Friday’s Big Idea
Today's Big Idea: Humanizing Technology
By altering our ability to construct and adapt to our environment, technology constantly transforms how we think, how we interact, and how we see the world. The possibilities that have arisen as a result of the widespread use of personal computers and the invention of the Internet will require a whole new set of theories and conversations about the world. Everything has changed, from foreign policy to local governance to the arts.
We're in the early stages of constructing a digital society, which means re-examining old ways of doing things with a newly critical eye. Rebecca MacKinnon argues that social media can be a tool for organizing and participating in the creation of a global society. Jason Gots writes about the plight of the self-published e-author -- or how artists can take advantage of digital technologies. Dominic Basulto looks at our changing relationship to objects, asking, can we ever be attached to an e-book in the same way we're attached to paperbacks? Parag and Ayesha Khanna highlight an innovative startup that has created the first visually-arresting and easily-searchable electronic memory.