Sometimes a sign of the times is subtle.
Gone are the days when it was enough to simply Google your name to find out what people were saying about you in cyberspace.
You probably arrived here via a hyperlink. We hardly think about it now, but the hyperlink is a neat trick. It turns a word in a browser into an object that leads to more information.
As American Idol's success has shown, people love to vote -- and to see how others have voted.
Very soon, the most common phrase transiting through mobile phone networks will no longer be "Where are you?" but "I see you."
As many surveys have suggested, fear of public speaking is one of our strongest anxieties, often ranking above the fear of dying.
Ever wonder whether you'd be better off working some place else?
Microsoft Corp. and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. introduced a high-tech interactive bar table Wednesday that lets patrons order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other.
Imagine a magic scroll, one that contains a myriad of stories and tells you a different one every night. One that fetches you the morning news, generates customized crossword-puzzles, keeps an eye on your favorite authors and an ear on the local grapevine. Imagine a living, breathing kiosk of brain-candy and a library of literature that's easy to read and rolls right up into the palm of your hand.
Fighting boredom in the skies is big business.
Sometimes a sign of the times is subtle.
Gone are the days when it was enough to simply Google your name to find out what people were saying about you in cyberspace.
You probably arrived here via a hyperlink. We hardly think about it now, but the hyperlink is a neat trick. It turns a word in a browser into an object that leads to more information.
As American Idol's success has shown, people love to vote -- and to see how others have voted.
Very soon, the most common phrase transiting through mobile phone networks will no longer be "Where are you?" but "I see you."
As many surveys have suggested, fear of public speaking is one of our strongest anxieties, often ranking above the fear of dying.
Ever wonder whether you'd be better off working some place else?
Microsoft Corp. and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. introduced a high-tech interactive bar table Wednesday that lets patrons order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other.
Imagine a magic scroll, one that contains a myriad of stories and tells you a different one every night. One that fetches you the morning news, generates customized crossword-puzzles, keeps an eye on your favorite authors and an ear on the local grapevine. Imagine a living, breathing kiosk of brain-candy and a library of literature that's easy to read and rolls right up into the palm of your hand.
Fighting boredom in the skies is big business.
Way back in 1888, Kodak popularized the hobby of snapshot photography with its famous slogan: "You press the button, we do the rest."
Foreseeing the future is a tricky business. Why, for instance, should Hollywood moguls have paid much attention when the USB standard emerged in the mid-90's?
"People have this inherited legacy from the 1940s and '50s that you've 'made it' when your film is shown on a big screen," observes Andrew Apostola, who co-founded the Portable Film Festival (PFF) online in 2006.
Back in the good old days of the Internet, the hacker was a teenager motivated by high-tech pranks and bragging rights. Today, the online thief could be anyone with 'Net access after a quick buck.
When you go shopping in a mall, you create an invisible path as you head from one store to another. For the manager of a mall, it would be useful to see the paths made by you and hundreds of other shoppers over time. Now, there's a tool for detecting those paths: the cell phone.
First it was instant messaging during office hours that gave us the thrill of passing notes in class. Then it was ogling ourselves on Web cams, ranting our minds on blogs, uploading our baby photos on Flickr and poking each other on Facebook. These days, as corporate records show, we choose to spend our lunch breaks watching YouTube, if not chatting over Skype.
Business travel sucks. It sucks energy, it sucks time, and mostly it just sucks. We're stuck with it because nothing beats a physical presence.
Do you think you will be using a personal computer for the rest of your life?
Cyberport officially launched in 2004 as Hong Kong's $2 billion IT flagship with the mission to become a leading information technology hub of the Asia-Pacific region.
Comfortable? Probably not if you're reading this online, in which case your back, shoulders, or eyes might be straining a bit -- or will be soon. The good news: designers are getting better at adjusting technology to our bodies and the way we behave.
