Featured
Culture
Sugar Editorial Picks
Culture Vulture: Would You Watch Opera on the Internet?
You no longer have to be in NYC to get a dose of the Met: The famed opera house is going to start streaming its opera performances online! You'll be able to get audio and video via its "Met Player" from metopera.org.
While I think this is completely cool — I want all important forms of culture to be widely available on the web — I'm kind of curious about the audience rift.
How Do You Charge Up Without Electricity?
Most of us can no longer consider a life without the internet, technology or even access to electricity. In fact, if you're reading this right now, chances are you are sitting at a computer with the lights on, a cell phone handy and about a gazillion other gadgets and electrical outlets within walking distance. Jan Chipchase, who is a Principal Researcher in the User Experience Group of Nokia Research Center, does ethnographic fieldwork all over the globe, particularly in places where access to electricity and mobile phones is limited.
Other Search Results
Unfriend: The New American Dictionary's Word of the Year
The New Oxford American Dictionary just released its annual Word of the Year and it's unsurprisingly tech-related. This year's honor goes to "unfriend," defined as by the dictionary as, "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook."
The Word of the Year is chosen from newly created words by researchers based on language trends, popularity, and cultural significance.
How Well Do You Know Your Tech and Internet Culture?
I pretty much live my life on the Internet and among technology of all kinds. You can almost always find me online, looking for the newest thing, phrase, or gadget to hit "the 'Net." Hey, it's my job.
Do You Think Emoticons Carry Cultural Baggage?
A recent study used the hypothesis that facial cues in different parts of the face are interpreted differently based on an individual’s cultural background. The researchers confirmed this, with a study that found emoticons — as in the text-turned funny faces used in text messages, e-mail and instant messenger to replicate emotions and attitudes — are in fact interpreted differently depending on cultural factors.
Arstechnica notes the study found a culture's interpretation of facial expressions is dependent upon a combination of the culture's emotional openness and the challenge of controlling certain facial muscles.
What If Websites Were Rated Like Movies?
What if you went to a website and a rating popped up, telling you it was PG-13? That's the suggestion of British Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, who thinks that "film-style ratings" for websites is a good idea.
Whether it would work or not, I think it's a logical conclusion to come to, since even video games are given ratings these days.
Americans Split on 'Always On' Culture
Is there such thing as BlackBerry backlash? A new research study finds many users of wireless devices such as BlackBerry, Palm Treo and similar 'smartphones' struggle with the blurring of boundaries between life and work. The jury is split on whether devices like BlackBerry or Treo liberate or chain people to their work - an issue I ponder far too often when I wake up in the middle of the night and see the red "you have a message" light blinking on my BlackBerry.
Up Your Coolness Factor With Hipster Gadgets
Whether you define yourself as a hipster or not, one thing is for sure: those cool cats know their beer, indie bands, pop culture, and tech. In fact, I don't know a hipster who isn't slinging a solid level of geek knowledge and understanding of the hipness of certain oddball whatchamacallits.
New devices hit electronic shelves and the Internet daily — some are instantly welcomed with long lines while others are largely ignored.
Another Web Clip Show to Love: Tosh.0
TV land has gotten the message that the new cultural currency is viral videos, and it's responding by taking them from the Internet and building TV shows around them.
Chris Hardwick got his show this Summer, Web Soup, and Comedy Central also debuted its new web clip show last month, my new addiction, Tosh.0.
Hosted by Daniel Tosh, Tosh.0 is pretty much the same format of Web Soup (themselves both borrowing from The Soup's format), but its comedian host is as hilarious as the clips he's showing.
Vintage Video Game Memorial: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
However you watched Michael Jackson's memorial, we all have our own ways of dealing with the loss of a cultural icon. For my friends, it was by pulling out something dusty from the back of a closet: a Sega console and a copy of — wait for it — Michael Jackson's 1990 video game Moonwalker.
We blew out the game and hooked it up, and like Jackson himself, gameplay is a pretty outrageous.
More on GeekSugar
Fall Award Season
Top Brands
Uslu Airlines
Selected
Modalu