Faster Forward Archive: Digital culture

Augmenting my 'augmented reality' review (updated)

If you've been wondering why some people have started walked around while holding a smartphone a foot in front of their face, today's column may explain the phenomenon. My story covers something called "augmented reality." That might sound like something you experience after knocking back a few beers, but in...

'Unfriend' goes into the books

Yesterday, the Oxford University Press announced its 2009 Word of the Year: "unfriend." For the dwindling minority of Internet users who haven't at least looked at a social-networking site like Facebook, the verb refers to the act of removing somebody from your "friends list" -- the contingent of people whose...

Facebook game offers slammed as scams

Those weird games that half your friends on Facebook can't seem to leave alone might be more than a harmless waste of time. In a series of blog posts over the past two weeks, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has attacked the developers of these games for deceptive in-game ads that...

Twitter adds another way to keep score: lists

Last Friday, Twitter rolled out a feature it had been testing for a few months: the ability to sort the people you follow on the popular micro-blogging site into lists, much like how Facebook lets you create multiple friends lists. My initial concept of lists was no more sophisticated than...

Electronic voting lingers on

I voted earlier today, and I'd like to think that it was the last time I had to deal with an electronic voting machine. But knowing how long old software and hardware can stay in service in large bureaucracies, I fear that I'll have the same experience next year. And...

Google's recipe: to serve man?

The odds are pretty good that many of you found this article with the help of a large technology firm based on the West Coast. The odds also suggest that many of you will move on from this page to sites or services operated by the same company -- and...

Older Entries in This Category »

Performance Art: Reviewing the Concert as It Happens , Rob Pegoraro , September 30, 2009

Disney Does Digital Books, Rob Pegoraro , September 29, 2009

What I Uploaded for My Summer Vacation, Rob Pegoraro , September 14, 2009

Latest 'Mindset List' Catalogues My Obsolescence, Rob Pegoraro , August 31, 2009

Southeastern Conference To Fans: Shut Up And Watch, Rob Pegoraro , August 19, 2009

DVD-Copying Tools Lose in Court, Flourish in Real Life, Rob Pegoraro , August 13, 2009

Facebook Soups Up Search, Rob Pegoraro , August 12, 2009

Yes, Twitter's Down and Facebook's Slow, Rob Pegoraro , August 6, 2009

Sony Drops E-Book Prices, Introduces New Readers, Rob Pegoraro , August 5, 2009

Landlord Torches Reputation With Twitter-Driven Lawsuit, Rob Pegoraro , July 30, 2009

Barnes & Noble E-Book Store Yields Prosaic Results , Rob Pegoraro , July 24, 2009

Yahoo Redesigns Home Page; Does It Matter?, Rob Pegoraro , July 22, 2009

Kindle Gets Company With Barnes & Noble E-Book Store, Rob Pegoraro , July 21, 2009

The Web Looks Back on Apollo 11 , Rob Pegoraro , July 20, 2009

How Social Networks Can Be a Friend to Viruses, Rob Pegoraro , July 10, 2009

Gmail, Other Google Apps Escape Beta Status, Rob Pegoraro , July 7, 2009

Facebook Adding Overexposure Options, Rob Pegoraro , June 29, 2009

The Bad News Network: Twitter, Facebook and Liveblogs, Rob Pegoraro , June 23, 2009

New EFF Site Tracks Terms-Of-Service Changes, Rob Pegoraro , June 18, 2009

Get Your Facebook Usernames Here!, Rob Pegoraro , June 10, 2009

App Outages and File Lockouts, In The Cloud And On The Ground, Rob Pegoraro , May 22, 2009

Google Gets Into the Public-Profile Business, Rob Pegoraro , April 23, 2009

Facebook Users Voting On New Terms of Service , Rob Pegoraro , April 22, 2009

April Foolin': The 2009 Edition, Rob Pegoraro , April 1, 2009

Microsoft Closes the Book on Encarta, Rob Pegoraro , March 31, 2009

Facebook Readies (Yet Another) Home-Page Facelift, Rob Pegoraro , March 27, 2009

Upgrading Transit's Interface: Metro Releases Google Transit Data, Rob Pegoraro , March 23, 2009

Kutiman's "Thru-You" Mashes Up Copyright Concepts, Rob Pegoraro , March 18, 2009

Google To Deliver "More Interesting" Ads, Rob Pegoraro , March 16, 2009

Facebook Revamps Home Page, Invites Grammatical Anarchy, Rob Pegoraro , March 13, 2009

Hear Me Out On "The Future Of The Book", Rob Pegoraro , March 10, 2009

Getting Our Clocks Cleaned By Daylight Saving Time, Rob Pegoraro , March 9, 2009

Amazon Brings Kindle Books to iPhone, iPod Touch, Rob Pegoraro , March 4, 2009

Kvetching About Amazon's Kindle 2, Rob Pegoraro , February 26, 2009

Facebook Faces Privacy Fears, Rob Pegoraro , February 19, 2009

Amazon Unveils Kindle 2, Rob Pegoraro , February 9, 2009

Greatest Google Street View Hack Ever?, Rob Pegoraro , February 3, 2009

Pay To Watch Ads? Sure, Rob Pegoraro , February 2, 2009

How Will You Follow the Inauguration Online?, Rob Pegoraro , January 20, 2009

Win the Presidency, Lose Your E-Mail?, Rob Pegoraro , November 17, 2008

Memento 2.0: How Do Your Memories Live Online?, Rob Pegoraro , November 7, 2008

Internet Survives Election!, Rob Pegoraro , November 5, 2008

Grade Your Voting Interface, Rob Pegoraro , November 4, 2008

A Newspaper Loses the Paper, Rob Pegoraro , October 29, 2008

Google Settles Book-Scanning Lawsuit, Rob Pegoraro , October 28, 2008

Smarter Phones Leave No Escape From the Web , Rob Pegoraro , October 27, 2008

Blogged Down By Politics, Rob Pegoraro , October 21, 2008

Selling Computers Without Performance Anxiety?, Rob Pegoraro , October 20, 2008

Personal-Finance Tools For Stressful Times, Rob Pegoraro , September 22, 2008

Electronic Voting Follies Continue, Rob Pegoraro , September 12, 2008

News Flash: Not Every Story On the Web Is True, Rob Pegoraro , September 9, 2008

How Do You Read User Reviews?, Rob Pegoraro , September 8, 2008

What Did You Not Do (Online) For Your Summer Vacation?, Rob Pegoraro , August 29, 2008

What Makes an Event TV-Worthy or Web-Acceptable?, Rob Pegoraro , August 26, 2008

Your Boot-Up Cycle, Rob Pegoraro , August 8, 2008

Cameraphones and Concerts, Rob Pegoraro , July 28, 2008

Twitter Status Update, Rob Pegoraro , July 21, 2008

Social Skills For Address Books, Rob Pegoraro , July 10, 2008

Remembrance of Things Password, Rob Pegoraro , June 17, 2008

Who Needs "Push" E-Mail?, Rob Pegoraro , June 10, 2008

What's In a Username?, Rob Pegoraro , May 27, 2008

Social-Networking Sites And Multiple-Personality Disorder, Rob Pegoraro , May 12, 2008

Blog Burnout, Rob Pegoraro , May 8, 2008

Status Consciousness, Rob Pegoraro , May 1, 2008

Mail Manners: A Question Of Quoting, Rob Pegoraro , April 9, 2008

April Foolin', Rob Pegoraro , April 1, 2008

Fandom 2.0: A Quiz, Rob Pegoraro , March 31, 2008

Facebook's New Levels of Friendship, Rob Pegoraro , March 21, 2008

Driven to Distraction, Rob Pegoraro , March 20, 2008

Farewell, Arthur C. Clarke, Rob Pegoraro , March 19, 2008

Methods of March Madness, Rob Pegoraro , March 17, 2008

News You Can Reuse, Rob Pegoraro , March 6, 2008

Formats That Fail You, Rob Pegoraro , February 28, 2008

Tuesday Tidbits: Audio and DRM, Rob Pegoraro , February 26, 2008

Best Dot-Com Super Bowl Ad?, Rob Pegoraro , February 4, 2008

Book 'Em!, Rob Pegoraro , December 6, 2007

Calling On the Run, Rob Pegoraro , October 29, 2007

Facebook Follow-up, Rob Pegoraro , October 12, 2007

A Dot-Com Dream Lives, Rob Pegoraro , October 9, 2007

Buzzword In Progress: "Bacn"?, Rob Pegoraro , August 21, 2007

Theresa Duncan Has Signed Off, Rob Pegoraro , August 1, 2007

Fashionably Plate, Rob Pegoraro , July 31, 2007

Art Imitating (Digital) Life, Rob Pegoraro , July 27, 2007