tech

Showing 572 posts tagged tech

In Digital Age, Breaking Up May Be Even Harder to Do A new research study investigates how an individual can manage the digital records of an ex, across multiple devices, applications, web-services, and platforms “People are keeping huge collections of digital possessions,” said Dr. Steve Whittaker, a psychology professor at the University of California – Santa Cruz who specializes in human-computer interaction. “There has been little exploration of the negative role of digital possessions when people want to forget aspects of their lives.” image via flickr:CC | Mr Miyagi High-res

In Digital Age, Breaking Up May Be Even Harder to Do

A new research study investigates how an individual can manage the digital records of an ex, across multiple devices, applications, web-services, and platforms

“People are keeping huge collections of digital possessions,” said Dr. Steve Whittaker, a psychology professor at the University of California – Santa Cruz who specializes in human-computer interaction.

“There has been little exploration of the negative role of digital possessions when people want to forget aspects of their lives.”

image via flickr:CC | Mr Miyagi

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens

How exactly does the technology we use to read change the way we read? How reading on screens differs from reading on paper is relevant not just to the youngest among us, but to just about everyone who reads—to anyone who routinely switches between working long hours in front of a computer at the office and leisurely reading paper magazines and books at home; to people who have embraced e-readers for their convenience and portability, but admit that for some reason they still prefer reading on paper; and to those who have already vowed to forgo tree pulp entirely. As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?

How Does Multitasking Change the Way Kids Learn?

Concern about young people’s use of technology is nothing new, of course. But Rosen’s study, published in the May issue of Computers in Human Behavior, is part of a growing body of research focused on a very particular use of technology: media multitasking while learning. Attending to multiple streams of information and entertainment while studying, doing homework, or even sitting in class has become common behavior among young people—so common that many of them rarely write a paper or complete a problem set any other way.

But evidence from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention. They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts. So detrimental is this practice that some researchers are proposing that a new prerequisite for academic and even professional success—the new marshmallow test of self-discipline—is the ability to resist a blinking inbox or a buzzing phone.

Creating Apps for Education?

I’ve been keeping a list of local schools that are using apps, and I’ve carved out some time this summer to do some personal development on creating apps. Conduit’s App Maker wouldn’t even require much time.

Have you created an app for your school or taken an online course to learn how? I’d like to know what you used, or if you took a class would your recommend it?

New Study Reports One in Six Students Victim of Cyberbullying

One in six U.S. high school students reported being electronically bullied within the past 12 months, according to a new study.

The study also found that almost one-third of high school students spend three or more hours each day playing video games or using a computer.

“Electronic bullying of high school students threatens the self-esteem, emotional well-being and social standing of youth at a very vulnerable stage of their development,” said Andrew Adesman, M.D., F.A.A.P., of Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York and lead author of the study.

A Hal Pomeranz from 2010 suggests a great way to teach TCP/IP header structure to students: he builds header diagrams out of legos, then mixes them up and has the students reconstruct them. The use of color here really highlights certain portions of the packet header. For example, the source and destination addresses and ports really jump out. But there are some other, more subtle color patterns that I worked in here. For example, if you look closely you’ll see that I matched the color of the ACK bit with the blue in the ACK number field. Similarly the colors of the SYN bit and the sequence number match, as do the URG bit and urgent pointer field. Actually I wish I had a couple of more colors available. Yes, Lego comes in dozens of colors these days, but they only make 2×8 blocks (aka one “Lego Byte”) in six colors: White, Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, and Beige. So while I tried to use Beige exclusively for size fields, Red for reserved bits, Yellow for checksums, and so on, I ultimately ended up having to use these colors for other fields as well– for example, the yellow sequence number fields in the TCP header. Maybe I should have just bought a bunch of “nibbles” (2×4 blocks) in other colors and not been so choosy about using full “Lego Bytes”. High-res

A Hal Pomeranz from 2010 suggests a great way to teach TCP/IP header structure to students: he builds header diagrams out of legos, then mixes them up and has the students reconstruct them.

The use of color here really highlights certain portions of the packet header. For example, the source and destination addresses and ports really jump out. But there are some other, more subtle color patterns that I worked in here. For example, if you look closely you’ll see that I matched the color of the ACK bit with the blue in the ACK number field. Similarly the colors of the SYN bit and the sequence number match, as do the URG bit and urgent pointer field.

Actually I wish I had a couple of more colors available. Yes, Lego comes in dozens of colors these days, but they only make 2×8 blocks (aka one “Lego Byte”) in six colors: White, Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, and Beige.

So while I tried to use Beige exclusively for size fields, Red for reserved bits, Yellow for checksums, and so on, I ultimately ended up having to use these colors for other fields as well– for example, the yellow sequence number fields in the TCP header. Maybe I should have just bought a bunch of “nibbles” (2×4 blocks) in other colors and not been so choosy about using full “Lego Bytes”.

theantidote gestures:

Prototype Real / Digital Info Interface System

Using projection and gestures to create interactive relationship with information - video embedded below:

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a next generation user interface which can accurately detect the users finger and what it is touching, creating an interactive touchscreen-like system, using objects in the real word.

“We think paper and many other objects could be manipulated by touching them, as with a touchscreen. This system doesn’t use any special hardware; it consists of just a device like an ordinary webcam, plus a commercial projector. Its capabilities are achieved by image processing technology.”

Using this technology, information can be imported from a document as data, by selecting the necessary parts with your finger.

More at DigInfo here

RELATED: This is very similar to a concept developed in 1991 called ‘The Digital Desk’ [link]

(via prostheticknowledge:)

(via notational)