Posts from March 21, 2011

Broadcast Yourself

What is an Internet celebrity? It’s 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night. You’re a twenty-something student and you have work to do for the morning and so, naturally, you’re surfing the Internet. You’re on Tumblr, a site that compiles blogs into a single feed on its homepage. Think Facebook’s newsfeed, but instead of text-posts from […]

The Body Electric

Steve Mann attaching electronic devices to his body in his youth. The purpose? To experience a reality that has been technologically mediated. Steve Mann is a cyborg. That is, he’s a human with both biological and artificial parts. Others know him as a professor of engineering at the University of Toronto, and a devoted techno-futurist. […]

Are computers just a “little bit pregnant”?

Suppose someone designed a television that monitors the programs you watch and blocks access if it detects you watching an objectionable program. Or an mp3 player that shuts down if you start listening to music from an illegal file-sharing website. Or an e-book reader that prevents you from reading anything on the Vatican’s Index of […]

I can haz DEMOCRACY?

Last month a 1994 clip of The Today Show went viral. The scene opens with three intrigued hosts discussing an email address, wondering what to call “that little mark, with the ‘a’ and the ring around it.” Eventually a puzzled Katie Couric asks her co-hosts, “What is Internet?” A few years later, people gazed at […]

The death of the physical

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Streeters: What was your first email address?

Around the world

When a young person in Toronto, Nairobi, or Jakarta goes online to check out what their friends are up to, they’re probably logging onto Facebook. But this may not be the case. Although, in North America, Facebook has captured both the social network market and cultural zeitgeist, it is not the only option out there. […]

Entrepreneurs for the 21st century

DrinkOwl In the last few years, technological developments like GPS and Google Maps have changed the way we understand directions. A group of University of Toronto graduates have harnessed this geo-location technology, and have applied it to what they believe is an important part of life as a college student: partying at bars. On February […]