A cultural history of the talking machines Despite its important role for social life, sound as event per se isn't much problematized in the field of social science. But yet we practically float in an universe of different sounds, meaning events produced by pressures on the air – it can be defined as the raw phenomenon – that we then interpret as rumors more or less defined or signals of sense articulated and pregnant. The book La voce artificiale. Un’indagine media-archeologica sul computer parlante considers the current success of computerized vocal assistants …
Long Thoughts
The decline of telephone companies in the internet imaginary
The communication allure of enterprises in the web In the works of imagination – as we know – it’s easy to find accurate predictions about our life evolution associated with that of technologies. Even forgetting the great amount of existing literature on the topic, it’s sufficient to take some works elaborated by advertising, as an Italian newspaper just showed us, recalling the advertising campaign “You will” launched by AT&T in 1993 – the campaign, created by N.W. Ayer & Partners and directed by the gifted David Fincher, displays AT&T’s next commercial …
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Around digital marketing responsability
In internet everybody knows you can be a dog Time has gone, socially and technologically speaking, since comics on New Yorker (1993) drowed by Peter Steiner cleverly summarized both powerness and riskies about online interactions, so becoming a meme on internet anonymity condition. The phrase “on internet nobody knows you’re a dog” referred to its colleague could be understood at least in a double meaning. From one side, as a relational and democratic liberation from material considerations such as class, genre, body apparency, age… and, here, also of species, an …
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Driverless Car
Promises and nightmares around autonomous vehicle In a world appearing always more chaotic, driverless vehicle project seems highly supponent in its desire to completely automate cars eliminating human driver, meaning implementing cars which are able to master all surrounding events to smoothly arrive to the suggested targeting place. We will get into the car without worries, and our intent will be only to relax and engage in some ways, sure to be carried wherever we asked, closed in a sort of cocoon that works both as a form of teletransportation and as immunization from …
The intermediations of design
From Lollipop to the enchanted objects Although resulting quite elusive and so equally fascinating, having to deal with design as topic became a “must” even for people interested in communication technology since the iPhone has been launched in 2007. Meantime, centrifugal explosion of digital media in people's social and personal life, alongside with multiple use of digital interfaces, puts design at the centre of industries as mode to differentiate products and satisfy users' needs and desires. On the other hand, while our body-mind goes through digital portals for …