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Dotmocracy: Crowdsourcing, Mashups, and Social Change

As San Francisco braces itself to be the first major American city to not have a daily newspaper, the canary has sung as the death of print looks eminent. But what new frontiers do new media really offer? Can media democracy be maintained through new forms of citizen media that are more interactive featuring user-generated content?

Now almost anyone can be a media maker, and the whole world is literally watching, recording and listening. The divide between the producer and consumer has begun to dissolve. Crowdsourcing means that news can be created from the people experiencing the situations directly. Instead of producing content in house, aggregated content is the new king, with a whole flood of users openly sharing their photography, writing, and art. 

Dotmocracy is an established facilitation method for collecting and prioritizing ideas among a large number of people. It is an equal opportunity & participatory group decision-making process. Participants write down ideas and apply dots under each idea to show which ones they prefer. The final result is a graph-like visual representation of the groups collective preferences.

Through breakthroughs in Web 2.0 technology a new form of digital democracy has emerged where the divide between media producers and consumers has dissolved and citizen media rules. In this new age of participatory media is transforming the central tenants which make up our democracy, opening up new channels for citizen participation.  While before citizens had to rally for mainstream media attention to catch the ears of politicians, now it is easier ever than before for citizens to launch awareness campaigns and get their message heard by the masses.  Even more importantly, new advances in digital publishing mean that we now have advance systems of filtering and prioritizing data collectively. Instead of the corporations deciding what is important for us to view, it is the power of the crowd that fuels and filters digital content. Online users can choose what news they want to receive through RSS feeds, and can easily forward newsworthy items onto their friends and share them over social networks.

Dotmocracy: Crowdsourcing, Mashups, and Social Change (pdf)
Source: Dotmocraty

Sabine E. Wildevuur: Invisible Vision

Sabine E. Wildevuur asks: Could Science learn from the Arts. My answer as a historian is that science since the Renaissance has constantly exploited techniques of visual representation forged in the arts. It continues to do so even when its practitioners are blithely unaware of the legacy. Every image that portrays something in space as a three-dimensional object illuminated from a specific light source ultimately depends of the visual revolution wrought by Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Leonardo and other pioneers of Renaissance naturalism. The systematic rendering of something in plan and elevation depends upon techniques devised by Renaissance architects. It also seems likely that the first methodical use of sections, particularly solid sections, first occurred in the work of architects and designers in the circle of Leonardo.

Sabine E. Wildevuur: Invisible Vision
Uitgever: Bohn, Stafleu Van Loghum

Source: Waag

Gestural Interfaces are the Future

In the recent James Bond film Quantum of Solace there is a scene in which M, Bond and other agents share information and briefings around a multitouch table. Just three or four years ago this would have seemed as sci-fi as the now infamous scene in Minority Report, but this time it felt like MI6 was almost behind the curve.

From the work of Jeff Han to Apple’s iPhone, Nintendo’s Wii and slew of larger multitouch interfaces such as Microsoft’s Surface and MultiTouch’s Cell, the era of gestural interfaces is here. Physical and screen-based interfaces have collapsed into each other and both industrial and interaction designers have a whole new set of issues to grapple with.

Dan Saffer’s latest book, Designing Gestural Interfaces maps out this new frontier. The positive side is that there are a range of exciting new interaction and product possibilities. The negative side is a potentially confusing mess of gestures, each specific to a brand or, worse, owned by one of them through irresponsible patent usage.

Source; Core 77

Designing Gestural Interfaces

If you want to get started in new era of interaction design, this is the reference you need. Touch screens on mobile devices and ATMs let us manipulate things onscreen with our but there’s been no central source of information about gestural interface technology - until now. Designing Gestural Interfaces provides you with essential information about kinesiology, sensors, ergonomics, physical computing, touchscreen technology, and new interface patterns: all you need to know to augment your existing skills in ‘traditional’ websites, software, or physical products. Packed with informative illustrations and photos, this book helps you: learn the process of designing gestural interfaces, from documentation to prototyping to communicating to the audience what the product does; get an overview of technologies surrounding touch screens and interactive environments; examine current patterns and trends in touchscreen and gestural design; learn about the techniques used by practicing designers and developers today; see how other designers have solved interface challenges in the past; and, look at future trends in this rapidly evolving field. Only half a dozen years ago, the gestural interfaces introduced in the film Minority Report were science fiction. Now, because of technological, social, and market forces, we see similar interfaces deployed everywhere. Designing Gestural Interfaces will help you enter this new world of possibilities. 

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc. (3 Dec 2008)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0596518390
• ISBN-13: 978-0596518394

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PediaPress: Printed Books from Wiki Content

PediaPress.com is an online service that lets you create customized books from wiki content. Simply add any articles you like into a Collection, and then click to order them as a paperback book. Covers, a table of contents, a detailed index and a list of figures are generated automatically, and the books are printed and shipped within 2–15 business days. Combine the advantages of up-to-date and in-depth knowledge with the convenience of printed books. Books are typeset and printed on demand based on your personal selection. You get your unique book and support the Wikimedia Foundation. Discover books created by other users in catalog. Contribute and share yours, too!

Source: Wikipress

• 3D Computer Graphics by Wikipedians
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NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts

The relationship between the crafts and modernity has long been characterized as difficult and the crafts are often perceived as occupying a marginalized role in the discourses of modernism. NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts seeks to challenge the assumptions surrounding this relationship by introducing a wide range of scholarly essays that explore the historical, contemporary and future positioning of the crafts within the broader scope of visual culture.

The crafts occupy an important role in material, globalized modernity, and as such they must be understood through a multiplicity of gazes. With that in mind NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts unites an international, interdisciplinary range of writers who are actively contextualizing modernity and the crafts. Drawing upon writings in the fields of craft history, art history, philosophy, museum studies, anthropology, fashion theory, history, women’s studies, and design, this book explores in detail the shifting and influential cultural position of the crafts.

NeoCraft is divided into five central themes: Cultural Redundancy or The Genre Under Threat; Global Craft; Crafts and Political Economy; Invention of Tradition: Craft and Utopian Ideals; and Craft, the Senses and New Technologies. Within each of these themes leading scholars, craftspeople and curators including Bruce Metcalf, Larry Shiner, David Howard, Grace Cochrane, John Potvin, Beverly Lemire, Joseph McBrinn, B. Lynne Milgram, Janice Helland, Elizabeth Cumming, Alla Myzelev, David Howes, Tanya Harrod, Love Jönsson, and Mike Press, explore the reality of craft practice that engages with the modernizing world.

NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts
Edited by Dr. Sandra Alfoldy
Publisher: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Des
ISBN-10: 091961647X
ISBN-13: 978-0919616479

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