“And then there’s the matter of compartmentalization. A large portion of Japanese citizens live with only a cellphone as their computing device — not a personal computer, said Hideshi Hamaguchi, a concept creator and chief operating officer of LUNARR. And the problem with the iPhone is it depends on a computer for syncing media and [...]
“Indeed, Japanese handsets have become prime examples of feature creep gone mad. In many cases, phones in Japan are far too complex for users to master. “There are tons of buttons, and different combinations or lengths of time yield different results,’” says Koh Aoki, an engineer who lives in Tokyo. “Experimenting with different key combinations [...]
The recently published Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies looks like it has a lot of interesting pieces in it.
Digital Divides and Social Mobility
The Mobile Makes Its Mark – Lara Srivastava
Shrinking Fourth World? Mobiles, Development, and Inclusion – Jonathan Donner
Mobile Traders and Mobile Phones in Ghana – Ragnhild Overå
Mobile Networks: Migrant Workers in Southern China – [...]
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Posted 31 May 2008
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Also tagged: academic, book, cell, ethnography, media, mobile, mobility, phones, poverty, research, society, sociology, technology, trends
There’s an interesting collection of research papers about the use of mobile phones in Asia from a conference held in Beijing two years ago. Papers include ‘Mobile Cultures of Migrant Workers in Southern China’, ‘How the University Students in East Asia Utilize Mobile Phones’, and ‘News circulation by means of mobile phones in China’.
Link: Mobile [...]
Nokia’s launched a “lab” that facilitates experimental creativity using mobile devices.
“Nokia Trends Lab is a physical and virtual hub of mobility experiences. Nokia wants to enable creative thinkers to push the boundaries of how to use mobility as part of the creative process.”
Link: Nokia Trends Lab (nokiatrendslab.com)
The design of mobile technology is influenced by the technologies of mobility. That is, the way we’re mobile has an impact on the tools we use (kind of obvious, of course).
How are the changes in the technologies and culture of mobility going to affect people’s needs? How are cultural norms going to adapt to changes [...]
The book “Personal, Portable, Pedestrian : Mobile Phones in Japanese Life” has just been released. Following is an excerpt from an Amazon review:
“In Japan and Europe, cellphone usage is higher than in the United States. Thus to an American reader, this book can be interesting on several levels. Perhaps as a sociological commentary on how [...]
An interesting summary of some of the cross-cultural considerations for design.
“The researchers differentiated between three different cultures by rating them across four cultural dimensions: “uncertainty avoidance” (the amount of effort someone expends to maintain predictability and minimize risk), “individualism vs. collectivism” (the degree to which someone focuses on the welfare of the group at the [...]
Published by Gabriel White.