it’s only a beta version and available on the invitation-only basis at the moment, and the orange-pikeo association is not apparent anywhere - maybe it’s a whole metaphorical approach? after all, there’s no orange in orange pekoe tea… i’m not sure.
pikeo is a picture-sharing platform like flickr, but with a lot of mash-up features. i haven’t been invited (feeling pretty virtually unpopular at the moment for this reason) so i don’t know exactly what features they are and how they work, but from screens shots and breif descriptions, it seems to incorporate things like geoTagging and mobie integration (well, it’s orange who’s behind this thing anyway) - it looks like the user can enter three basic tags: WHO/WHAT/Where is it?
here’s some info from the site:
Pikeo is a beta product from France Telecom Research and Development LLC in South San Francisco and is not a “certified” France Telecom product. What does this mean in normal language? It means that:
Bugs are possible. Maybe even inevitable. Like nasal hair.
We still have a long way to go before everything runs perfectly, but please let us know when (gulp) things go wrong - at support@Pikeo.com.
There is limited customer support right now. But it’s nice and friendly limited support. You can reach us at: support@Pikeo.com - and we’ll do our best to sort you out.
We think that pictures tell better stories when you can give people some idea of where they were taken. Pikeo lets you look at your pictures along with a map showing ‘the scenes of your crimes’.
Pikeo also helps you organise your pictures in smart albums based on ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘who’ information (called ‘tags’). You can decide which of your pictures you want to share with your family, friends and everyone else, and which ones you want no one to see. Ever, ever.
Best of all, you’ll be in full control of your community via our innovative ‘Contacts’ browsing tool – which lets you keep the riff-raff out (unless your family and friends are riff-raff. That’s for you to decide…).
i’m not sure how successful this is going to be. the timing is crucial when it comes to online business, and i wonder how many people will be willing to go through the painfully arduous migration process frm flickr to this - or any other new platform in that matter. looking at all the new things popping up like wild flowers in the backyard of my old place, i can’t help but be amazed at the clever achievement of SK Telecom in scoring cyworld in 2003. perfect timing - it introduced the concept of blogging to korea (cyworld was first launched in 1999), it combined main features of all these huge then yet-to-be-seen services like myspace and flickr, while fitting perfectly into the techno-social environment of south korea. although i do doubt its success in US (mainly because of the timing of its introduction), i still think it’s a fantastic business model, and i’m still very much fascinated by it on many different levels (apart from the fact that it doesn’t work in safari and only kind-of in firefox).
anyway, it’d be interesting to see how pikeo does globally. and something completely irrelevant - there’s also a japanese band called orange pekoe. they’ve got some lovely, sometimes boring, easy-to-listen-to tunes.
I wonder why bugs just come to crash and burn.
I wonder why they don’t go to sleep.
I wonder if typing under my sheet is a good idea.
My back hurts, but at least the bugs don’t die.
I wish I could breathe better in here.
I wish I had that piece of chocolate cake and chai today.
Winds get so wild at night.
I’m not sure if I could do the same walk now as I did this morning.
I’ve been hearing a cow mooing. day and night.
I wonder if there really is a cow somewhere nearby.
Maybe it’s a bear. Or a big cow-like dog. I don’t know.
I wanted to go away to be alone.
So here I am, at Chenrezig.
Holy crap hasn’t happened yet; holy epiphany hasn’t either.
It’s weird how quickly the new becomes the familiar.
I’m not wondering about the meaning of my existence as a human being or how everything arises from emptiness. Perhaps I should’ve gone along to that all-day “deepening your meditation” course that was happening today. Perhaps not.
Some moments have been precious as ever. With the beautiful trees and flowers, the naughty bush turkey following me for no apparent reason (I’ve got a phobia for any species that belongs to the class Aves), and a simple chat with Andrew, who sweeps and cooks here.
I remembered how I used to walk around holding hands with a friend. I remembered some other things not as pleasant. Memory lives on in such a tricky manner. I never know what’s true and what’s not. I enjoyed my last meal in Brisbane at Mondo . The baby beet & yoghurt tart, pear and raspberry juice, the gorgeous girl who served us. It was beautiful. I think I’ll go back there for my first meal back in Brisbane. Soup this time. Then I’ll walk across the road, go inside my place, and feel at home. I have beautiful jasmine on my balcony. I cleverly named her Jas. I’ll have a siesta, just like today.
There are so many questions but not enough answers. I wonder if this is the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe I really should go to the second part of “deepening your meditation” tomorrow. Alternatively, I can do exactly the same thing as today – take a walk, eat, read, sleep, do little things, and not type under the sheet at night, then sleep – and see what happens.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government opened “Seoul Oasis,” a portal Web site (www.seouloasis.net) that allows citizens of Seoul to freely exchange their ideas and suggestions on municipal policies.
full story here
seoul’s been going through some huge changes in many ways - environmentally, culturally, and now socially, it seems. i’d be really interested to see how this thing goes. it kind of reminds me of “shinmoongo,” introduced by King Taejong during Chosun dynasty, which was basically a drum that a commoner could come and hit to directly discuss their grievances with the King if the matter could not be resolved through appropriate processes on a local level/s.
seoul’s very exciting. never liked the city before, but the last time i went - early this year - i was really impressed by all the changes that were going on to make it a better place to live. there are lots of interesting galleries and museums, too. would love to go again soon.
Losang Rabgey grew up as a Tibetan refugee in Canada. Her childhood included countless demonstrations in the cold streets outside of empty Chinese embassies. She remembers being stopped by an Anglophone Canadian at one demonstration who asked, “Why are a bunch of Asians asking for a Free Quebec?” She realized that there’s a long way to go in terms of education about Tibet.
full article here
m: he got kicked out only because he’s gay.
j: what? is that still happening?
it was a joke, marcus.
there are many things that we need to care about - we just can’t stay ignorant about. sometimes it’s overwheleming to see just how much we need to learn and practically apply what we know to keep the sustainability of this world adequate and healthy. when i was younger, i simply didn’t care. i just couldn’t figure out why the whole world was against me. i was angry, naive, foolish, and ignorant. it’s only this year, i think, that i started to see myself for who i really am (at least at this moment of my life) and consequently accept the enormous problems that are beyond me, and that though i may not be able to solve all those problems, i can at least contribute to the slow/quick solving process.
marcus asked me today what the purpose of my phd was. well, apart from the general willingness to “contribute to the world knowledge,” there’s a few.
i want to get people to pay more attention to non-western cultures (especially east-asian culture, to which i was born) in this euro-americo-cetric world
i want young people to know that they’re not only littlies who can’t do anything (the world, after all, is not really against you)
i want to see positive aspects of technology (we’ve done more than enough harm to the nature, of which we’re part)
i want people to play (and be happy/ier)
these are pretty general statements, really. but i don’t see my phd as my definitive answer to the world’s problems. it’s a stepping stone. as marcus said, we take over the world after the phd, not with it.
recently i’ve been thinking about quite a few things, but mostly about myself (ha! selfishness shamelessly exposed) and i’ve made some significant decisions in and for my life. it’s pretty exciting. before i actually involve myself with those decisions, i think i’ll go away for a few days and just be alone. of course, as a good student should, i will take my work with me - work may not be against me, but it’s waiting for me. the only place i can think of is chenrezig. i love the air and the sky there, and most importantly, their chai… (jaz, temporarily loses consciousness and starts drooling … then wakes up). well, anyway… i think i should stop here and go for a walk… or make chai or something.
Just in case I was too subtle last time about the race and gender politics of the personification of technology in the ‘Get a Mac’ ads, here are two new ones (one, two). I’m speechless.
i was able to attend the first day of the ATOM conference and even had a chat with mizuko ito over coffee last saturday (much indebted to you, john!). had been waiting excitedly and expectantly for the moment i finally get to see her, so it almost didn’t feel adequately real to me as i was watching her in front of the audience in z 411, qut gardens point on a summery brisbane saturday. there have been numerous surreal moments recently. perhaps dienna was right; huge changes that i can’t even conceptualise may already be happening right now. fun surreal times.
// mizuko ito @ atom 2006
mizuko ito was the very first keynote speaker at the conference. her talk was basically a condensed version of her past-present works, ranging from the social life of the mobile and children’s media mix, through to the most recent study of purikura. her background is in anthropology, and her technosocial approach views the youth as fluent natives of digital world. i guess this is why so called “post-structuralist” research is most appropriate in studying the youth of today. the individualised, fluid shift in the “power geometries” of today is more organic to youth - living in nagara (while-doing-something-else)-hood.
her emphasis on viewing youth social practices “not incomplete or immature but fully competent as the fluent natives of digital world” reminded me instantly of the film “hana to arisu (hana & alice),” which i think captures beautifully the seemingly (in adults’ eyes at least) loose sense of temporality, or the temporal language of youth. this, to me, sounds clearly like “play.” this fascinates me - and this is one of the main areas that i’m hoping to find out more about through my phd. the idea of play manifested/experienced/created for and by youth through mobile media. to achieve this, i thought i could take a similar approach to that of mizuko’s. to capture the everyday use, these methods were taken:
Close “direct’ observations of people’s activity in divers locations rather than reported usage.
Interpreting user experience by analysing subjectve reports 9interviews) in relation to observational data
i would love to do interviews (rather than survey and focus group, taking the advice from randy kluver and barbara atkins) and also observations of mobile interactions in the space young people occupy voluntarily (hang-outs) and for pragmatic reasons (subway). but the problem is, i may be a partial speaker of the language of youth, but i don’t speak any chinese and my japanese is laughable - yes, this whole language barrier thing may be breakable but not when you have extremely limited resources finantially and time-wise. i need to speak to someone… hopefully, well, definitely before my confirmation.
anyway, meeting mizuko ito was one of the highlights of this year for me, and i thoroughly enjoyed it. i’m very thankful of john who kindly took me there, and of mizuko who, despite her crazy schedule, generously spared enough time to talk with us over coffee. i also had an embarrassing moment with her as well - i was walking out of the campus and ran into her who was walking into the campus for the conference after our coffee session, and she asked “are you leaving?” to which i replied “yes, i need to get some apples…” i’m sure i had a great impression on her as a serious and dedicated scholar. hahaha! well, if this helps, i usually don’t eat apples and the only apples i eat are from this particular stall at the west end markets, only on saturday mornings (but the apple guy wasn’t even there that day… :( ). ah- excuses.
