Many have seen the short movie about the history of the Programma 101, the first personal computer in history. It was released in 1965 and became a huge success, especially in the U.S: 44,000 units were sold. The group of engineers led by Pier Giorgio Perotto at Olivetti entered the history of computing. The beauty of the documentary is in its cheerful and light-hearted tone. Devoid of that tragic affliction typical of Italians who look to the past regretting old glories and successes. Rather it is an educational documentary that shows how the invention came out of a precise mix of...
english (sort of)
Imagination and innovation. Edge and Economist
The Economist has published an important feature about the possible slowing down of innovation: Has the ideas machine broken down? The article puts up a set of questions about productivity growth and technology innovation. But the title is very meaningful: there is such a thing as a machine for the production of ideas? Well, in a sense, yes. There is a system – science, technology remixing practices, venture capital, media relations, market – that is meant to create ideas and innovations. But it makes ideas that are sort of expected. Which is why, in a way, that kind of innovation...
Twitter and the Italian political élite
Twitter is booming in the Italian élite milieu. Politicians, journalists, men of the church, writers, are joining the conversation. And newspapers are busy covering what the all lot says online, in a way that starts to seem quite awsome. In the meantime, Facebook stays very much more popular. Facebook has been the evolution of the Internet ability to actively involve everybody in the mediasphere, in a time in which the passive relationship with television had stopped to be sustainable for those “formerly known as the audience”. But Facebook is not much about “pages”...
Cosmopolitan professionals looking for opportunities
There is a kind of workers who live in a cosmopolitan international dimension. There used to be a cosmopolitan élite, mostly European or American, maybe linked to a colonial past or to a multinational company present. But it seems to me that there is something new in this space. This is not about people that need to go away from home to look for a job. The great migrations have not stopped, of course. And they are more and more important: that’s an epic set of stories, with the painful lives of those who leave the place where they are born to try to rebuild something somewhere else...
Regret and move on. Italian strategy to cope
There is a lot to say about Italy, these days. It is not a country that seems to count very much in terms of what’s happening to the world. But we have found out that even a place like Italy can be far more problematic at a global scale than we thought: everything is linked, even an Italian crisis can be a global crisis. Well, it is not exactly flattering to be a country that matters only because it can be a source of trouble. And Italians seem to be having some new thinking about this. Usually we are good at complaining about our faults, but we are quite scarce at working united on a...
Who knows Twheel?
The presentation is interesting and it makes you feel like to give Twheel a try. Twheel is a new interface to manage more efficiently the tweets produced by Fluid Interaction. When you follow many accounts on Twitter you can lose some important messages: but Twheel reorganizes the tweets in a circle (which vaguely resembles the old iPod interface) that allows you to better handle the complexity of the information on the phone. Thus, you download the app and start it… at least that’s what you do if you don’t pay attention to the legal details. To use a free app you must give...
Roadmap needed, please
Urging European leaders to take action against the euro crisis feels like to be in front of a set of poker players who, at the end of the game, refuse to say what they have in their hands: “you show first”, “no, you show first…”. They need to agree about what to do first, second and third… It should be their job. They should get their job done. Soon. Why are they so slow? Politicians are elected inside their national boundaries. But they work for a supranational reality. And their job is split in two: they need to decide for international cooperation to...
Robert Kennedy Foundation: social media and human rights. Smart dissidents
A two days workshop, in Florence, is organized by the Robert Kennedy Foundation Europe, to discuss about social media, human rights and the notion of smart dissidents. Before the event, a chat with Daudi Kahmadi Were, from Ushahidi, has been a joy. He was talking about what it means to improve the notion of “civic society” and he was very interested in the MediaLab‘s (and Ahref‘s) notion of “civic media”. It can be a conceptual framework for improving the cultural environment for smart dissidents that fight for human rights and live in danger because of the...
Personal democracy is an oxymoron
While in Rome, the Aspen Institute in Rome is organizing a conference about democracy and the internet, in New York it is held the Personal Democracy Forum 2012. It is a bizarre notion, sort of an oxymoron. A democracy, by definition, is about being together, which is hardly a personal thing to do. But the reality is much more interesting. It is focused on the idea that digital technologies can improve the way we decide democratically. Stefano Rodotà has said some very wise things about the matter.
TELEDEMOCRAZIA – RODOTA'
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At the Summer School: Freedom and Pluralism of Traditional and New Media
At the European University Institute, the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom is organizing a Summer School for Journalist and Media Practitioners. The very rich program will allow for some sharing of experiences also about “New trends in data journalism” and “Paying for news (new ways of getting revenues for media outlets and journalists)”. 1. “New trends in data journalism” FUN – The hero of the genre is Hans Rosling. He is a master in explaining the civic, scientific, cultural and social value of statistics and stresses out the importance...
Luca De Biase
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