“For me, augmented reality has to be the future for 2020, together with it's close cousin
the internet of things... It will become commonplace to be able to overlay reviews of a product simply by pointing a screen at it, or check the weather forecast by pointing your phone at the sky.” The Pew Research Center releases its
The Future of the Internet IV report, an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political and economic change by 2020.
[more inside]
posted by cashman
on Feb 19, 2010 -
34 comments
Let there be light - Canadian researchers have devised a new polymer material by manipulating buckyballs (carbon atoms that look like soccer balls). The technology could be used to create optical (light based) switches to replace electronic network switches. It could lead to an Internet based entirely on light.
posted by paladin
on Aug 22, 2004 -
4 comments
Building Internet Intuition.
"One cannot overemphasize the importance of discipline and a clear research agenda in using the Internet." - Bill Arkin
"The basic rule is to dig deeper into links when pages are getting more relevant, but not when they are taking you far afield from the original query."
posted by sheauga
on May 19, 2002 -
9 comments
New York's Natural History Museum Pioneers Use of Internet2 "Sebastien Lepine, a post-doctoral fellow at the museum, had figured that it would take him a year, using the commercial Internet, to finish downloading two 360-degree digital sky surveys for his study of fast-moving stars. But that was before the museum connected to Abilene."
This indication of how the "commmercial Internet" has become so clogged with crap annoys me intensely. Particularly when the article points out just a few of the research projects that need high bandwidth.
posted by elgoose
on Apr 17, 2002 -
13 comments
Conformity rules in cyberspace ... countering expectations that near-anonymity would encourage actions outside social norms. An Australian research team entered chat rooms and staged situations (a somewhat skeptically viewed practice, though the article doesn't mention it). Now they're studying users' reactions to avatars of different races and genders -- and for control purposes, a chair:
Initial results show that most people approach the female character first and that some of those approaching the chair ask for a sex specification or assume it is female.
posted by dhartung
on Aug 24, 2001 -
9 comments
Readers prefer text over graphics. In much more scientific news a new study by Stanford University indicates that visitors to your website are significantly more likely to read the text on your website (92%) than look at your photos (64%). What do you think? Will this change the way you design your site?
posted by shmuel
on May 8, 2000 -
4 comments
Do we all need to get out more? Although they're putting the "too much time with computers, not enough social interaction" spin on this study's findings, there are actually some good results of it. Heavy internet users spend less time in traffic (because they
look up traffic before going anywhere?), less time in malls (shopping online instead, duh), and less time watching TV (this is the best news of all, I barely watch it anymore because it's mostly inane garbage, whereas on the internet, I can find
interesting things to
read and
enjoy). As for the less face time with friends and family, I have a growing number of friends online that I consider to be as close as any Real Life friend could be.
posted by mathowie
on Feb 17, 2000 -
11 comments
