A panel discussion by three UWaterloo professors is set to take place that would be of interest to readers of this blog. The speakers and topics are as follows:
Aimée Morrison(English)
Loneliness and social media: What does it mean, and not mean, to have ‘Friends’ online?
One theme raised in our STV 202 class is that acquisition of information may precede practical knowledge of what to do with that information. This issue is especially noticeable in health, where it has become very easy to track people's vital statistics but not so easy to know how to use the results to benefit them.
Think of any commercial fitness tracker you can name.
An interesting article by Alice Hopton on CBC news discusses when people might be required to do without their smartphones.
The article describes Yondr, a small pouch in which smartphones may be locked during concerts, classes, and other social gatherings. Yondr's inventor, Graham Dugoni, argues that some people's habit of recording concerts, rather than just experiencing them unfiltered, undermines the point of such events, which is:
As Scott recently point out, the recent U.S. election has been characterized by a deluge of fake news. A concern about this phenomenon is that it distracts from the real news and entrenches readers in their prejudices through confirmation bias.
As we contemplate the fallout of the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, it is interesting to consider the rising influence of social media in modern politics.
Andy Greenberg at Wired points out an interesting project by one Julian Oliver: A printer that highjacks cell phone traffic. You may have heard of the StingRay, a device used by police (among others) that intercepts cell phone traffic by spoofing a legitimate cell phone tower. Well, Mr.
Andrea Ballatore and Simone Natale write whatever is the opposite of an obituary for the old-fashioned, print book. The piece was occasioned by the news that ebook sales among the UK's top-five booksellers actually fell in 2015. This news, the authors suggest, show that predictions that print books were doomed by the rise of the e-book were hype.
A recent article in the Toronto Star by Betsy Powell discusses controversies surrounding new colour schemes for Canadian police cars. A number of Canadian police forces have been changing from older schemes based on red, white, and blue to darker schemes based on grey, navy blue or black.
John Brownlee at FastCompany describes the "ultimate tuque", a version of the hat most associated with Canada. Designed by Toronto design firm Frontier, the tuque aims to get this iconic piece of headgear right.
In terms of function, the Frontier tuque is designed to address many common complaints about tuques, such as scratchy material, lack of warmth, retention of sweat, and being too tight. It may be the most technotonic tuque of all time!
Science writer David Berreby has posted an interesting piece in Psychology Today about the relationship between privacy and productivity in the workplace.