Design with Intent

Two events next week

By Dan Lockton ⋅ May 20, 2009 ⋅ 4 comments

Next Wednesday evening, 27th May, I’ll be giving a presentation about Design with Intent at SkillSwap Brighton’s ‘Skillswap Goes Behavioural’ alongside Ben Maxwell from Onzo (pioneers of some of the most interesting home energy behaviour change design work going on at present). I hope I’ll be able to give a thought-provoking talk with plenty of [...]

Mosquito controversy goes high-profile

By Dan Lockton ⋅ February 13, 2008 ⋅ 10 comments

The Mosquito anti-teenager sound device, which we’ve covered on this site a few times, was yesterday heavily criticised by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, launching the BUZZ OFF campaign in conjunction with Liberty and the National Youth Agency:
Makers and users of ultra-sonic dispersal devices are being told to “Buzz Off” today [...]

Review: Architecture as Crime Control by Neal Katyal

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 18, 2007 ⋅ 5 comments

Review: Katyal, N. K. “Architecture as Crime Control”, Yale Law Journal, March 2002, Vol 111, Issue 5.
Professor Neal Kumar Katyal of Georgetown University Law School, best-known for being (successful) lead counsel in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case dealing with Guantanamo Bay detainees, has also done some important work on the use of design as a [...]

Some links

By Dan Lockton ⋅ January 17, 2007 ⋅ 2 comments

First, an apology for anyone who’s had problems with the RSS/Atom feeds over the last month or so. I think they’re fixed now (certainly Bloglines has started picking them up again) but please let me know if you don’t read this. Oops, that won’t work… anyway:
‘Gadgets as Tyrants’ by Xeni Jardin, looks at digital architectures [...]

BBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside

By Dan Lockton ⋅ October 17, 2006 ⋅ 5 comments

From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’:
“Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas.
But while the use of surveillance drones is among them, they would be a “long way off”, police said.
…
“The idea of the drone is a long way off, but it is about exploring [...]

‘Secret alarm becomes dance track’

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 28, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

The Mosquito sound has been mixed (sort of) into a dance track:
“…the sound is being used in a dance track, Buzzin’, with secret melodies only young ears can hear.
…
Simon Morris from Compound Security said: “Following the success of the ringtone, a lot of people were asking us to do a bit more, so we [...]

Countercontrol: blind pilots

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 28, 2006 ⋅ 2 comments

In a recent post, I discussed a Spiked article by Josie Appleton which included the following quote:
“Police in Weston-super-Mare have been shining bright halogen lights from helicopters on to youths gathered in parks and other public places. The light temporarily blinds them, and is intended to ‘move them on’, in the words of one [...]

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 7, 2006 ⋅ 7 comments

An image from Hendricus Loos’s 2001 US patent, ‘Remote Magnetic Manipulation of Nervous Systems’
In my review of Adam Greenfield’s Everyware a couple of months ago, I mentioned – briefly – the work of Hendricus Loos, whose series of patents cover subjects including “Manipulation of nervous systems by electric fields”, “Subliminal acoustic manipulation of nervous systems”, [...]

Some links: miscellaneous, pertinent to architectures of control

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 1, 2006 ⋅ Post a comment

Ulises Mejias on ‘Confinement, Education and the Control Society’ – fascinating commentary on Deleuze’s societies of control and how the instant communication and ‘life-long learning’ potential (and, I guess, everyware) of the internet age may facilitate control and repression:
“This is the paradox of social media that has been bothering me lately: an ‘empowering’ media that [...]

Planned addiction as a method of control: a parasitic lock-in business model

By Dan Lockton ⋅ September 1, 2006 ⋅ 2 comments

The news that tobacco companies have increased the levels of nicotine in their brands over the last few years – especially those popular with certain groups – made me think further about architectures of control:
“The amount of nicotine in most cigarettes rose an average of almost 10 percent from 1998 to 2004, with brands [...]

Search

Crime