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

The Apple Watch: Fashionable and Tangible

Images of wearable computers range from 1940s detective Dick Tracy through to Michael Knight’s 80s wrist watch. The cartoon detective’s watch, in particular, has reached iconic status in the electronics community. As perhaps one of the strips most recognizable...

By Ivar Dusseljee on 09/15/14 Comments Off

Hacking the Digital: Fingerprint Secured Touch ID from Apple

The iPhone 5S is a revised version of its predecessor, the iPhone 5, and was unveiled to the general public last month on September 20th. Aside from various improvements and new available features, Apple’s new fingerprint-based identity sensor, Touch...

By Nicholas Vieira on 10/10/13 1

iTunes U – one billion downloads of open knowledge

One billion is a solid number. That’s the amount of downloads Apple’s iTunes U has collected as of late February 2013, as specified by their press statement. Released in 2007, just before the first iPhone, it provides free educational...

By Vicentiu Dinga on 03/12/13 Comments Off

Apple’s textbooks – too cool for school?

.ibooks is Apple’s proprietary ebook format based on the EPUB standard, created with the free iBook Author layout software for publishing ebooks. Due to some dissimilarities between CSS tags used in the iBooks format file, it isn’t compatible with...

By Vicentiu Dinga on 03/04/13 Comments Off

EPUB – A Book Pirate’s Go-To Format

EPUB, short for “electronic publication”, is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It was initially developed in 2007 as a way to streamline digital publishing. What the IDPF didn’t consider back then, is the...

By Bozhan Chipev on 03/03/13 Comments Off

School is Cool: iPad’s in classrooms

“It was absurd (…) that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive (…).” (Isaacson,2011, p. 264) This is a quote from...

By Jeroen Rademakers on 10/17/12 5

iPad for dinner?

The iPad is an all purpose tool. It is ideal to surf on the Internet, play games or other entertainment purposes. However, Apple’s Tablet PC is also capturing more and more restaurants all over the world as an interactive...

By Jesse Oyegbesan on 10/31/11 1

Interview with an App(le)fan and developer

Interview Philip Plotnikov On this Masters of Media blog we have seen many app reviews coming by. These were all written from a user perspective. I thought it would be interesting to look at apps from the other side:...

By Annet Bos on 10/19/11 1

Do you remember the first time? Music and the rise of the ‘scented candle’

I grew up listening to Pulp. I vividly remember lying outside my older sisters’ bedroom as she played Different Class from her multi-CD changer Hi-Fi, while I pushed myself up against her door, devouring Jarvis’ every word. Outside, unbeknown...

By Jamie Franklin on 10/18/11 Comments Off

We’ll protect you from patent trolls and gay men in underwear!

In the most recent edition of the raging patent war between tech giant Apple, Google and Mirosoft, Apple has filed for a patent that would, if permitted, give them an edge over the app distribution systems of the competitors. A...

By Eelke Hermens on 10/10/11 Comments Off

Crowdflow: pretty pictures with our iPhone localisation data

Smartphones have changed the way we think about pretty much all aspects of communication. We’re used to having internet access in our pockets, GPS, barcode readers – you name it. There are thousands of applications to make our lives...

By Ave Tampere on 10/10/11 1

App Review: AroundMe

Where is the next cinema? Are there any pubs and restaurants near by? Where can I find the nearest points of interest? With the help of an iPhone you can answer such questions yourself within seconds. GPS and permanent...

By Jesse Oyegbesan on 10/09/11 Comments Off

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Yesterday, on the 5th of October 2011, the world lost a great visionary – Apple‘s co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. He also worked as the chief executive of Pixar. His creative vision did not only make Apple one of...

By Ave Tampere on 10/06/11 Comments Off

Let’s talk iPhone? App-so-lutely!

The iPhone 4S In the advent of the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event, people were already looking for tutorials in order to sync and back up all of the various apps they have gathered from the moment they “went apple,”...

By Jeroen Rijskamp on 10/05/11 Comments Off

Mobile Tweeting – recognising usage frequency, tendencies and social interaction differences

The Question Academic research on Twitter has been rife since it hit off in 2006, with significant focus on two topics in particular- that of privacy and identity. Much that has been written by scholars of Twitter has generally...

By Christopher Mead on 10/05/11 Comments Off

Thoughts about the unveiling of Iphone 4S

Today was the official release of Iphone 5. Oops, IPhone 4S I mean. I followed through the NY Times and The Guardian‘s live blogs and Twitter. While I was overwhelmed with an incredible amount of data, #letstalkiphone quickly become...

By Juliana Paiva on 10/04/11 1

Apple Is Chasing The Largests.

Apple Inc. is becoming on of the most powerfull sellers and producers of smart phones. According to DC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker Apple, that came up on October 28, 2010, has went up and joined three the biggest phones producers,...

By Michal Kielbasa on 10/31/10 1

The console wars, back to the 16bit era

Bits. Eight of them or sixteen meant a world of difference to me when I was a kid. I didn’t know what a bit was and actually I still don’t. I tried looking it up but it’s a very...

By Frank Molenaar on 10/29/10 Comments Off

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mysterious LED

Wandering around some Mac-aficionado forums in search of good repairing tips for my powerbook maybe-a-bit-old’n’dusty-thus-winding-way-too-slow-and-definitely-too-noisy internal fan, I found this amazing asynchronous, multi-user dispersed chat: user A: I keep my powerbook on my desk when I work. When it goes to...

By Alberto Angelini on 10/26/10 2