21 year old Valeria Lukyanova wants to be a real-life Barbie doll
"Most little girls grow up playing with Barbie dolls. Some even want to look like them. One 21-year-old has become one, or so she says.
Valeria Lukyanova has become an internet sensation in her home country of Russia, claiming on her blog to be the most famed woman on the Russian-language internet.
Her doll-like features, long blonde hair and ‘perfect’ body make her look like a real life Barbie."
(Laura Cox, PUBLISHED: 18:14, 22 April 2012 | UPDATED: 01:40, 25 April 2012, Dailymail.co.uk)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A personal profile of American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler
"This episode features Alvin Toffler. He is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. A former associate editor of Fortune magazine, his early work focused on technology and its impact (through effects like information overload). Then he moved to examining the reaction of and changes in society. His later focus has been on the increasing power of 21st century military hardware, weapons and technology proliferation, and capitalism"
(Sciencedump, submitted by Jur on 30 October 2010)
Halperin, J. (2002). "Alvin Toffler - Futurist". Big Thinkers. USA, TechTV: 22 minutes [The Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250841/fullcredits#cast].
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Sherry Turkle: Alone Together (I share therefore I am)
"Sherry Turkle is a professor, author, consultant, researcher, and licensed clinical psychologist who has spent the last 30 years researching the psychology of people's relationships with technology. She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. Her many books include a trilogy on digital technology and human relationships: 'The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit,' 'Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet,' and most recently, 'Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.' Her investigations show that technology doesn't just catalyze changes in what we do -- it affects how we think."
(Sherry Turkle, 2011)
Fig.1 "TEDxUIUC - Sherry Turkle - Alone Together", Uploaded by TEDxTalks on 25 Mar 2011.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Individual output would be no more than that-an individual output
"The social demassification of newspapers-targeting an audience of one-is made possible by physical demassification, and it is no less problematic. The immutability and mobility of print on paper across a society (ensuring that the 'same' news is available to everyone at roughly the same time) turns items into 'social facts'-common to a broad readership, not merely selected by individuals. If news items were gathered individually out of a vast data base, even if the resulting copy looked like a conventional newspaper, imitating its fold and front page headlines, it would lack the social significance that arises from editorial juxtaposition. A senator is disturbed to find his or her scandalous behavior splashed across the front page not because the story is news to him or her, but because it has become front-page news to 100,000 other people. The newspaper is essentially, as Anderson (1991) described it, a 'one-day best seller' (p. 35)-and, as with a best seller, the point is that 'everyone' is reading it. The personally tailored, genuinely unique 'newspaper' selected privately from a data base-the ultimate outcome of the social and physical demassification of the newspaper as we now know it-offers neither physical, nor social continuity. Each individual output would be no more than that-an individual output. The juxtaposition of the senator and the pork bellies would then be not a composite, if oblique, social fact, but merely a result of personal serendipity."
(John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, p.24-25)
1). 'Lionel Luthor Reading Newspaper'
2). Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (1994). "Borderline Issues: Social and Material Aspects of Design." Human-Computer Interaction 9: pp. 3-36.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Interactive Toys: enabling toys to form relationships with users
"Interactive toys have real time conversations with users, preferably employing speech recognition. ... Content is provided to users for their toys which enables toys to form relationships with users. Interactive Toys further utilize user knowledge bases to match entertainment, education and sales promotion content to user histories, behaviors and habits. Content is thus personalized to an individual user as well as to a user's environment including the user's location and the time at which the toy is used. Integration of content, such as entertainment, education and sales promotion is provided by merging Interactive Television techniques with Interactive Toys."
(10 August 2004)
Gabai, O., J. Gabai, et al. (2004). Methods and apparatus for integration of interactive toys with interactive television and cellular communication systems. United States, Creator Ltd. (Shmuel, IL).
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
