Design with Intent

Feature deletion for environmental reasons

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 27, 2006 ⋅ 6 comments

From the Sunday Times, ‘Standby buttons face axe to curb energy waste’:
“Ministers want to do away with the standby buttons that allow [users] to flick their TVs and other electronic gadgets on and off while moving barely a muscle…

Nice attitude

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 27, 2006 ⋅ 2 comments

Someone from the UK just found this site by searching for “device to stop young people congregating” using a mobile phone provider’s search engine.
Now, I know, I know, there may be an important backstory behind that person’s search. Some people apparently really do have problems with kids intimidating them (e.g. see these comments on the [...]

Review: Everyware by Adam Greenfield

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 22, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

This is the first book review I’ve done on this blog, though it won’t be the last. In a sense, this is less of a conventional review than an attempt to discuss some of the ideas in the book, and synthesise them with points that have been raised by the examination of architectures of control: [...]

Friend or foe: Battery-authentication ICs?

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 20, 2006 ⋅ 3 comments

Via MAKE, an article from Electrical Design News looking at lithium battery authentication chips in products such as phones and laptops, designed to prevent users fitting ‘non-genuine’ batteries.
Now, the immediate response of most of us is probably “razor blade model!” or even “stifling democratic innovation!” (as Hal Varian or Eric von Hippel might put [...]

Spiked: ‘Enlightening the future’

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 12, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The always interesting Spiked (which describes itself as an “independent online phenomenon”) has a survey, Enlightening the Future, in which selected “experts, opinion formers and interesting thinkers” are asked about “key questions facing the next generation – those born this year, who will reach the age of 18 in 2024″.
The survey is ongoing throughout [...]

More self-regarding nonsense

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 12, 2006 ⋅ One comment

Architectures of Control in Design is in the Technorati top 100,000 for the first time.
I know that’s not exactly spectacular, but it’s satisfying, and pleasing, to know that more people are coming across the site and finding it interesting enought to link to! Thanks to everyone who links to us, and indeed everyone who reads [...]

DRM now the ‘biggest issue’ in preserving information for the future

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 11, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The Guardian has an interview with Richard Masters, of the British Library’s digital objects management programme looking at the impact of technology on archiving. The usual worries about file formats, media incompatability and how to select what to preserve and what not to are discussed, but:
“The biggest issue is digital rights management. At the moment, [...]

Oh yeah, that Windows Kill Switch

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 10, 2006 ⋅ 3 comments

I know the furore surrounding Microsoft’s ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ is a few days old, and perhaps I should have blogged about it at the time, specifically the rumoured ‘Kill Switch’ which would remotely deactivate any PCs apparently running ‘non-genuine’ copies of XP. That’s certainly a candidate for my feature deletion/external control category, as well as [...]

Embedding control in society: the end of freedom

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 9, 2006 ⋅ One comment

Henry Porter’s chilling Blair Laid Bare – which I implore you to read if you have the slightest interest in your future – contains an equally worrying quote from the LSE’s Simon Davies noting the encroachment of architectures of control in society itself:
“The second invisible change that has occurred in Britain is best expressed by [...]

Forcing functions designed to increase product consumption

By Dan Lockton ⋅ July 9, 2006 ⋅ 6 comments

A few days ago, Tim Quinn of Dangerous Curve posted an interesting observation on the Simple Control in Products page:
“This may not be what you had in mind, but I immediately thought of such things as toothpaste pumps that ‘meter’ use to insure the product will be used up quickly at a rate higher than [...]

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Archive for July, 2006