MetaMeets: exploring virtual worlds and augmented reality in Amsterdam

Tomorrow I’ll be in Amsterdam for the MetaMeets 3D Internet & Virtual Worlds conference. What do I hope to learn? In my media practice I have daily chat sessions for my newspaper & site & blog, using CoverItLive. I embed that tool in our site, it’s easy to use and… Continue reading

Researching the philosophers of Silicon Valley, using mindmaps in 2D and 3D

What are the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of Silicon Valley? I’m trying to find out, reading and watching thinkers, historians, sci-fi literature, visiting virtual environments. I’m trying to put some structure in my work using a mindmap, partially based on the book From Counterculture to Cyberculture (by Fred Turner): In… Continue reading

Finding reality while looking through code

Our newspaper site www.tijd.be exists 15 years now. In May 1996 someone who had a 128 kbit connection was a rather fortunate citizen, while nowadays we consider 100 megabit normal (in Belgium anyway). In May 2026 speed will no longer be an issue. Access to networks, information streams, databases will be… Continue reading

Entering a fluid state

Fluid. Liquid. Streaming. It are words often used to describe the new reality the more affluent part of humanity lives in. We are always on now, social, webbed, mobile, connected. As Om Malik says in Will We Define or Limit the Future: Mobile phones of today might have innards of… Continue reading

Curation war is getting intense

One of the things which seem to interest web-savvy journalists and students is curation: selecting, contextualizing social media and web streams. I use Storify to report and curate events such as the Arab uprisings and the disasters in Japan, and now I’m experimenting with Scoop.it! creating a page about curation…. Continue reading

Start your own publishing house or university…

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to meet journalism students interested in social media (at a Journalism Night in Brussels, Belgium, organized by publishers, journalism departments & organizations). I presented some tools I use on a daily basis, a workflow for articles and bigger news projects. That same workflow could be… Continue reading

Another kind of innovation

Are we sure this is a time of major, disruptive, history-changing technological innovation? Professor Tyler Cowen in his book The Great Stagnation remembers his readers how the period from 1880 to 1940 brought us electricity, electric lights, powerful motors, automobiles, airplanes, household appliances, the telephone, indoor plumbing, pharmaceuticals, mass production,… Continue reading

Kevin Slavin about those algorithms that govern our lives

How does our near future look like, as computing and fast internet access become ubiquitous, ever more digital data become available in easy to use formats? Well, it seems our world is being transformed by algorithms, and at the LIFT11 conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Kevin Slavin presented some fascinating insights… Continue reading