Initially I thought I was witnessing an unusual practice. Individuals with whom I was speaking were simultaneously involved in other conversations. Then, when I was part of a team planning and organising an event online – a video conferenced workshop, the organisers set up a social media account for us to communicate with each other … Continue reading A New Way to Video Conference – Badly
Internet and Everyday Life
Information, Communication, and Innovation Aspects of the War on Ukraine: A Meeting of Early Career Researchers
The Portulans Institute supported the conduct of an Oxford Forum on ‘The Implications of the Russian War in Ukraine for Global Information, Communication, and Cybersecurity’, which was held on 26 January 2024 in a Board Room of the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). It was conceived, organized, and chaired by an OII DPhil Candidate, Elizaveta (Lisa) … Continue reading Information, Communication, and Innovation Aspects of the War on Ukraine: A Meeting of Early Career Researchers
The Societal Costs of Attention Deficits
The attention of a goldfish?
Cyber Insecurity
If I tell friends and colleagues that I am working on a ‘cybersecurity project’, I can see them mentally move along to other topics. In sounds technical and only technical. Arguably, most internet users and ordinary people generally see cybersecurity as a technical field – one that is likely to be impenetrable or uninteresting … Continue reading Cyber Insecurity
The Right to Send Anytime, Anywhere, All at Once
I respect the right of anyone to choose when and how they reply to an email. The person receiving an email has the power to delete, ignore, read, respond immediately or respond whenever they choose. They can even have an automatic response, say over their holiday or weekend, that they are away from work and … Continue reading The Right to Send Anytime, Anywhere, All at Once
A London Forum on Histories of the Internet
AIT Forum on the Histories of the Internet: Call for Papers Archives of IT (AIT) is organising a one-day academic-practitioner forum on the Histories of the Internet in January 2024. The forum is designed to: foster more critical, multidisciplinary perspectives on the history of computers, telecommunications, the internet, and related digital media; illuminate how people, … Continue reading A London Forum on Histories of the Internet
Oral Histories of your Family
Oral Histories of your Family: Questions I Failed to Ask With age, I’ve become more aware of the questions I should have asked my parents and grandparents. Like many others, I was interested in my family’s history. For example, I have long treasured my “Aunt Ann’s” family bible with key dates and events recorded in … Continue reading Oral Histories of your Family
AI Hype
AI HYPE: A Commentary by A. Michael Noll March 29, 2023 Copyright © 2023 A. Michael Noll The 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick frighten us with the computer “HAL” that reads lips, makes decisions, kills, and ultimately goes berserk. Decades later around 2011, IBM introduced its “Watson” … Continue reading AI Hype
Confidentiality Online?
In the UK, over 100,000 WhatsApp messages between a former health secretary and government ministers during the COVID-19 pandemic were leaked.[1] The former health secretary, Matt Hancock, shared his WhatsApp messages with a journalist, Isabel Oakeshott, with whom he was collaborating on his book entitled Pandemic Diaries (Hancock with Oakeshott 2022). They essentially co-authored the … Continue reading Confidentiality Online?
The Myth of an AI Leisure Class?
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is real and significant. But AI is not new albeit in 2023 it is more focused on machine learning than programming. On a recent trip to Singapore, the rise of robots was clear, cleaning the floors of the airport and moving trays around restaurants, for instance. That said, the … Continue reading The Myth of an AI Leisure Class?