Tag Archives: technology

behind closed doors

Posted on by November 16, 2011
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That one came timely—just two days after ↵telegeography, my rant on the other side of information technology, the Internet’s hardware aspect, and its importance for anthropology, ↑boingboing posted on ↑Ben Mendelsohn‘s documentary ↑Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors: I want to share a short documentary that I recently produced about the hidden Infrastructure of the Internet called Bundled, Buried and Behind Closed Doors. The video is meant to remind viewers that the Internet is a physical, geographically anchored thing. It features a tour inside Telx’s 9th floor Internet exchange at 60 Hudson Street in New York City, and explores how … Continue reading →

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flying sphere

Posted on by November 17, 2011
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Star Wars fans (like me) will get a vague sense of deja vu when they see this flying sphere in action. Weighing in at about 12 ounces (350 g), the 16-inch (42 cm) diameter flying ball can launch and return vertically, maintain a stationary hover and zip along at up to 37 mph (60 km/h). Coupled with the ball camera we reported on earlier this month, it could become a valuable reconnaissance platform. Who knows? In time, more advanced autonomous versions might actually be used to train would-be Jedi knights. Once again, life imitates art.     Announced last summer … Continue reading →

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telegeography

Posted on by October 17, 2012
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Amazing, how associations creep up involuntarily. When ↑Mark McGuire ↵asked if ↑Cyberanthropology was available in English, I had to answer ‘I’m afraid, but, no,’ and at the same time thought, ‘but there is a book-length unpublished manuscript in English on my HDDs.’ Then I saw the link to ↑TeleGeography’s map gallery at the ↑ethno::log and was reminded of a passage from said manuscript, ranting about the macroscopic hardware aspect of information technology: When you are doing offline fieldwork in, say, the tropical belt, you have to be able to find your way around in the rainforest, have to know about … Continue reading →

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clockpunk musketeers

Posted on by November 7, 2011
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The moment he emerged from the water in full 3D glory his equipment at once reminded me of the ↵industrial tribal art, and I already liked the movie. The majority of the critics’ reviews paints a less favorable picture, though. Nevertheless those reviews pour quite some water on my mills.     Alonso Duralde for example ↑wrote for Reuters: “The creators of the umpteenth new adaptation of ‘↑The Three Musketeers‘ [Anderson 2011] decided that the classic novel really needed a giant blimp battle, high-tech booby traps, bird droppings, ‘Matrix’-esque slo-mo fight scenes and scads of computer-generated French soldiers.” [bold emphasis … Continue reading →

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billion dollar brain

Posted on by November 3, 2011
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“↑Billion Dollar Brain” (Russell 1967) is a cold war spy thriller movie based on the ↑novel of the same name by British writer ↑Len Deighton (1966). Said novel is one of a series starring an unnamed secret agent, working for British intelligence, as the central protagonist. During the 1960s three movies were made, based on three novels of the series. In the movies the protagonist has a name, ↑Harry Palmer, and is played by ↑Michael Caine.     Both, the novels and the movies, somewhat counter ↑Ian Fleming‘s urbane character ↑James Bond and his glitzy high society universe. Deighton renders … Continue reading →

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wireless

Posted on by November 4, 2011
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These days the telephone turns 150 … if, without any reservations whatsoever, you accept ↑Johann Philipp Reis (1834-1874) as its inventor. German media during the last weeks were inclined to accept it that way, naturally. Alas, a short glimpse on the ↑timeline of the telephone teaches us that we can not anymore write histories of technology by constructing absolute origins and godlike inventor personalities. Nevertheless does it seem above dispute that Reis coined the term “telephone.”     Be all that as it may, I take the ample opportunity to have a look on how the future of the telephone … Continue reading →

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paleofuture

Posted on by October 30, 2011
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Since January 2007 Matt Novak runs the weblog ↑paleofuture, collecting and presenting past visions of futures that never were. Drawing on his “physical archive of materials related to retro-futurism” his project is of such quality that it meanwhile has ↑moved to the Smithsonian. Above that Matt edits an ↑according magazine and produces ↑paleofuture.tv. On the latter’s first episode: The ↑shiny happy futurism of the 1950s gave way to much darker predictions for humanity in the 1970s. With ↑energy crises, fears of terrorism and skyrocketing unemployment, it’s really no wonder that Americans of the 1970s were often pessimistic about the future. … Continue reading →

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gods and robots

Posted on by October 25, 2011
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Somehow this one has escaped my attention till today—unfortunately some paywall, moving wall, system bug, or whatyouhave bars my access to it, although my university has subscribed to that publication and pays for the access. Anyhow, it goes together well with ↵the new gods. Here’s the abstract of Vidal’s article: Since the 1980s, a new area of research entitled HRI (Human-Robot Interaction) has been emerging in the field of robotic studies. It focuses on the empirical study of the relationship between robots and human beings. This article aims to contrast the findings of roboticists concerning the interaction between humans and … Continue reading →

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paris calling

Posted on by October 27, 2011
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The ↑12th EASA Biennial Conference will take place in Nanterre, France (near Paris) from 10th through 13th July 2012. The overall theme is “↑Uncertainty and disquiet.” The ↑list of workshops is set and the ↑call for papers open—the latter will be closed on 28th November 2011. You can only give one presentation, so you have to skim through the vast list and make up your mind to which workshop you want to submit a paper. If this one submission is rejected, you save a lot of money, ’cause it’s of no use to journey to a conference without presenting something … Continue reading →

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anthropology meets technology

Posted on by October 27, 2011
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The BBC carries a short piece by ↑Genevieve Bell, corporate anthropologist at Intel, on what a corporate anthropologist does: ↑Viewpoint: Anthropology meets technology. And ↑anthropologies has the essay ↑Anthropology in High Tech by John Sherry, yet another anthropologist at Intel. from ↑John Postill via medianthro list—tnx … Continue reading →

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