A few images for a brief history (of computing) time

By Friday, January 23, 2015 Resources, Sciences & Technology, Society Tags: 0086, Computing, Hardware, History Permalink 0

Note: a aet of images I’ll need for a short introduction to the project.

From mainframe computers to cloud computing, through personal computer and all other initiatives that tried to curve “the way computers go” and provide access to tools to people who were not necessarily computer savvy. Under this perspective (“access to tools”), cloud computing is a new paradigm that takes us away from that of the personal computer. To the point that it brings us back to the time of the mainframe computer (no-access or difficult access to tools)?

If we consider how far the personal computer, combined with the more recent Internet, has changed the ways we interact, work and live, we should certainly pay attention to this new paradigm that is coming and probably work hard to make it “accessible”.

 

00_IBM

A very  short history pdf in 14 images.

Data Hotel

By Wednesday, November 26, 2014 Society Tags: 0075, Clouds, Infrastructure, Internet, observation Permalink 0

15678040278_09b341e0c2_o

(Reblogged from Pasta and Vinegar)

A billboard encountered at Haneda Airport in Tokyo this week. I find it interesting to observe the criteria chosen by the cloud company: we understand here that the service should be easy and that a reliable support might exist (24 hours). This looks quite common in the tech industry. However, I find the two others characteristics quite intriguing: “public cloud” and “system architect” sounds a bit abstract and strange. Perhaps the latter corresponds to the idea of a well-designed system, but I wonder about the notion of “public cloud” itself: what does that mean? Although it might suggest a public access to data, it may consist in something else (perhaps there’s a Japanese thing I’m missing here) as it’s difficult to sell people a service where all your data are made public.

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Graffiti in the Data Center

By Friday, October 31, 2014 Society Tags: 0054, Datacenter, Infrastructure, Sociology Permalink 0
GraffitiDC

Since 2005, Google is interested in shipping data centers installed in 40” standard international containers. However, they also worked on the setup of the whole data center building  composed of these containers. This video walks us through one of these actual buildings. The screenshot above is a rare documentation of an exception addressing one of the eeriest aspects of data centers: the absence of any trace of human life or moreover social life, as depicted in Timo Arnall’s Time Machine. Graffiti is however a particularly redundant trace of human activity which reaches the most hostile environments, and in this particular sense it is interesting to consider two aspects.

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Occupy.Here: build a local darknet

By Thursday, October 16, 2014 Society Tags: 0048, City, Infrastructure, Makers, Mobility, Open source, Sociology Permalink 0
Occupy-Here

This system isn’t connected to the cloud. Instead, the users represent a cloud of points and this local mobile network links them together. It’s a LAN party without the cables. Anyone within range of an Occupy.here wifi router, with a web-capable smartphone or laptop, can join the network “OCCUPY.HERE,” load the locally-hosted website http://occupy.here, and use the message board to connect with other users nearby. The open source forum software offers a simple, mobile-friendly interface where users can share messages and files.

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Via Rhizome

I&IC Workshop #1 at HEAD: “Soilless”, an ethnographic research

By Sunday, October 5, 2014 Ethnography, Society, Workshops, X-Posts Tags: 0042, C, Documentation, HEAD, Mobility, Sociology, Users Permalink 0

The first workshop in the project corresponds to a preliminary field research phase devoted to understanding people’s relationship with the Cloud. Given our ambition to revisit and explore alternative personal cloud systems, we find it important to investigate actual usage, problems, limits, experiences and situations related to the pervasive use of cloud computing.

 

Soilless – a research introduction and a field study from iiclouds.org design research on Vimeo.

 

Based on a series of user interviews and observations, we will address various issues related to this theme. Our aim is to have a sample of participants which practices have a certain diversity: nomadic workers, third-space users, musicians, VJs, journalists, etc. These interviews will be complemented by an analysis of on-line forums and groups focused on the discussion of cloud-related issues (Dropbox forums, blogs and social media messages discussing the limits and problems of these platforms, etc.).

Stockholm 1982: The Hot Line

By Friday, October 3, 2014 Society Tags: 0038, Behavior, City, Hack, History, Infrastructure, Links, Social Permalink 0

http://blay.se/2012/09/17/hot-line-riot-1982/

In September 1982, the youths of Stockholm had discovered a specific way to meet each other: they used a bug in the routing of the city’s phone cabins to communicate through group calls, for free. This story is relevant as an ethnographical example of the influence of communication technologies on the behaviour of social groups, specifically through their misuse.

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Via Magnus Eriksson