Smart, dumb, candybar, flip, and brick: a visual history of mobile phones For most of their history, mobile phones have been shrinking. Small meant portable; it even, in the not too distant past, was a sort of status symbol. Remember Motorola’s runaway hit, the ultra-thin Razr? But something funny happened on the smartphone’s way to success. Even as the phones themselves became thinner and lighter, their screens started to grow. This trend was driven by consumer demand, but what made it possible were simultaneous improvements in a handful of unrelated technologies. Years ago, your colleagues might have laughed at you if you couldn’t fit your phone in your pocket. If screen sizes continue to grow, you might want to invest in bigger pockets, a bulkier handbag, a man purse, or even a whole new way to carry your phone. Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the Razr was Nokia’s runaway hit.
Aaron Dignan: How to Use Games to Excel at Life and Work :: Videos :: The 99 Percent Play is nature’s learning engine, says games researcher and author Aaron Dignan. In other words, we’re hardwired to enjoy games – they’re addictive, skill-building, and satisfying. So the question is: How can we integrate game concepts into our work lives to help us push ideas forward? In this talk, Dignan walks us through the principles of creating a great game and suggests ways that we might use them to overcome email exhaustion, spice up workaday meetings, and more. Aaron Dignan dressed up like a superhero for 180 straight days of the first grade, which marked the beginning of his life as an iconoclast, observer, theorist, and performer. www.gameframers.com www.undercurrent.com @aarondignan
Invisible Design The Flight From Conversation At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them. A businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.” In today’s workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people — carefully kept at bay.
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