reMarkable Paper Pro Earns Calm Tech Certification
Here’s Why We Think It’s Amazing I’m incredibly excited to award Calm Tech certification to reMarkable Paper Pro, an innovative paper tablet with a color display. I recently completed the…
Tag: Design
Announcing Calm Tech Certified™ and the First Class of Certified Products
I’m excited to announce that the Calm Tech Institute (CTI) just announced the launch of Calm Tech Certified™, a certification program designed to help companies create products that…
A Centaur Solution For Customer Support: Amplifying AI Efficiency with Human Empathy
Centaur Solutions For Customer Support: Amplifying AI Efficiency with Human Empathy When customer service systems are poorly planned, people can get trapped in automation loops. This results in experie…
Our “Smart” Devices Still Have a Blue Light Problem — But There Are Solutions
Our “Smart” Devices Still Have a Blue Light Problem — But There Are Solutions Many appliances often glow bright blue at night. I recently spent the night at a friend’s house.…
Why We Need a Future Where Technology is Calm
Meet me at CES 2024! I’m helping launch the latest product from mui Lab, an award-winning creator of home devices based on Calm Technology principles. I’ve been advising…
How small memos can make large organizational changes
Monsieur Hulot encounters a massive office culture in Jacques Tatit’s 1967 film Playtime Amber Case is author of Calm Technology and a Research Director at the Metagovernance Project. A…
Sit, Siri! Designing Our Tech to Have Good Etiquette
Sometimes we need to tell our devices what to do. Illustration by the author. If you’re lucky, you awake in the morning to an overeager puppy who bounds onto…
Inside the Very Human Origin of the Term “Artificial Intelligence” — And Its Seven Decade…
Inside the Very Human Origin of the Term “Artificial Intelligence” — And Its Seven Decade Boom/Bust Cycle With so much growing interest and fear around AI, it may be helpful…
What It Means to Design Technology That’s “Pass-Through”
Windows are the ultimate pass-through technologies. The best example of a technology interface is one you rarely notice — even if it’s powerfully enhancing your reading experience of these words…
The Perfect Fit
In my new book, The Perfect Fit: Creative Work in the Global Shoe Industry (University of Chicago Press, 2022) I study the work of repair and maintenance necessary…
Is it Going to Be Okay? / Est-ce que ça va aller?
Introduction This is is a multilingual comic that serves as a meditation on the infrastructures of COVID-19, care, and time. In the spirit of the multilingual spaces I…
If I Could Talk to the Algorithm
In the film Doctor Dolittle (1967), the title character yearns to “Talk to the Animals,” as the song goes, to understand their mysterious and often vexing ways. It…
Uncovering Ethnography in Creative Practice Research with Machines
A live performance of Oliver Bown’s Zamyatin system with clarinetist François Houle This blog post comes out of a discussion with Ritwik Banerji about the ‘hidden’ role of…
Resume
Sydney Yeager INSIGHT · STRATEGY · INNOVATION Innovation powered by empathic insights and data-driven decision-making. As a digital anthropologist, I synergize qualitative and quantita…
Powerpoint Karaoke, a Ph.D. Version
This browser does not support HTML5 audio Listen to an audio recording of this post read by Zhou Zhou “You win the lottery! You are a millionaire! You…
Urban Acupuncture Design Theory: Researching New Development Practices in South Africa
Sometimes it only takes a “spark,” a “simple, focused intervention,” a “single stroke of genius,” or “the single prick of a needle” to release the flows and create…
How to Build a Sandwich
A degree in sociocultural anthropology may not be the most obvious background for a food stylist, yet it was a love for hands-on, detailed fieldwork that led me…
Smartphones “In-Between” or: What Do Smartphones Have in Common With Doors?*
Suzana Jovicic Credits: Thomas Sobottka It is Friday night in a youth centre on the outskirts of Vienna; the lights are dim, and loud local Rap music is…
“Doing Being a Latina,” or Performing Identities Through a Computer Voice
The ability to communicate is often taken-for-granted and imperceptible, despite being vital to everyday life. It defines our social performances as family members, professionals, and neighbors. Moreo…
Waschbeton 15
Eigentlich ein perfektes Haus. O.W. Ungers, der ein Haus ohne Eigenschaften bauen wollte und dabei scheiterte, hätte hier sein Vorbild gefunden. (Foto: genova 2020)
Waschbeton 13
(Foto: genova 2020)
Waschbeton 10
Ein Schokokuss aus Waschbeton. Danke dafür. (Foto: genova 2019)
Waschbeton 9
(Foto: genova 2018)
Architecture as a Justice-Accessing Technology in Postwar Guatemala
Forest analysis of scorched earth. Courtesy of Daniele Profeta. Princeton University, 2015. On an early January morning in 2015 a group of lawyers from the Guatemalan NGO Mujeres…