Storytelling takes a body blow: The sale of Newsweek

UPDATE: Dec 5 2012: I just received my current issue of Newsweek, which will be its last print issue. While there are starting to be more longer-form feature story sites online, none are likely to replace the in-depth news provided each week by Newsweek. While Time magazine continues, it won’t face the weekly competition to […]

My Baby’s First Text Message

The title of this article is taken from a great post by Dominic Basulto on the bigthink blog. He writes about the need for our educational system to keep up with the changes in childhood development due to omnipresent digital devices. If babies can use iPads how will they remain engaged as students in elementary […]

Retro Modern Redux at CES

I first wrote about a great Retro-Modern mash-up in April of last year but, unfortunately it was only a very imaginative April Fool. But, like all those who dreamt of an iPhone on Verizon’s network, good things come to those who wait. A few weeks ago I was browsing articles about the 2011 Consumer Electronics […]

Scrabble, Magic Tables and Human Connection

Image: John Kestner’s amazing Tableau

Retro-Modern pt4: USB Typewriter

Though I’ve written about this ongoing mini-trend several times before, I just don’t tire of seeing the creative ways people are combining their favorite bits of nostalgia with the newest technology. Many of these great retro-modern creations seem to center on the iPhone and iPad rather than other modern devices. The sleek surface, virtually unfettered […]

Putting Your History On The Map

Most of us want to tell at least portions of our own stories. We share our thoughts on our Facebook pages, send Twitter updates, check-in and share experiences via Foursquare. But mostly we don’t take the time or have the opportunity tell the kind of stories that let others know who we are. Or where […]

Retro-Modern pt3: MP3 Goes Old-School

Each new technological advance seems to create wave of people who surround the displaced technology and keep it from sinking and fading away. We’ve seen telephone handsets, video arcade consoles, and others. One of the constants throughout all the change has been the content. Whether designed for words, images or music, or all of the […]

More Retro-Modern: the iPad Video Arcade

The new Apple iPad. The high design, high-function, drool-inducing device that some say is the future of portable computing… is also an old-school video arcade game console? ThinkGeek, purveyor of cool gadgets for the geek-set, seemingly joined the retro-modern trend with its spot-on and ingenious iPad Arcade Cabinet. Sadly, for many, it turned out to be […]

Technology, toast and Twitter

The hybridization and cross-pollination of artistic expression, technology and social media has created some incredible works, products and marketing. Examples of amazing work like Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin’s “Listening Post” (one of my favorite installations of all time) and “Vectorial Elevation” by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer illustrate some of the range of possibility on the purely artistic […]

Retro-Modern: Linkin Park goes 8-Bit

Technology comes and goes so fast. Still have any zip discs? I think that the short relationship we have with each generation of technology results in nostalgia for things that were more permanent that we had a relationship with. That had meaning for us. In film we have Bladerunner, Brazil, Sin City or 300 that […]