Masters of Media

“Clue”: Are period tracking apps reinforcing gender norms?

About 9 months ago a close friend introduced me to ”Clue”, a mobile application she claimed to have changed her life. It is a menstrual cycle tracking app that allows you to follow your periods, ovulation and other aspects...

By Yarden Skop on 09/24/17 0

Silicone Robotic Mask: Making Computed Emotions Physical

An important aid in computing our emotions since the digital revolution is the use of emoticons. But our emotions could be captured and communicated better, by moving away from mimicking facial expressions to having roots in real physical functions....

By Nena Snoeren on 09/24/17 0

‘M’ Assistant – a New Territory For Advertising

‘M’ is an Artificial Intelligent virtual assistant inside Messenger which aims to be helpful to its users when appropriate. M Assistant analyzes their normal conversation on Messenger and pops up to suggest one of the features within the app...

By Gergana Ivanova on 09/24/17 0

Painting your password on your face: Apple´s new Face ID and its implications on the security of its users.

On the 12th of September, Apple launched their new flagship model, the iPhone X. As usual, it was either met with oohs and aahs, or it was met with cynicism. This article will not focus on the price, design...

By Jimi Cornelisse on 09/24/17 0

Managing the ‘self’: your DNA online

How to explore your inner self? You could go to a retreat in Thailand. You could ask your mother about your childhood. Or you could upload your DNA online. Awakens’ Genomic Explorer allows you to dissect your genetics by...

By Linda V. on 09/24/17 0

Goalpost in the Ozone: The Deceptively Good Intentions of #Climate

As far as scientific consensus goes, it’s tempting to label the ‘debate’ around climate change as being over. However, to do so invites complacency, a willingness to delegate responsibility to a far-off unknown authority. News organisations, politicians and activists...

By David Molloy on 09/24/17 0

Remediate The Clock: The Shift from Time to Space

Another clock? Despite its name, the Eta Clock isn’t really a clock. Well, it is shaped like a traditional clock- a rectangular piece of wood that nowadays we can probably just see in old movies- and uses clock hands...

By Giovanni Scala on 09/24/17 0

Uncredited Cruelty: Examining Anonymity’s Role in Cyber-bullying

Many platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google thrive on both the business and social models that accountability is important. From a business aspect, the data becomes more valuable if they can identify exactly who you are. From a...

By Whitney Koontz on 09/24/17 0

Authenticating Authenticity: Entrupy’s Use of Crowdsourcing and Data Mining to Authenticating Designer Bags

Alibaba’s Jack Ma caused quite the stir in 2016 when he noted that, “The problem is the fake products today are of better quality and better price than the real names… They are exactly the same factories, exactly the...

By Krista Agbayani on 09/24/17 0

Shiver Me Timbers: Did Streaming Inadvertently Pave the Way For a New Kind of Piracy?

Some time in the mid-2000s, the popular peer-to-peer downloading program E-mule once made me wait for a whole year to download the discography of an Irish blues musician – a hefty file in .rar format, which was owned by...

By Ayse B. Tosun on 09/23/17 0

ReplyASAP: A Quick Fix for Ignored Parents

It comes without question that having a mobile phone as a child or a teenager is essentially a must in today’s society. Many reasons could apply to answering why, from playing games, sending funny Snapchat videos to their friends...

By Maria Palaidou on 09/23/17 0

iPhone X: The end of privacy?

“The future is here” is a bold statement to make, but it’s one that Apple uses on their website to introduce their latest smartphone offering. The apocalyptically named ‘iPhone X’. It was unveiled this month to a fanfare of...

By Steven Ecott on 09/23/17 0

Project KOVR: the Anti-Surveillance Coat that Protects Online Privacy in the Real World

From the 22nd to the 30th of October it was Dutch Design Week (DDW) in Eindhoven, a week wherein hundreds of new design projects are shown to the public. A lot of emergent projects can be found in Eindhoven...

By Lisanne Blomberg on 12/01/16 0

Call for Applications – MA in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam 2017-2018

One-year and two-year international Master’s programs in New Media available: MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (one year, full time) Research MA Media Studies: New Media and Digital Culture (two years, full time) MA New Media and...

By Anne Helmond on 11/14/16 0

Who owns the playground?: Urban gamification and spatial politics in Pokémon GO

“Sydney park destroyed as thousands of Pokémon Go players descend” wrote Irish news website TheJournal.ie on the first of August. This is just one example of a situation wherein Niantic’s popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO puts a considerable...

By Stefani Mans on 11/14/16 0

In The Filter Bubble: How algorithms customize our access to information

‘Mark Zuckerberg promises to do more about the circulation of fake news on Facebook’ Dutch news website nu.nl said on 13 November 2016. This isn’t the first time Facebook has been criticized lately. The social media network has been...

By Stefani Mans on 11/13/16 1

Inquiring polarisation: re-imagining Youtube as a diplomatic mediator

The extent of political polarisation in large parts of the Western world seems to be such that disparities between one and another point of view is not just difference, but enmity. Hillary Clinton has been ordered to be put...

By Rhubini Kunasegaran on 10/21/16 0

Surfer.safe: an online extension of parenthood

The alarm rings and you get out of bed. Before doing anything else, you go into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Before getting dressed for the day, you sit down in your favourite chair, turn on...

By Lisanne Blomberg on 10/21/16 0

Trust Me: How Trust is Established in Airbnb

The financial crisis in 2008 marked the advent of the sharing economy, and its motto “access trumps ownership” (The Economist) came out as a good option to deal with the crisis which mainly occurred as a result of the...

By Olga Resetnaka on 10/21/16 2

Your Bike Solution: An Exploration of Solutionism

Nowadays technological solutions are everywhere and many more solutions are offered to make our lives easier and more convenient. Many posts on this blog discuss certain technological developments and solutions. In this research we want to reflect on the...

By Manon vanHoek on 10/21/16 0