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Tag Archives: technology
Netflix becomes Postmodern, splits into two, and races for the bottom
Netflix is spinning off is DVD-by-mail business to focus on streaming. If there was ever an example of how postmodern business has become, this is it.
It is often said that in postmodernism, the curator was as important than the works he curated. That certainly seems to be the guiding principle behind this decision. Effectively, Netflix is throwing… Read the rest
September 19, 2011
Tagged cinema, digital, film, marketing, movies, streaming, technology, video
12 Comments
Codebreaking: AT&T tries for authenticity
I’ve written before about the previously dominant postmodern cultural modes are yielding to a new cultural attitude that based in “our grandparents” generation, one that seeks authenticity, purpose, and meaning.
Advertisers and the commercial semioticians they employ, are of course among the first to pick up on this, dissect it, and attempt to exploit it. Here is a… Read the rest
Steve Jobs, and the Insanely Great
Steve Jobs steps down as Apple CEO, so the news reflects on his career. Best CEO in American business history? Maybe. Most visionary? Probably. But his contribution is hard to pin down. What makes him so great when other very successful people aren’t? Jobs was never a great engineer or programmer. Did Apple invent personal computing? No. Did they… Read the rest
August 25, 2011
Tagged apple, computers, consumerism, death, media, obituary, technology
20 Comments
Deus ex Machina: if there is no God, Heaven, or afterlife, could we create them?
The New Statesman asks prominent atheists why they don’t believe. The answers are insightful but unsurprising, and around the internet it has generated the usual debates where people dig in their heels and yield no quarter on the issue.
I propose examining the question backwards. Let’s say there is no God, no afterlife, etc. Assume the atheist’s positions… Read the rest
Peak Oil, Doom Porn and The End Of Civilization
This is the first part of a documentary about how civilization is on its way to collapse because of global warming, peak oil, overpopulation, etc. Pretty much every hobgoblin of the “fear the future” movement is in here, so it’s worth watching the entire series as it makes for a good overview of that entire system of thinking.… Read the rest
Codebreaking: Cyborg Eye from HAL 9000 to Droid Smartphones
Verizon is currently rolling out its 4G LTE network (better, faster, more, etc) and is heavily promoting the phones that support that network. The latest of these is the Samsung Charge, rechristened by Verizon as the Droid Charge, indicating its flagship status in that carrier’s product lineup.
Here’s the ad:
http://youtu.be/fEhaeMa9F5M
Gunmetal grey, distressed concrete and stone, heavy-handed references… Read the rest
Intel’s Museum of Nostalgia
Intel has announced “The Museum of Me”, a web app which connects to your Facebook account to create a video of a walking tour through a museum dedicated to you, displaying pictures, friends, and the things you like in a 3D virtual gallery whose white walls and minimalist decor resembles MoMA. A video of a random user’s museum… Read the rest
June 2, 2011
Tagged generation gap, identity, intel, internet, museum, narcissism, technology, web
13 Comments
Newstweek: if only they understood philosophy they way the understood technology
Newstweek is a wireless networking hack in which wifi devices are added to unsecured wireless networks to subtly change the content of popular news sites as users on that network browse them. For example, you leave one of the Newstweek devices in a Starbucks, and everyone in that Starbucks reading the BBC news site sees a fake headline… Read the rest
Missing the Point
Researchers demonstrate flexible ePaper phone
I love the technology on display here, and I think that it will definitely take off in some application or other as soon as it becomes economical to mass-produce. But what interests me more than the tech are the comments made by Roel Vertegaal, one of the project’s leaders.
The computer looks, feels… Read the rest
If you want kids to learn science, you need a better sales pitch.
“I always hear stories about how we can’t find engineers, and that’s why we’re emphasizing Math and Science … We want to start making Science cool. I want people to feel about the next big energy breakthrough and the next big Internet breakthrough the same way they felt about the moonwalk.”
So said President Obama at a town… Read the rest
April 21, 2011
Tagged education, energy, narrative, obama, president, science, technology
53 Comments
Codebreaking: Diet Coke’s “Stay Extraordinary”
The older a product is, the more it is a commodity, and the fewer objectively discernible qualities or features it has, the more the advertiser is forced to construct a fictional “grand narrative” to sell you a product. They have to tell a story about the world, and place the product within that world in a way that is… Read the rest
April 15, 2011
Tagged ads, advertising, codebreaking, codes, commercials, diet coke, ethnicity, gender, race, semiotics, technology
45 Comments
The iPad and the Death of Techno-fetishism
Apple’s new iPad commercial signals the death of technofetishism in high technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyEpaPEbjzI
The ad is a radical departure in a number of ways from Apple’s earlier branding strategy. Gone are the white backgrounds, stark compositions, and austere images that places the device and the apps in the foreground. There is no rapid fire forced association of product with… Read the rest
April 7, 2011
Tagged ads, advertising, apple, commercials, computers, iPad, technofetish, technology, xoom
24 Comments
The Uncanny Valley Is A Cliff
When the robot is realistic, but not realistic enough, we enter that uncanny valley– our growing empathy turns into revulsion, or horror. The trick is to get it either more human-like, or less.
Robert Zemeckis tried the former in his movie “Mars Needs Moms” and apparently failed (though I suspect it had more to… Read the rest
