John Battelle reports on a recent new feature within Google search results where "related queries" get inserted within your original search results. For example, when you search for "on demand," you also get search results for "Comcast on demand." (see…
Read More Google inserting alternate queries – paid placement?
I recently came across James McQuivey's blog Big Brother 2.0, which seems to be a launch-pad for his forthcoming book: Big Brother 2.0: Why We Should Become a Surveillance Society. His thesis appears to be that the coming "surveillance society"…
Read More Big Brother 2.0: James McQuivey on the coming Surveillance Society
WiredNews reports on the growing desire by governments to use RFID tags to help identify (and track?) automobiles on the public roads: The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of transmitting unique vehicle…
Alejandro Diaz, a grad student at Stanford University in Communications (with a BA in Computer Science), has written an excellent (and nearly 200-page) honors thesis entitled "Through the Google Goggles: The Sociopolitics of Search Engine Design" [pdf]. Here is the…
Read More Through the Google Goggles: Sociopolitical Bias in Search Engine Design
Popular Science features an article on "The Future of the Car: Behold the All-Seeing, Self-Parking, Safety-Enforcing, Networked Automobile" where one of the emerging technologies discussed is Vehicle Safety Communication technology:The next giant leap in sensing will be radio networking that…
Read More Popular Science on Vehicle Safety Communication Technologies
CNET reports that the University of California at Berkeley is creating an interdisciplinary center for advanced search technologies in search of creating the "ultimate search tool" and to "address the explosive growth of Internet search and the complex issues that…
Siva Vaidhyanathan has been engaged in a lengthy discussion regarding Google's recent decision to slow down their Google Print Library project. Much of the conversations have centered on whether Google should be considered a library. This response from Eileen Snyder,…
Read More Google as Library or Neutral Source of Information? Perhaps neither…
I recently came across Donald Norman's latest essay "Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful". In it, he challenges us to criticize the "human-centered" design paradigm, and offers an "activity-centered" design program as an alternative:Human-Centered Design has become such a dominant theme in…
Today at the Values in Computer and Information System Design Graduate Student Workshop I'm attending at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, we convened an "industry panel" of Silicon Valley IT leaders to "reflect on…
MichaelZimmer.org 