Todd Suomela's Library tagged technology →  View Popular, Search in Google

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In the mind of today’s technological entrepreneur, the ideal user (and employee) is semi-skilled – or unskilled entirely.  The ideal user interface for such a person never rewards learning or experience when doing so would come at the cost of immediate accessibility to the neophyte.  This design philosophy is a mistake – a catastrophic, civilization-level mistake.  There is a place in the world for the violin as well as the kazoo.  Modern computer engineering is kazoo-only, and keyboards are only the most banal example of this fact. 

computer-science computer design interface input-device keyboards technology professional tools

"This paper uses basic empirical facts from attention and perception psychology for a behavioral approach to equilibrium analysis at the industry and the macroeconomic level. The paper endogenously determines whether an economy is information-rich and whether scarcity of attention complements economic scarcity. A conventional economic equilibrium results if subjects have free attention capacity. At the positive level, the impacts of IT-progress, international integration and media on equilibrium diversity and level of attention-seeking activities are shown. At the normative level, welfare, efficiency and optimal policy interventions are characterized. Finally, behavioral effects of intensified attention-seeking on market power, sectoral economic structure and work-leisure choice are considered."

attention economics technology information

Vinnie Mirchandani on global technology innovation and impact on how we work, live and play

weblog-individual technology innovation

"One hundred years from now, the role of science and technology will be about becoming part of nature rather than trying to control it."

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death of binary documents
collaborative flow
re-invention of email/inbox
signal v. noise
ebooks
business data platforms

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"The increasing popularity of media multitasking is frequently reported in national surveys while laboratory research consistently confirms that multitasking impairs task performance. This study explores this apparent contradiction. Using dynamic panel analysis of time series data collected from college students across 4 weeks, this study examines dynamic reciprocal impacts of media multitasking, needs (emotional, cognitive, social, and habitual), and corresponding gratifications. Consistent with the laboratory research, cognitive needs are not satisfied by media multitasking even though they drive media multitasking in the first place. Instead, emotional gratifications are obtained despite not being actively sought. This helps explain why people increasingly multitask at the cost of cognitive needs. Importantly, this study provides evidence of the dynamic persistence of media multitasking behavior."

technology technology-effects information-overload multitasking attention emotion communication

"This is easy to parody: one friend summarized the argument as, You're not the tech industry's bitch, you just don't know when to stop being awesome, which maybe is taking things a bit far. (Though one commenter's point that this might not be, but "'fear' of being dispensable" is also a good one.)

But I think there are a couple valuable things embedded in Perlow's study that I think are worth drawing out.

First, it seems to me that people aren't addicted to success, but to the feeling of success. There is an important difference."

technology technology-effects information-overload multitasking attention emotion

data journalism visualization media technology handbook

"The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence."

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"The new Baffler has a more difficult task. At a time when the Left is energized, or at least paying attention, and when everyone has a blog to stand on and shout from, it’s not clear what street corner The Baffler is laying claim to. It’s worth pointing out, for instance, the disappointment behind both Silicon Valley’s successes and the glamour of the creative class, and The Baffler does this as well as anyone. But fables of techno-utopia are not nearly as hegemonic as were the fantasies of post-industrial society in the 1990s. For every celebration of the latest dot-com there is another weary sigh that the internet, in the end, is just a massive waste of time. "

review magazine technology politics

education elites academia school(Stanford) business innovation technology silicon-valley

"If as William James said, "My experience is what I agree to attend to," then attention is rather more important than we usually think: what we pay attention to defines who we are. This makes attention a rather intimate thing. And efforts to capture your attention effectively say: You don't deserve to control your own attention. You shouldn't have sovereignty over the contents of your consciousness any longer. We should (subject to our decision to parse or resell that attention to other companies).

Thanks, but no thanks."

attention computers marketing technology business

"In fact, said Stephenson, we already have much of the fundamental technology we need to fulfill such science fiction ambitions as large scale solar power production, or routine space flight. Instead, he said, we need to start looking at the non-technological obstacles to these advances, citing insurance as a key example. The development of alternative space launch systems has been curtailed by the unwillingness of the insurance industry to underwrite satellite launches on systems for which there is no good model of the risk involved. Turning to the audience of mostly MIT students, Stephenson said "maybe some of you people need to go into the insurance industry instead of writing code." 

science sf future insurance law barriers technology

"The usual narrative is that capitalism and perfect competition are synonyms. No one is a monopoly. Firms compete and profits are competed away. But that’s a curious narrative. A better one frames capitalism and perfect competition as opposites; capitalism is about the accumulation of capital, whereas the world of perfect competition is one in which you can’t make any money. Why people tend to view capitalism and perfect competition as interchangeable is thus an interesting question that’s worth exploring from several different angles."

business startup monopoly capitalism competition entrepreneur technology

"It turns out, they say, that various online behaviors are a good indicator of personality type. For example, conscientious people are more likely to post asking for help such as a location or e-mail address; a sign of extroversion is an increased use of emoticons; the frequency of status updates correlates with openness; and a measure of neuroticism is the rate at which blog posts attract angry comments.

Based on these correlations, these guys say they can automatically predict personality type simply by looking at an individual's social network statistics. "

personality technology behavior social-media online big-five psychology

Over the last decade there has been a significant growth in interest in aspects of people's experience with technologies under headings such as user experience, aesthetics, affect, fun, reflection, and enjoyment. In more recent years critical theory has begun to make a small but important impact at CHI conferences and other HCI publications. It is arguable that a relationship between critical theory and experience would benefit HCI research and practice as it has benefited other areas of research in the humanities and social sciences. However, in the history of ideas experience and critical theory have not always made good bedfellows, sometimes complementing each other, sometimes resisting each other. This workshop will explore the ways in which HCI might benefit from a constructive dialogue between critical theory and experience in questions of design and evaluation.

hci computers technology critical-theory

"But despite the inherent unreliability of lie detectors, they have recently seen a rebirth."

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"For at least five years, we've been working with the same operating logic in the consumer technology game. This is what it looks like:

There will be ratings and photos and a network of friends imported, borrowed, or stolen from one of the big social networks. There will be an emphasis on connections between people, things, and places. That is to say, the software you run on your phone will try to get you to help it understand what and who you care about out there in the world. Because all that stuff can be transmuted into valuable information for advertisers.

That paradigm has run its course. It's not quite over yet, but I think we're into the mobile social fin de siècle."

technology-cycles technology mobile social-media bubble