Tag Archives: digital

Creating the First Cultural #DigitalLibrary in Canada’s North | University of Alberta #libraries #culture

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(Edmonton) When you live 400 kilometres from the nearest library, getting information can be a real challenge. Professor Ali Shiri of the University of Alberta’s School of Library and Information Studies is leading a project to address this issue. Together with co-investigator Dinesh Rathi, Shiri and a team of collaborators have begun to bridge the information gap for some of Canada’s most isolated people with a project called Digital Library North.

Currently, people in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region—an area that spans 90,650 square kilometres—must travel to the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre to access hard-copy information. The challenges with distance and winter above the treeline limit the access. The SSHRC-funded project will create a digital library infrastructure to address the unique information needs in Canada’s northern regions over the next three years. READ MORE: Creating the first cultural digital library in Canada’s North | University of Alberta.

#Digital #Afterlife: Managing Memories of Loved Ones in the Digital Age | #death #socialmedia #memorials

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A little discussed topic but an event we may all be confronted with at some point. Below are some resources I have collected regarding managing your digital afterlife or the memories of loved ones in the digital age. The resources provide information on preserving memories on social profiles such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and downloading data from Apple, Google and other services.

Information

Research

Services

 

Biodiversity Heritage Library Launches #Crowdsourcing #Games | Library Journal #libraries #search #gamification #volunteer

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The Purposeful Gaming and BHL project recently launched its first two browser-based video games, Smorball and Beanstalk.  Both are designed to offer players a fun online diversion while helping the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) enable full-text searching of digitized materials. Funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which was awarded in December 2013, the project is exploring how games might be used to entice people to participate in crowdsourcing efforts at libraries and museums. READ MORE: Biodiversity Heritage Library Launches Crowdsourcing Games | Library Journal

The Key to #Digital #Learning? Bring It Into the Real World | WIRED #kids #education #museums #interactive

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IF YOU WANT to teach your kid about ecology, sustainability, or the future of interactive education, take them to the New York Hall of Science and head for the giant virtual waterfall.

The massive digital faucet feeds the ecosystems of Connected Worlds, a cutting-edge installation that aims to teach youngsters about environmental science by immersing them in it. It’s an interactive simulation big enough to walk around inside—virtual reality that’s not piped into a headset but projected onto a real physical space.

Kids can shape the environment through a clever combination of physical and digital interaction. READ MORE: The Key to Digital Learning? Bring It Into the Real World | WIRED.

@Google Translate’s App Now Instantly #Translates Printed Text In 27 #Languages | TechCrunch #apps #tech

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One of the most intense experiences you’ll ever have is visiting a country that speaks a language different than yours. There’s a host of tools you can use, but Google’s Translate product has leapfrogged just about everything out there over the years.

Its most handy, and impressive, tool is the six-month-old instant translation feature, using the goodies from the acquired Word Lens, that lets you point your camera at something written in another language, say a sign, and it’ll translate into your language with ridiculous accuracy in almost real-time.

Today, that feature is expanding today from seven languages to 27 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, Hungarian, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. The update is rolling out over both iOS and Android.

READ MORE: Google Translate’s App Now Instantly Translates Printed Text In 27 Languages | TechCrunch.

Link to Google Translate on iTunes.

Must Read: New ‘Walk-In Comic Book’ Uses Augmented Reality to Show Sexual Assault Survivors as Heroes | Mashable #genderequality #comics #augmentedreality

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Watch the video!!

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When a young woman in New Delhi, India, was brutally gang-raped on a bus in December 2012, making international headlines, Ram Devineni wasn’t going to stay silent. The filmmaker and artist marched in the streets alongside other protesters, calling for swift justice and systemic change to the all-too-common violence against women that plagues the country.

When he asked a Delhi police officer what he thought about the young woman’s assault, the officer told him, “No good girl walks home alone at night,” implying that she either provoked the rape or, worse, deserved it. His words reflected the misguided, patriarchal view that permeates much of Indian society, silencing women even further with social stigma.

“I realized at that moment that this was not a legal issue, but a cultural problem,” Devineni tells Mashable. “As a filmmaker and as an artist, I wanted to really address this in a cultural context.”

That’s why, two years later, he created and directed the transmedia comic book Priya’s Shakti — a story about the titular Priya, a gang-rape survivor-turned-superhero who partners with a Hindu goddess to fight sexual violence and challenge the patriarchy.

Co-written by Vikas K. Menon with artwork by Dan Goldman, the comic book is the first of its kind to use augmented reality and image recognition, using various media to tell the story of fighting back against sexual assault.

READ MORE: New ‘walk-in comic book’ uses augmented reality to show sexual assault survivors as heroes | Mashable

The Next Big Thing In Design? Less Choice | Co.Design #design #tech

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The article discusses the importance and applications of anticipatory design.

Technology has revolutionized the way we live our lives and do business, but it has done a terrible job reducing the stress of so many decisions. Industry by industry, great digital design has eliminated middlemen from the economy and put users in control, making it fast and easy for us to determine what we want and purchase it directly, whether on a computer or over a phone. Now, with unlimited opportunities for decision-making, we have essentially made ourselves the middlemen in our own lives.

The enjoyment, and even fetishization, of the beautifully designed experiences we rely on to make these decisions has distracted us from our original goal of simplifying our lives. We’ve forgotten that the ultimate purpose of an interface is to make things simpler. In the future, the best interface will be no interface at all and the best decisions will be made without me having to make them (but according to my preferences and goals). 

READ MORE: The Next Big Thing In Design? Less Choice | Co.Design | business + design

9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew | Gizmodo

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Every day, you hear about security flaws, viruses, and evil hacker gangs that could leave you destitute — or, worse, bring your country to its knees. But what’s the truth about these digital dangers? We asked computer security experts to separate the myths from the facts. Here’s what they said.

READ MORE: 9 Facts About Computer Security That Experts Wish You Knew | Gizmodo

Monica Lewinsky: ‘Shame is an industry and the currency is clicks’ | Mashable

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If anyone knows what it means to be publicly humiliated, it’s Monica Lewinsky. In one of very few major media appearances in more than a decade, Monica Lewinsky took the TED stage on Thursday to champion online compassion. In the years since arguably the biggest sex scandal of our time, Lewinsky has turned her attention to activism, namely the fight against cyberbullying and public shame.

READ MORE: Monica Lewinsky: ‘Shame is an industry and the currency is clicks’ | Mashable

Also see: Imagine walking a mile in someone else’s headline: Monica Lewinsky speaks at TED2015 | TEDBlog

Sesame Street’s executive producer on staying relevant after 46 years | Engadget

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Thanks to Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, the competition for kid’s eyeballs is fiercer than ever, but that’s not slowing down Sesame Street. Now in its 46th year, the show is making a bigger and bigger push into social media, with often hilarious (but secretly educational) results. I sat down with the show’s Senior Vice President and Executive Producer, Carol Lynn-Parente, shortly after meeting my new best friend, Cookie Monster, to talk about the show’s digital life and more.

READ MORE: Sesame Street’s executive producer on staying relevant after 46 years |  | Engadget