Monthly Archives: July 2006

The ethics of social robots

Skype conference and the question was, ‘when will robots finally be here?’
To answer that. let’s look at what just happened first ….
It’s interactive: like the telephone and the telegraph (and unlike radio or television), people can overcome great distances to communicate with others almost instantaneously.
It’s a mass medium: like radio and television (and unlike the [...]

MySpace vs. the US Military

Recent events in light of the new global battlespace created by information technology, the meaning of security, the hallmarks of asymmetric warfare and the resources we need to get by are changing.
Two things:

The social networking hero, MySpace was hit by a powerful worm about 10 days ago.
The US military saw in coming and didn’t [...]

Digital Citizenship

Let’s talk about the inverse of the digital divide - digital citizenship.
Citizenship in today’s world, however one defines its characteristics and practice, draws its sustenance from the access to information - read: education; within the information society, especially democratic ones, citizenship must come to terms with technology; and that the level access to technology - [...]

Bad usability that is good

I am interested in some of the darker aspects of human nature when it comes to technology: I would like to understand frustration when things go wrong in order to design new tools with the right emotional impact.
Why not ‘build in’ a navigational workflow order that creates anger to help select those who need to [...]

Abusive agents

In discussions with my ‘darker’ friends, we’ve noticed that research into developing socially intelligent agents has increased over the last decade with the main focus being on how they can enhance human computer interaction. Remember - enhance human computer interaction
Most research related to the use of embodied agents has tended to concentrate on the benefits [...]