25/06/10

WC A visual timeline of my toilet reading habits

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20/03/10

Moving Xarxes socials i societat

Posted in .in-catalan, Internet, The real world, social media | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

Res nou pels geeks però una introducció a les xarxes socials i a l’impacte que tenen a la societat. Ha estat molt interessant participar a la Universitat de Lleida a les jornades que l’associació ASPID, una associació de discapacitats físics de Lleida, ha organitzat al voltant del tema xarxes socials.

No havia tingut mai abans ocasió de conèixer la relació dels discapacitats físics amb un món sense cap barrera ni arquitectònica ni tecnològica.

La presentació ha estat feta amb i a prezi.com.

23/02/10

reThink Fearing and loathing the web

Posted in Blogosphere, The real world, free culture | 6 Comments » Tweet This Post

In my radio column at RAC1 and in many debates and conferences more often than not I’m faced with people that either fear, loathe, ignore (or all of them) internet / the web / mobile phones / social networks / blogs / twitter / wikipedia / open source / free contents / bit torrent / you name it.

This puts me unwillingly on the advocate’s side for the issue at stake. Of course everything is subject to criticism but provided you know what you’re talking about. A blatant example is the many pundits who criticize twitter and have never used it.

These people fall into different categories:

• Newspaper editors and publishers
• So called intellectuals
• Professors (some of them of new media!)
• Musicians and writers
• Talk hosts

Inevitably at some point in the debate they’ll start a sentence like this:

The internet has brought us many good things and changed our lives but…

which coincidently has the same structure as the pitiful:

I’m not a racist but…

22/02/10

mArt Art in tech: the World Mobile Congress through the lens of photographer Voro Sendra

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21/02/10

Mobile Emotional marketing at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Posted in Marketing, Mobility, The real world | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

Ubiquitous technology, long battery life, known interface, touch sensitive, highly customizable, plug and play, speech recognition, interoperable and above all mobile.

15/02/10

AR Augmented reality meets mapping on Bing maps

Posted in Photography, The real world, Why didn't I think of that? | No Comments » Tweet This Post

Impressive demo by Blaise Anguera at TED talks of augmented-reality maps, a blend of Bing Maps and user generated photos glued together with Microsoft’s Photosynth technology.

In simple words: take Google Street View and a gazillion of geolocalized pictures from Flickr (made by people like you and me) and put them all over the place according to their coordinates and orientation.

You get up to date pictures of every imaginable corner of our (digitized) world plus the ability to navigate inside closed spaces which I guess makes Google quite envious.

To experience it you need to download Microsoft Silverlight and head to bing.com/maps.

Here’s a nice link to a Photosynth of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

Link: Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps | Video on TED.com

12/02/10

Semiotics Semiotic oxymoron

Posted in Design, Photography, The real world | No Comments » Tweet This Post

Seen this sign on a public parking in Barcelona today. I still wonder what the meaning is. 50% off without keys? 50% off with keys?

BTW I’ve always wanted to title a post Semiotic oxymoron.

03/12/09

© Manifesto on the rights of Internet users

Posted in Internet, Politics, The real world | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

A group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators want to express their firm opposition to the inclusion in a Draft Law of some changes to Spanish laws restricting the freedoms of expression, information and access to culture on the Internet. They also declare that:

1. Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.
2. Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.
3. The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.
4. The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.
5. Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.
6. We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.
7. The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.
8. We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.
9. We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.
10. In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

Note: This manifesto is the work of several authors, and the property of everyone. Copy it, publish it, pass it on as you will.

27/08/09

Language To click or not to click

Posted in Languages, The real world | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

Conversation with Carla, my friend’s 17 year old niece yesterday in Barcelona:

Carla: I was at the door and when I clicked on the doorbell nobody answered.

Me: What did you just say? “Click” on the doorbell?

Carla: Yes, how would you say it?

Me: Well,.. push maybe? Ring?

Carla: Nah. I’ve always said click in this case.

Less than 24 hours later a 10 year old kid talking to his mother at the supermarket:

Kid: Mum, which number do I have to click for peaches?

I almost expected his mum to answer:

I twittered you 10 times: it’s number 42!

(Disclaimer: both conversations were in Catalan)

27/08/09

Privacy Barcelona Mercè Race: run for your privacy

Posted in Barcelona, Privacy, The real world | 4 Comments » Tweet This Post

In my effort to be a healthy citizen I try to exercise regularly logging all my exploits into my favorite social network dailymile.com. The insane goal: run a marathon some day.

Each September me and my friend Pepepérez put ourseves to a test running La Cursa de la Mercè, a 10Km race organized by the Barcelona City Council during the city’s festivities.

I probably never payed attention before, but this year I noticed something funny after completing the inscription form: my data (along with those from thousands of paticipants) where made public in 3rd company website right after I signed in (is this the live web?)

So now, if you want to know my full name, the date I was born or the sports club I belong to, you can just head to this website and look for my name. Being a public page I bet Google will index it in a couple of days too!

Another hall of shame award goes to the footer of the inscription form with a fine-print font size of 9px and a opt-out checkbox for commercial emails instead of the mandatory opt-in. The registration form is by the way stored in the private company server again instead of Barcelona’s City Council. I don’t even want to think where the actual physical database is.

You don’t have to be a law expert to know that this violates all kinds of data protection regulations especially Spain’s LOPD one of the most stringent in the world.

Dear Barcelona City Council, if you want a lesson on live web just search Twitter for the right tags and see what people are saying about your bad online behavior in real time.