Five years ago, "social" was the next great paradigm, and sure enough, today social is everywhere and everything is social. Facebook's most recent announcements capitalize on this ubiquity and position the company as the hub of a system with an almost infinite number of spokes.
We are today with virtual personal assistants (VPAs) where Facebook was in 2004 - simultaneously on the verge of something very big, and yet only at the very beginning of a decades-long trajectory.
Latitude and ReadWriteWeb recently published a two-part results series on our open innovation study, "Children's 'Future Requests' for Computers and the Internet," which asked kids 6-12 years of age to ideate future Web technology concepts.
Latitude created this video to sum up the study's key findings and big pathways for research, innovation and the future of the Web.
"In Google we trust." That may very well be the motto of today's young online users, a demographic group often dubbed the "digital natives" due their apparent tech-savvy. Having been born into a world where personal computers were not a revolution, but merely existed alongside air conditioning, microwaves and other appliances, there has been (a perhaps misguided) perception that the young are more digitally in-tune with the ways of the Web than others.
That may not be true, as it turns out. A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.
Yesterday, we posted part one of the findings for "Children's Future Requests for Computers and the Internet" (PDF summary), an open innovation study by Latitude Research and ReadWriteWeb. The study asked children aged 12 and under to illustrate their ideas for new Web and computer technologies.
In our previous post, we looked at the findings from an interaction angle. We discussed how younger generations expect to have increasingly intuitive interactions with technology - and not just localized to swiping and tapping an iPad, but really moving things in the world of physical activity and objects. This represents "a shift from smartphones that can go anywhere to The Internet of Things which is everywhere," said Jessica Reinis, the analyst who headed up the study.
If we were to ask you to name one thing you wish your computer (or another Web-enabled device) could do, but doesn't now, what would you say? How about the ability to "touch the things that are in the screen, to feel and move them." That's what 7-year-old Daniela* wants. Matthew, 6, wishes he could play 3D games on his computer, and Jenna, 7, would like a solar-powered laptop. Cristina, 12, thinks it'd be great to travel more - to experience new, far-away places with the help of virtual reality.
Understanding that kids are excellent innovators, Latitude Research in conjunction with ReadWriteWeb recently conducted a study asking children to ideate concepts for new computer and Web technologies - and the results are in.
"When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks," began Apple CEO Steve Jobs at last night's D8 conference, trying to come up with an apt analogy for the recent changes we're seeing in the computing landscape of the new millennium. "But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them."
Jobs wasn't trying to disparage Microsoft. He was actually referring to the form factor of "personal computers" - laptops and desktops alike. It's a discussion about the upcoming era of computing where everything becomes radically different, from the form factor itself to the user interface and interactions that, combined, make up what we think of as "personal computing."
Love Linux? Love your Mac? No you don't - not like the hundreds of people out there with Apple and Tux tattoos. But even then, that's not hard core - it's not like Apple is just a Web 2.0 darling du jour.
Should college students consider buying an iPad to use in place of netbook or notebook computer? Since the release of the new Apple slate device a week ago, this question has weighed on the minds of students, parents, teachers and school administrators alike. On the surface, the iPad seems like it could be the ideal device for mobile computing on campus with features like its optional iWork office suite, an Internet-connected bookstore called iBooks which supports the commonly used DRM-free ePub format, the 160,000+ applications available via iTunes, many of which are educational in nature and, of course, access to the greatest research tool ever invented: the Web.
However, despite the iPad's pluses, there are still some issues that students should consider before purchasing this device.
"Advances in science and technology can launch from unassuming springboards," says a recent article in Scientific American, chronicling how brilliant thinkers "reached back to childhood to help them develop tiny transistors, study particle separation, make microfluidics devices, and fight cancer." More specifically, they reached for Etch A Sketch, Legos, Shrinky Dinks and balloons.
Imagine if the tens of millions who give time and money to tending their Farmville game were instead working for social change. A team of Hollywood's elite talent has been working with an army of advisors for six years to create a game building infrastructure that will make it so.
Armchair Revolutionary is a social gaming and strategic crowdsourcing concept that's based on real life social needs. The games are designed to connect the real-time Web to real-time social change.
