Just thought I’d briefly mention this Italian interaction design/theory event. With Adam Greenfield, Bruce Sterling, Nicolas Nova and Ashley Benigno - who I’m proudly working with at HWL - amongst others.

Via Experientia: Putting people first.

We all know presence settings. I’m available, busy, away, out to lunch, offline etc.. This is all good and well, but obviously, this kind of presence is rather useless in a mobile context. I’m hardly ever away from my mobile, I’m offline in tunnels, and availability .. well, to be honest, how often do you turn down a phonecall without a comforting txt to explain.

And it’s exactly this type of text message which I won’t need to send you if you would know what I’m doing and where I am. I’ve always believed there’s room and need for an extended contact list, which informs you about your contacts, friend, colleagues, clients, family. So you don’t disturb them when they’re asleep, so you can check when they get into the office, so you can see if they’re in the bar around the corner. I don’t know if the developers of Jaiku considered these ideas, but even if they haven’t, I believe they’re heading the right way.

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Are mobile devices really enhancing our social habits?

It’s probably a question that’s been asked many many times before, but to which a good answer is still out in the open. We’ve all seen or maybe even experienced the problems in today’s society, e.g. happy slapping, conversations being interupted to get that call, loud music on the bus or tube, accidentily bumping into people because you’re talking on the phone, ignoring violence on the streets.. the list goes on and on.. And there is no apparent movement in the industry to acknowledge, let alone try and tackle these social changes. On the contrary, every product that’s been released to the market is focussed on preserving the mini-private space where you are not engaging in what’s going on around you at all. Voice calling, mobile TV, portable gaming, iPods, all destined to enable us to ignore everything and everyone around us alltogether. Where has the surprise element gone?

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via : CyWorld is coming to America. If you are unaware of CyWorld, think of millions of Koreans - and more recently the Chinese too - who are online, on their mobiles or pcs all the time using CyWorld to stay in touch with their friends, peers and like-minded people. Join or create clubs (although I have been unable to sign up at the time of writing) and join the new virtual community.

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“The PSP is scheduled for a major firmware update this spring, with plans for a videophone and VoIP capability, as well as a Global Positioning System (GPS) add-on module, which will be supported by certain games. The next version of the PSP web browser will feature Flash support.”

Interesting .. the way we hear about certain things nowadays. It’s like having coffee with your next-door-neighbourette (not that I’ve ever done that, but I can imagine so) discussing every day life. Gossiping about what’s going on in the neighbourhood, you know how it is. One significant difference is that the neighbourhood has expanded a little.. and I don’t actually know my neighbour ..

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I’ve been following the debate on Web2.0 for a while now and initially couldn’t help thinking just about how it’s just another name for technologies we’ve been creating and using for a long time already. But reading more on the topic - yes, i know it’s very hard to avoid nowadays - it’s clear there’s more to Web2.0 than just plain Flash or AJAX RIA’s (Rich Internet Apps) or even hot air.

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