By Kate Canales and Ben McAllister - March 16, 2011
It’s been said that good artists borrow, but great artists steal. We recently discovered a corollary to this statement: when presenting borrowed ideas at SXSW you should credit your source, because he might be sitting in the audience. In our case, that source was the behavioral economist Dan Ariely. When we flashed his book cover up on the projector to give him (and Steven Pinker) credit for inspiring our presentation, we heard a voice calling out “I’m here!” and there he sat in row two.
By David Sherwin - March 15, 2011
Will devices of the future be just as as moral (or immoral) as our friends, family, and coworkers? Will they aid us in upholding our own sense of honesty?
In her panel yesterday at South by Southwest, Genevieve Bell posed the following question: "What might we really want from our devices?" In her field research as a cultural anthropologist and Intel Fellow, she surfaced themes that might be familiar to those striving to create the next generation of interconnected devices. Adaptable, anticipatory, predictive: tick the box. However, what happens when our devices are sensitive, respectful, devout, and perhaps a bit secretive? Smart devices are "more than being context aware," Bell said. "It's being aware of consequences of context."
By David Sherwin - March 12, 2011
A good number of panels at this year's SxSW have been about gaming, whether about living a gameful life, exploiting game mechanics in tackling world problems, and (yet to come) discussions about how design and technology can change education. They reflect our focus on the knobs and dials that we provide to others: the discrete handles that we use to influence the game. But they also reflect the higher-order understanding of how gaming can contribute to a joyful life. Two well-attended talks today, by Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR and Jane McGonigal from Institute of the Future, both in their own ways illuminated the impact of gaming as a whole on how we learn, how we live, and how we work together. This is a very raw synthesis of some of the ideas they've shared.
By David Sherwin - March 12, 2011
This afternoon I spent half an hour with a slew of South by Southwest attendees, sharing how my book Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills came about. I presented the above deck, and answered a ton of diverse questions from the audience. I've tried to capture some of the questions and my responses below.
Please be sure to go to the next frog talk on Tuesday, March 15, "Unwritten Rules: Brands, Social Psychology and Social Media" with Creative Director Kate Canales and Senior Strategist Ben McAllister.
By Andrea Bebber - March 10, 2011
Envisioning the digitally sentient city was the mission of the Cognitive Cities conference I attended on February 26 and 27th in Berlin.The conference brought together the brightest minds from urban planning, politics, academia, technology, and design to debate the future of cities and tech’s influence on urban life. Over the dense two days we delved into everything from democratic data visualization to the virtual layer added to cities to promote collective knowledge sharing.
By Kristina Loring - March 8, 2011
In a few days, herds of nerds, tech geeks, and entrepreneurs will descend upon Austin, Texas, for the conference where technology, design, and social media converge in a hyper social explosion—SXSW Interactive 2011.
A lot of veterans are offering all types of sage advice on how to transcend noob status (download that scheduling app and stay hydrated!), and how to savor the most out of the info-packed sessions brought to you by the digerati themselves. In the spirit of sharing (SXSWi content is part of the sharing vs. privacy debate), we’ve put together the beta version of frog’s itinerary—an open attempt to tackle the 500-plus panels with some kind of finesse.
By Kristina Loring - March 7, 2011
This Saturday marks the kickoff of the 18th annual SXSW Interactive Festival, and frog is proud to again host the legendary official opening night party. After last year’s augmented reality extravaganza, we are excited to bring you this year’s theme “Playing With The Time of Light.”
By Shrikant Latkar - February 22, 2011
The first thing I experienced when I got out of the airport in Barcelona was Huawei. They had a booth/stall in the airport, as well as huge participation in the show overall. They even had a remarkable size structure that looked like an airplane hanger, which was completely cordoned off and was accessible only to people who had registered with Huawei. I wonder how many millions they spent this time...
By Adam Richardson - February 16, 2011
If the jam-packed Android booth at Mobile World Congress, the ubiquity of the robot logo, and the line of people queuing up 2 hours ahead of Erik Schmidt's (swan song) keynote, then the answer is "yes." The booth actually had a nice vibe to it; though it was crowded, it was also quite easy going and people were enjoying themselves. There was a nice smoothie bar making interesting flavored drinks named after Android releases (Honeycomb, etc.). The entire space was really focused on app and hardware partners showing off their wares (all wearing matching t-shirts no doubt provided by Google - take that fragmentation!)
By Adam Richardson - February 15, 2011
The message on the second day of Mobile World Congress from the heads of AT&T, Vodafone, Telefonica, China Mobile and American Movil was unambiguous: competition, open-ness and cross-carrier interoperability are what is needed to take mobile to the next level. (Perhaps in the spirit of interoperability, all five gentlemen were wearing blue ties, mostly with dots.)
