In the 90s, Barry Wellman did a related study on one of the world’s first “always-on” Internet suburbs called “Netville“. During his early visit to UB, I recalled him relating an irony of how we communicate predominantly with our physical neighbors, despite us being afforded the ability to base our communication on mutual interests with anyone in the world. I would surmise that physical proximity still has a higher significance on our communication due to the increased potential impact (threat) it could have on our well being (survival).

On the Internet is a sharp and stimulating discussion of the promises of the internet. Going beyond the hype of the cybercrowd, Dreyfus, a celebrated writer on philosophy and technology, asks whether the internet can really bring humanity to a new level of community and solve the problems of mass education. Drawing on a diverse array of thinkers from Plato to Kierkegaard,On the Internetis one of the first books to bring philosophical insight to the debate on how far the internet can and cannot take us. In discussing recent studies on the isolation experienced by many internet users, Dreyfus shows how the internet's privatization of experience ignores essential human capacities such as trust, moods, risk, shared local concerns and commitment.

Worker Cooperatives in the Basque Country

Worker Cooperatives in the Basque Country

Florey tackles the importance of writing by hand and its place in our increasingly electronic society in this fascinating exploration of the history of handwriting. Weaving together the evolution of writing implements and scripts, pen-collecting societies, the golden age of American penmanship, the growth in popularity of handwriting analysis, and the many aficionados who still prefer scribbling on paper to tapping on keys, she asks the question: Is writing by hand really no longer necessary in today’s busy world?

It's a human tendency to put some things off – doing taxes, getting a colonoscopy, cleaning the garage, getting out of bed on Friday the 13th. It spans cultures – the Bhagavad-Gita and Benjamin Franklin both touch on it. And it seems to be getting worse, with more than 25 percent of adults reporting problems with procrastination, up from 15 to 20 percent just a few years ago, a rise many experts blame on the availability of distractions such as Twitter, Facebook, smart phone apps and other technologies.

There has been an extraordinary growth in the number of citizens whom, for reasons of personal commitment, form small groups to recycle products, defend environmental concerns, or produce merchandise of lasting value. As these groups grow they form communities committed to social ideals and political action. The growth of smaller groups is inevitable as national identification ends with advancing globalisation. The prime social nexus for new organizational structure will be a community committed to a cause such as the environment, recycling, or relationships. This 'gathering round a cause' is tribal in the sense there is a shared commitment and caring with others. At the same time the 'cause' is based on an increased sense of personal responsibility. It is these 'caring' communities that herald a culture consistent with global limitations and a stimulating, exciting alternative to heedless excesses of individualism.

This week on Twitter, we're rolling a feature we've been working on for a while out to a lot more users. (If you don't have it yet, you will soon.) That feature is our native version of Retweet, which Biz posted about on the Twitter blog a couple months ago.

I'm making this post because I know the design of this feature will be somewhat controversial. People understandably have expectations of how the retweet function should work. And I want to show some of the thinking that's gone into it. I've been a big proponent of this particular design internally at Twitter, because, while it won't serve every use case, I think it offers something new and powerful.

I don’t deny that Google Wave is a powerful tool (for more information on just how powerful it is, see the report “Google Wave Explained” on our subscription research service, GigaOM Pro). Nor do I deny that it has the potential to become even more powerful in the future, when it receives wide release. The fact is, though, that it has much more power under the hood than I need at the moment, and it’s lacking ways to tame and redirect that power productively.

Google Wave is particularly confusing to users without a fair degree of tech savvy to begin with, and possibly not worth the ramp-up time required to get users new to the app on board. Of course, later on, if Google opens Wave up to developers, custom installs and simplified UIs might ease the transition, but I’m still not sure it can replace other apps tailored to specific tasks.

I must ask, who are these people who have time for all this? How is this making our lives “easier”? It is NOT, it is wasting tons of people’s time. Heck, I read once that an average employee spends over 10% of their day on Facebook. Really? Wow, I would want my money back if I was the boss. But that is not all. Add the amount of time a person Twitters, IMs, and now Google Waves. (Is that what you call it? I’m waving at you. “Look at me, I’m special.” Now please will someone gag me with a spoon?) I bet an average employee does not even work 50% of their day due to these “time saves”. What a joke.

Google's innovative tool could face a long road to acceptance among users resistant to change.

Surely one of the coolest and most talked-about events at last week’s Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Francisco was the demo of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)’s new collaboration platform, Google Wave, during Wednesday morning’s plenary session.

But is this ingenious real-time collaboration environment too clever for its own good?

Google Wave is a new web-based collaboration tool that's notoriously difficult to understand. This guide will help. Here you'll learn how to use Google Wave to get things done with your group. Because Wave is such a new product that's evolving quickly, this guidebook is a work in progress that will update in concert with Wave as it grows and changes.

It's still early days for Google Wave but already there are a large number of Gadgets and Robots being developed. If you don't know the difference, Gadgets are local, client-side (as in they run on your computer), Javascript and HTML. Robots run remotely on another server.

Simply click on the map on a location and it will provide you with the latitude and longitude in the callout window.

Living and working in Lisbon has opened many doors for this gourmet chef. Proprietor of the distinct food establishments: Mezzaluna and La Brus”K"etta, Guerrieri prepares gastronomic combinations which reflect his artistic abilities.
His latest venture is providing affordable personalized gourmet sandwiches for people on the go. “Gourmet doesn’t always need to be served on a warm dish. It was time for a slow sandwich – no mayo, no mule, no fatty sauces and no compressed left over chicken parts!” The main objective was to hold on to some good old fashioned Portuguese tastes without sacrificing their original flavours. The first City Sandwich opened during October of 2005 and has shown a positive response from the public. Reviews with “delicious text” and satisfied clients made Guerrieri want to take this concept to further heights.

There's a whole lot of money in play, but as users we don't think that's the most interesting part of this story. There may be some very interesting consequences, both positive and negative, for innovation – our favorite part of the online experience. Our guess is that it will be a net negative for forward-looking web users.

Bing's new substantial market share will put new pressure on Google to step up to the plate and wow us again, but the likely loss of Yahoo's own search work could be a major loss for the web at large. There are some awesome projects underway at Yahoo! Search and the people who work on them have to be concerned about the future of their jobs and work. We're worried too, we really like the things they've made for us to use.

Google announced today that everyone using Google Apps enterprise or education editions can now use their organization's domain as a federated single sign-on. That means that millions of schools, businesses and other organizations can now use their Apps accounts as an OpenID.

For a movement that has seen adoption held back because of confusion or just plain unfamiliarity among consumers, this should be a huge boost. However, a few prominent developers and advocates feel that Google's approach is not entirely acceptable. They are critical of the use of vendor-specific extensions and APIs instead of the open standards that are so important to OpenID.

The concept of Co housing, also known as Ecovillages or Intentional Communities, is an alternative way of living where people strive together with a common vision.