Someone from the UK just found this site by searching for “device to stop young people congregating” using a mobile phone provider’s search engine. Now, I know, I know, there may be an important backstory behind that person’s search. Some people apparently really do have […]
All posts filed under “Future”
Feature deletion for environmental reasons
From the Sunday Times, ‘Standby buttons face axe to curb energy waste’: “Ministers want to do away with the standby buttons that allow [users] to flick their TVs and other electronic gadgets on and off while moving barely a muscle…
Freedom to Tinker – The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?
At Freedom to Tinker, David Robinson asks whether, in a world where DRM is presented to so many customers as a benefit (e.g. Microsoft’s Zune service), the public as a whole will be quite happy to trade away its freedom to tinker, whether the law […]
Review: Made to Break by Giles Slade
Last month I mentioned some fascinating details on planned obsolescence gleaned from a review of Giles Slade‘s Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Having now read the book for myself, here’s my review, including noteworthy ‘architectures of control’ examples and pertinent commentary. Slade […]
Reversing the emphasis of a control environment
Image from Monkeys & Kiwis (Flickr) Chris Weightman let me know about how it felt to watch last Thursday’s iPod Flashmob at London’s Liverpool Street station: the dominant sense was of a mass of people overturning the ‘prescribed’ behaviour designed into an environment, and turning […]
BBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside
From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’: “Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas. But while the use of surveillance drones is among them, they would be a “long way off”, police said. … “The […]
‘Design Must Relinquish Control’
Niblettes tackles the issue of designers and control, specifically, how much the user’s experience and methods of using a product or service should be defined by the designer. The conclusion – paralleling a theme in a marketing speech by Procter & Gamble’s Alan G Lafley […]
Bruce Schneier : Architecture & Security
Bruce Schneier talks about ‘Architecture and Security’: architectural decisions based on the immediate fear of certain threats (e.g. car bombs, rioters) continuing to affect users of the buildings long afterwards. And he makes the connexion to architectures of control outside of the built environment, too: […]
Product psychology to discourage anti-social behaviour
From McGazz (who also has some great music to listen to on his website): “As I was getting myself a cup of tea in work this morning, I overheard a colleague talking about a problem at the tanning salon his wife runs. Each cubicle has […]
‘Fair use, Xbox hacking, and how far will Linux users go to get a cheap PC?’
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, in ZDNet’s Hardware 2.0 blog, asks whether it is ‘ethical’ for users to install GNU/Linux on an Xbox, or in general, to use hardware they have bought in whatever way they wish. “First, is it ethical to hack an Xbox or any other […]
Countercontrol: blind pilots
In a recent post, I discussed a Spiked article by Josie Appleton which included the following quote: “Police in Weston-super-Mare have been shining bright halogen lights from helicopters on to youths gathered in parks and other public places. The light temporarily blinds them, and is […]
Shaping behaviour at the Design Council
Photo by Kate Andrews I’ve blogged before mentioning the work of the UK Design Council’s RED research arm, which applies ‘design thinking’ to redevelop and create public services appropriate for societal changes right now and in the years to come. The previous post was specifically […]