Tag: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

community · happiness · Social · technology · youtube

Social Networks Can’t Replace Real Human Interaction

Beth Kelley

Virtual space, including friendships there, does not fully replace that real live human interaction we get in real world spaces. More and more studies are finding this out, and people are reacting to it, often on social media.

graphic designer Shimi Cohen, based in Tel Aviv, has provided “a fresh and subtly soul-wrenching reminder of the way our screens can become cells of solitary confinement.”

The animation was Cohen’s senior project at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Based in part on MIT professor Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together and Yair Amichai-Hamburger’s article “The Invention of Being Lonely,” inspiration also came from a personal place. “Like many others,” Cohen tells Co.Design, “I became addicted to socializing through my phone and social media. This started to bother me and intrigue me at the same time.”

Discovered at Co.Design.

This is a wonderful and simple reminder to get off the computer from time to time and actually go interact outside with real people.

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community · design · technology

Summary of National Building Museum’s “Intelligent Cities” symposium: Change Observer: Design Observer

Beth Kelley
Red, yellow and green (unlit) LEDs used in a t...
LED traffic lights in Sweden. Image via Wikipedia

What does it take to make a city “smart”? Not intellectual, but make traffic lights respond to traffic, have buses alert people if they’re running a few minutes behind, and large corporate buildings comfortable for all its occupants. Journalist Phil Patton offers a nice review of the takeaways from National Building Museum‘s “Intelligent Cities” symposium which looked at these questions and more in order to design a better, smarter future city; among the many takeways:

What is critical in making cities “smart” is not just data, it seems, but clear, accessible data that is often used for purposes government may never have dreamed of. Early in the symposium, Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said that information to make cities smart was about “making it easier to do the right thing.”

…

Once-utopian ideas are now feasible, such as notions dreamed up at the MIT Smart Cities program, formerly headed by the late William Mitchell, author of City of Bits. “Smart parking places” that are RF-tagged could cut the energy wasted by circling vehicles. And systems that allow for hailing taxis and jitneys by mobile phone can provide “infill” transportation between private car and mass transit.

…

At the same time, there is concern about data that can make cities smart: fear of information used to justify policies imposed in a top-down way, and fear of loss of privacy.

more takeaways via Summary of National Building Museum’s “Intelligent Cities” symposium: Change Observer: Design Observer.

I’ve covered smart meters and “smart” monitoring of bridges and in cars before, so I’ve always thought of this kind of municipal monitoring exclusive to roadways or utilities.That last takeaway brought up a tough question for me: What data are you comfortable sharing with a municipality in order get a better experience navigating through and functioning in your community?

play · Social

Innovation, Education, and Making stuff

Beth Kelley

I am so excited to share! My friends Janine and Willow were quoted as part of a workshop this past week about the Maker culture that has been growing dramatically over the past ten years and is really starting to bloom. My friends are part of the Jigsaw Renaissance, based in Seattle. The article appeared on the O’Reilly Radar article (excerpt below, with my friend’s quote in bold):

From a social perspective, vibrant communities are organizing around projects, technologies, and physical places. For example, one community called DIYDrones has developed a $500 unmanned aerial vehicle using open source chip sets and gyroscopes. Hacker Spaces and Maker Spaces are springing up around the country — like Jigsaw Renaissance in Seattle, which seeks to encourage:

Ideas. Unfiltered, unencumbered, and unapologetically enthusiastic ideas. Ideas that lead to grease-smeared hands, lavender sorbet, things that go bang, clouds of steam, those goggle-marks you see on crazy chemistry geeks, and some guy (or girl) in the background juggling and swinging from a trapeze … Walk through our door with an open mind, and you are liable to be whisked off your feet and into a project you’d never have thought up. We encourage communal learning, asking questions, and pushing that red button. Go on. Do it. If you stick around long enough, you’ll end up being the one creating projects and doing the 3-2-1 countdown for some new toy. Which is exactly what we hope will happen.

Technologically — we are moving towards what MIT‘s Neil Gershenfeld has called personal fabrication. Consider how Moore’s Law has enabled the transition from the expensive and remote mainframe to the personal computer to the smartphone that fits in your pocket to the Internet of things. We are seeing the same phenomena with the dramatic reduction in the cost of the tools needed to design, make and test just about anything — including $1,200 3D printers, CAD tools, machine tools, sensors, and actuators. Remember the replicator from Star Trek? It’s rapidly moving from science fiction to science fact. What will happen as we continue to democratize the tools needed to make physical objects that are smart, aware, networked, customized, functional, and beautiful? I have absolutely no clue — but I am confident that it will be awesome. As one maker put it, “The renaissance is here, and it brought ice cream.”

Economically — we are seeing the early beginnings of a powerful Maker innovation ecosystem. New products and services will allow individuals to not only Design it Yourself, but Make it Yourself and Sell it Yourself. For example, Tech Shops are providing access to 21st century machine tools, in the same way that Kinkos gave millions of small and home-based business access to copying, printing, and shipping, and the combination of cloud computing and Software as a Service is enabling “lean startups” that can explore a new idea for the cost of ramen noodles.

Makers are also becoming successful entrepreneurs. Dale just wrote a compelling story about Andrew Archer — the 22-year-old founder of Detroit-based Robotics Redefined. As a teenager, Andrew started off entering robotics competitions and making printed circuit boards on the kitchen table. He is now building customized robots that transport inventory on the factory floors of auto companies. With more entrepreneurs like Andrew — we could see a bottom-up renaissance of American manufacturing.

The article even goes on to talk about why the Obama Administration is behind DIY-ers and Makers. Exciting stuff! Read the whole article on O’Reilly Radar.