? Ultimately, disrupting communications in a time of potential crisis to make people more safe is a fallacy; it does just the opposite.

more...

A group of volunteers are raising awareness about the lost art of letter writing by handwriting and snail mailing messages that people send them via e-mail. Those who request a snail mail letter can even request that the volunteer letter-writer includes a doodle along with the text. Volunteers and those who utilize the service talk about how hand written letters are more meaningful than messages sent through e-mail. They claim that hand written letters are more personal and represent time, care, and effort.

There are several interesting and related going on here. I will talk about each one in turn: more...

Just as we might have expected, the much-tweeted Facebook sleeve tattoo that I wrote about before has turned out to be a hoax. More specifically, it was a marketing campaign for the company Pretty Social. The company allows you to create custom handbags, stickers, and other products emblazoned with the profile pictures of your (digital) friends.

Nonetheless, the viral video itself made its way around the Internet, serving as but another case of tattoos as advertising. Much has been written on the topic already (Bengsston et. al 2005; McKelvey 1999; Kosut 2005), but I want to theorize further the use of tattooing in marketing as it relates to the phenomena of brand tattoos and lifestyle consumption and the repercussions these trends have for understandings of consumer culture. more...

Last week Nathan and PJ introduced us to Americans Elect 2012 by asking the question: “Can we elect a ‘wikipedia’ president?” The idea is seemingly straightforward- define the broad categories you find most important (your “colors”), answer questions to determine the popular positions of most Americans, and find candidates that most closely resemble your opinions on the issues. The result is a “third party” candidate on the ballot in all 50 states with a platform that most people agree with.

I have reservations about this process, and they fall into three categories. 1)Poorly designed questions. These questions are confusing and might not elicit the responses people intend to give. 2) Leading questions. To be fair, the language that Americans use to talk about politics is full of pre-defined frames and evocative images that push people in certain directions. It is virtually impossible to create a set of questions that extracts the thoughts of individuals with total neutrality. Our thoughts are like electrons- the act of observation changes their behavior. 3) The reinforcement of ineffective partisan thinking. From the Americans Elect website: more...

This Toyota commercial is narrated by a young woman who gets her parents on Facebook because they supposedly are not social enough. While she scoffs at how relatively few “friends” her parents have, the parents are shown to be out living by mountain-biking some decidedly offline trails. The daughter remains confidently transfixed and anchored to the digital world of her laptop screen.

I spend lots of time on this blog pointing out what I call “digital dualism,” the fallacy of viewing the physical and digital as seperate worlds (think The Matrix). Instead, the position myself and others on this blog favor is what we call “augmented reality,” the realization that our world is one where atoms and bits come together. Read more about this idea if you want.

Enter Toyota. They are playing off the pesky social media misnomer that people are using Facebook instead of doing things offline. Research consistently disproves this zero-sum/one-or-the-other fallacy by demonstrating more...