Three Ways The Web Is Changing Our Identities
by Navneet Alang for Techi So often in the contemporary era, we talk about how the web is changing the world around us: of how media industries are having to adapt, or how the practices and concepts of doing business are being affected. Less often discussed, however, is how the internet is changing us. Sure, there’s a [...]
Internet has ‘not become the great leveller’
By Jonathan Fildes | BBC News “The internet has not become the great leveller that it was once thought it could be,” according to Harvard academic Ethan Zuckerman. Mr Zuckerman was speaking at the TED Global (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford. He said that the web was now contrary to the original utopian [...]
Four Ways the Web Helps Challenge Authority
by Navneet Alang for Techi Today, new developments in media and technology are almost always about making people’s lives easier and more fun. Social networks let us stay in touch with our friends and family quickly and easily. Advancements in video games let us immerse ourselves in increasingly compelling worlds. And smartphones let us access information we [...]
Make Something Workshops
Make Something Workshops are one of my favourite elements of this culture. It brings a new generation of talented artists and designers to the forefront, and gives kids a chance to interact and learn from some of the world’s best, while taking part in fun workshops. This July, Nike has teamed up with Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, [...]
What You Missed at TEDGlobal, Day One #TED
Here at BTB we are HUGE supporters of what TED has started over the past years. Please feel free to search our site for chosen TED talks or explore TED for a large wealth of information and education. Please read the following article to give yourself a better understanding as to what TED is, what [...]
The Myth of Originality
Here’s a brief excerpt from my brief talk at the Wired Business Conference last week, where I attempt to dismantle the Romantic notion of originality as “something that comes from nothing” and point out that no idea comes from nowhere, ideas are new combinations, culture and technology are inherently accretive, and, well, genius steals. Some of this thinking may be [...]
Divorce 'is contagious'
Divorce can be contagious within groups of friends, according to a new study. The heated emotions aroused by one person’s divorce can be transferred like a virus, causing others to divorce, researchers found. Not only can the risk of divorce spread from one couple to their friends or family, it can also affect relationships at [...]
The Soccer Ignoramus’ Guide to the World Cup Semi-Finals
The World Cup now enters its Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome phase. We began with a thriving civilization of 31 proud soccer nations (plus France). Only four battle-hardened survivors remain to spar over scarce resources in an unforgiving environment. In other words, the really fun part starts Tuesday, when the Netherlands lines up against Uruguay. If this sterling [...]
THE CULT OF DIET COKE
by Eric Gillin of The Black Table Iva-Marie Palmer quite literally wakes up with a Diet Coke, downing her first one of the day while still in the shower.”The Diet Coke’s coolness contrasted with the steam of the shower makes for an invigorating wake up that I’d recommend to the groggiest of non-morning people,” says Palmer, who [...]
Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world
Clay Shirky looks at “cognitive surplus” — the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we’re busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we’re building a better, more cooperative world. READ MORE: Ushahidi.com
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U.S. far from an interracial melting pot
Daniel T. Lichter is a professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University. He teaches courses in demography and sociology and has published widely on issues of immigration, racial and ethnic relations, and family change in the United States. This article, written by him, was published by CNN. According to a [...]
Medicinal Marijuana: A Patient-Driven Phenomenon
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have launched a medical experiment that doesn’t follow any of the rules of science. By approving the use of marijuana as a medicine — with varying kinds of restrictions — these jurisdictions are bypassing the federal government’s elaborate processes for approving medicines. That’s highly unusual. In fact, it’s [...]
Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth
Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. Using still photos culled from the Web, Photosynth builds breathtaking dreamscapes and lets us navigate them. About Blaise Agüera y Arca: Blaise Agüera y Arcas is the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft, building [...]
Black Wave: The legacy of the Exxon Valdez Trailer
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt On March 24th 1989, shortly after midnight, the supertanker Exxon Valdez runs aground in Prince William Sound, a pristine area immensely rich in marine life. A significant part of the crude oil carried by the tanker spills into the sea. The black wave. Most of that oil will never be [...]
What Is Social Media?
Mashable Founder Pete Cashmore What is social media? It is a question that is debated by media professionals and consumers alike. Some point to the revolutionary transformation of media, going from a top-down broadcast model to one that allows the former audience to communicate with one another and take part in the content creation. But [...]
Online Video Will Push Internet Traffic to Quadruple by 2014
Cisco Systems has predicted that Internet networking traffic will have quadrupled between 2009 and 2014 in its Annual Visual Networking Index Forecast. It also predicted that online video will be the primary driver of that growth. Cisco’s report says that 767 exabytes of data (one exabyte is the equivalent of one billion gigabytes) will be transferred [...]
AP Stylebook Adds 42 New Guidelines for Social Media
The AP Stylebook has released its new social media guidelines, including the official change from “Web site” to “website” (a move first reported back in April) and 41 other definitions, use cases and rules that journalists should follow. Among the more interesting changes –- at least from a grammar and style standpoint –- are separating out [...]
MOVE: 25 years later
MOVE: 25 years later Since the May 13, 1985, MOVE disaster, the residents on the 6200 block of Osage Avenue have been victimized over and over again, their homes destroyed, their community devastated, their lives upended.
The Tao of Productivity
In this age of digital communication, we’re busier than ever. And yet, in all of our sound and fury, we seem to have no time for focus, for what’s important, for thinking. To find this focus, we will need to completely rethink the need for productivity. Think of our culture’s obsession with productivity: with the [...]
Facebook Exodus Planned for May 31: Will You Quit?
When Facebook launched its Open Graph API and brought instant personalization to the web it probably didn’t expect users to revolt — but they are. In light of growing concerns around user privacy, Matthew Milan and Joseph Dee are attempting to mobilize a formal Facebook revolt with Quit Facebook Day. The purpose of the site is to encourage those [...]
Is Social Media Just A Fad?
“Is Social Media a fad or the biggest shift since the industrial revolution?” asks this new video based on Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics. Although the short clip is not without an agenda–it wants to prove that we’re on the brink of a social media “revolution” from which there’s no turning back–the statistics presented in the animated [...]
The Power of the Purse: Interview with Maddy Dychtwald
Why women have soaring economic power Until I read the new book Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World For the Better, byMaddy Dychtwald, I wasn’t aware that women may be the biggest change agent of the 21st century. I got a clue, though, when my oldest daughter, who is finishing up her [...]
FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and future
by Cory Doctorow embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt The FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the “Selective Output Control” technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you’re watching. And it sucks. As Dan Gillmor notes, “Fans of old TV [...]
