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

Moving Money: A Comparative Infrastructural Analysis and the Impact of Trust

Abtract By making infrastructure visible, we are able to see clearly how it shapes our environment and our experiences of it. This paper examines how policies and regulations, just as much as the technical backbone of payment applications, act...

By on 10/29/21 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

Live Photo: the new “modern magic” of Apple’s iPhone 6

During a special media event organized on September 9th, in San Francisco, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, officially introduced to the public the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus. Alongside with user friendly updates...

By Daniela Demarchi on 09/14/15 Comments Off

FireChat: a breakthrough in mobile ad-hoc/mesh networking?

In a time where governments are continuously monitoring various types of communication of their citizens, there has been an increasing need for new secure and off-the-grid means of communication. One of the latest companies to satisfy this need is Open...

By Frans Bootsman on 09/14/15 Comments Off

Manually Manipulated Modulation

In the year 2013, six hundred seventy-two million people used a mobile phone in Europe. And this number is on the rise. In the Netherlands alone, twenty million mobile phones were used by the end of 2013. Mobile phones...

By Oskar Strajn on 09/18/14 Comments Off

Geomium – Live local, live social?

I never found geolocation-based social networks and apps any helpful. Geomium proves once more that my skepticism is not groundless. Geomium a location-based social website which, according to its creators is a “community for people to share and experience...

By Mzia Kupunia on 10/11/11 Comments Off

App review: Prey – open source anti-theft solution for PCs, Macs, and phones

Prey lets you keep track of your phone or laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen. It’s lightweight, open source software, and free for anyone to use. And it...

By Daniel Luiz dos Santos on 10/10/11 2

Blendr. It Won’t Work – How About “Straight” Grindr?

Blendr is a geosocial networking application allowing users to connect with nearby people based on common interests. Created by the same developers as the "hook-up" app Grindr, the focus Blendr has on meeting people through common interests and platonic...

By Autumn Hand on 10/10/11 Comments Off

Mobile Application Review: Grindr. It’s a guy thing.

Since Facebook has gained such worldwide success, it was long overdue for gay people to have their own social network. Joel Simkhai made their wish come true and created Grindr. I have to admit, I first found out about...

By Luana Pascu on 10/09/11 2

App Review: Stiktu (Beta)

…is a new (not yet released) augmented reality app for Android and iPhone by the makers of Layar. It enables users to attach (‘stick’) texts and images to ‘real-life’ objects, whether it is a book, a pack of cigarettes,...

By Daniel de Zeeuw on 10/08/11 Comments Off

The Yoza Project : Cellphones and ‘mlearning’ in South-Africa.

Storytelling is the conveying of narratives, an idea as old as human history itself. The origins of narration are difficult to grasp, and because this phenomenon plays such a prominent role in most of our lives, no one is...

By Elias van Hees on 04/29/11 Comments Off

Connectivity, Interactivity, and Extreme Personalization – Zero to Infinity: Behind the Scenes of New Media at IBC 2010

Technology is advancing FAST and it’s only getting bigger, better and faster. Information that was once readable for the few became reachable for the masses, and the reachable has now became searchable for the whole world. As we’re all aware,...

By Ekaterina Yudin on 09/13/10 1

Mobile Everywhere in Kampala

Kampala – April 6th, 2009 First impressions – I have just arrived in Uganda and can tell you that the presence of the mobile phone is felt and seen everywhere! Just some notes from my trip from the airport....

By Ben White on 04/06/09 Comments Off

Can African reporters equipped with smart phones help improve accountability and transparency in development aid?

Tomorrow Africa Interactive and the International Resource Center for Water and Sanitation will compete for the WeMedia GameChangers award. Here is an outline of my presentation. All comments, thoughts and ideas are welcome ! Africa Interactive is working to...

By Ben White on 02/25/09 1

Why is Africa Surprising You? Surprising Africa @ Picnic ’08

Picnic is Amsterdam’s new media event of the year. This is one of the few times when people come together to discuss developments, innovations and changes in the industry on this scale. As a result, this is also one...

By Ben White on 09/28/08 2

Radio 2.0 – Using Innovative Technologies in the Effort to Connect the Unconnected

Web 2.0 for a Global Society ? As defined by Wikipedia, the term Web 2.0 “encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content.” Tim O’Reilly, often recognized as the first person to coin the...

By Ben White on 09/22/08 4

The mobile revolution in Africa, Hope or Hype?

The mobile phone is considered to be the first application available for a lot of Africans to have communication over large distances and thus can serve as...

By Rikus Wegman on 01/14/08 2

UvA New Media Research Lectures

We are pleased to announce: “Mobile Affect, Mediality and Abu Ghraib” Richard Grusin Thursday, 22 February 15-17u. Turfdraagsterpad 9, Room 0.04

By Roman Tol on 02/12/07 3

Surveillance theory and ‘that video’

In Consumer Technology after Surveillance Theory, Richard Rogers and Sabine Niederer talk about how consumer technology unsettles old institutional power, possibly bringing a whole new set of problems along. There was the consumer-soldier, for example, who produced the Abu...

By Michael Stevenson on 01/03/07 5