New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Medical applications, the brilliant health-care helper?

More and more Medical apps for smartphone and tablet users have been released in recent years. These applications transform traditional medical services into mobile and digital services which people can evaluate themselves with the apps and do not need...

By Christine Cheng on 09/19/16 Comments Off

The Logout Project

We might all have felt this way at some point– scrolling through endless posts and photographs of people who seem like they are living “The Life”: getting that promotion they have dreamed of, marrying the most perfect person in...

By Izumi Otsuka on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Safety Net – Play With Privacy or It Will Play You

Have you ever used a website that uses cookies? “Liked” a photo on Facebook? Geo-tagged your location in a post or used Google Maps? Of course you have. But were you aware of how the information you...

By Deniz Gulsoken on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Spy me, please!

A project, brought to you by Afra Suci Ramadhon, Alina Niemann, Kimberly Leerkes, Kyra Teklu and Radina Teodosieva The exhibitionist beginning Several weeks ago we were presented with an assignment - to create a new media project, intervening an...

By Radina Teodosieva on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Le Flâneur: let him take you on a journey through Amsterdam…

Le Flâneur is a mobile application that aims at improving users’ orientation skills by making them explore Amsterdam in a “smart way”. Making users learn the names of the streets and enable them to situate themselves without looking at wayfinding...

By Mathilde Grenod on 10/13/15 Comments Off

Can Periscope (and live streaming apps) empower journalism?

Twitter’s launch of the live streaming app Periscope last March, was received with much enthusiasm by those who believe that it will empower reporting and citizen journalism. Live streaming apps are not something new. Few months before Periscope’s launch,...

By Afef Abrougui on 09/26/15 2

Why Instagram finally lets us think outside of the box

Ever since it’s rise to fame, Instagram has been known for its square pictures. But with a recent new update the platform finally lets its users break free from that restriction. To make “telling our visual story easier and...

By Milan van Vugt on 09/17/15 Comments Off

Amazon Underground – the app store insurgent

Recently Amazon launched a new app store Amazon Underground for Android users, which replaced the Free App a Day program. It features not only items from the Amazon shopping app and the whole catalog from its app store, but...

By Radina Teodosieva on 09/17/15 Comments Off

Cute Culture in Private Couples App: Communicating with Kawaii Stickers

Mobile apps designed for couples to communicate in a private setting has started to gain popularity in the past few years. In the West, there are apps such as Couple, Duet, and Avocado. In the East, Between, an intimate...

By Vincent So on 09/17/15 Comments Off

A true astronaut of inner space: how your phone is making Virtual Reality a reality

“Looking like a cross between a T’ai Chi master, a navy frogman, and the Terminator, a man harnessed to electronic leads and fitted with a strange piece of headgear slowly turns and gestures. The pointing hand and the ballet...

By Nick van der Meulen on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Paper Based Print to Counter Digitalization

In an age where paper based prints are diminishing and digitalization is the ever winning cheaper option, there is luckily always a countermovement. This month Recently, the mobile-to-magazine app for iphone, was debuted. The new app for iOS is...

By Lara Molendijk on 09/16/15 Comments Off

AI: is it just buzz or is it really changing the web design world?

“A.I. Websites. Build for Humans.” It has been quite a while since the non-stop futuristic flashy banners began showing up on my browser. The Grid is an AI web-builder that will build a website for you in a couple...

By Izumi Otsuka on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Mobile Apps as a New Level of Reality

“New Media”. This collocation is used so often nowadays (and not just by researchers or practitioners, but by journalists, self-proclaimed experts and general populace) that it takes a conscious effort to take a step back and ask “What’s new...

By Leonid Goryachev on 09/15/15 Comments Off

When in doubt: choose Dvel

Making choices isn’t something you have to do completely on your own; there are more than enough tools, websites and apps that can help you with that rather than discussing issues with your family and friends for instance. But...

By Lisa Langenkamp on 09/15/15 Comments Off

Be There or Be Square: Instagram Introduces New Sizes

Be There or Be Square: Instagram Introduces New Sizes Many frequent users of Instagram (including myself) at some point experienced the following scenario: a moment captured with the camera on your smartphone is significant enough to share on Instagram....

By Eva Hekman on 09/15/15 Comments Off

Augmented reality; Pokémon in the real world

After 20 years, The Pokémon Company announced the release of its latest project. A new mobile game called Pokémon Go, produced in collaboration with Nintendo and Niantic. The game will be available in 2016 for iOs and Android. For...

By Kimberly Leerkes on 09/15/15 Comments Off

The Companion: App which walks you home

Walking home at night can be a pretty terrifying experience. If you ever had to walk home through eerie suburban streets at 2 am., you know how it feels. That is why five college students in the US created an application...

By Radvile Dauksyte on 09/14/15 Comments Off

KEEP CALM and USE COMPANION APP?!

An innovative app that accompanies you with safety back home. Five students from the University of Michigan designed a GPS application, named Companion App. This new app allows your contacts from your smartphone to accompany you virtually when you...

By Aliki Eleftheriadou on 09/14/15 Comments Off

Training Wheels

As one of the cultural capitals of Europe, thousands of international students (2,000 at the University of Amsterdam alone), new residents and tourists convene in Amsterdam every year. Unfortunately, not everyone who comes to Amsterdam has the typical Dutch...

By Auke Akkerman on 10/17/14 Comments Off

Does gameful solar power pay off?

Imagine you could produce your own electricity, charge the batteries of your electronic devices and even get rewarded. The German startup Changers tries to make that true. They designed a solar power charger for USB devices and a software...

By Danny Lämmerhirt on 09/18/14 Comments Off

The Narrative Clip. Lifelogging wearables on the rise?

What if you could re-live one moment of your life? “Remember every moment” is the main concept behind the Narrative Clip, a wearable lifelogging automatic camera. You just have to clip it on and it will automatically record your life...

By Maria Belen Muñoz on 09/17/14 Comments Off

Introducing Toosheh: The new mesh network application that tries to tackle the problem of information controls inside Iran

Branded as a little blue bundle, the new android application developed by the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California is a slight play on words. Toosheh which in Persian means baggage, endeavours to connect Iranian’s through what...

By Mahsa Alimardani on 09/16/14 1

Instagram and Hyperlapse: Anticipated Memory

Social networks have a huge impact on how their users perceive their lives and what happens to them. Different networks influence different aspects of our lives, both social and cultural. Instagram, one of the most popular networks today, meant...

By Markéta Horázná on 09/16/14 Comments Off

Let’s go out for digital dinner

iOS Application developpers seem to learn fast from each other these days; in a short amount of time, many applications for pairing wine with a main dish have been developped and its content has been extended. For example, on the application market were...

By Wouter Klaase on 09/16/14 Comments Off