Archive for March, 2006
Intel launches new ruggedized PC platform for India. I like the ruggedized bit
From their website,
The new Intel-powered Community PC brings technology access to remote communities where weather and unreliable power compromise typical PCs. Many of these computers are expected to be used in Internet “kiosk” centers in villages across India. The kiosks, run [...]
Filed under: ICTs for development | Leave a Comment
Children as ethnographers
We want children to be their own ethnographers.
Lorenz points to this article in The St.Johns Hopkins Newsletter by anthropologists Pamela Reynolds and Veena Das.
“You can’t just interview children because most children will find interviews boring and walk away. So we need to facilitate a way for children to explain their own lives with you. We [...]
Filed under: Ethnography and anthropology | 3 Comments
Are kids too wired?
This week’s cover story on Time certainly seems to say so. [Link through 'Putting people first' - the multitasking generation]
The story focusses on the ability of today’s kids to multitask with respect to technology, and what’s all that digital juggling doing to their brains, family life…
On the positive side, Gen M students tend to [...]
Filed under: Mobile telephony and communication | 2 Comments
Research agency AC Nielsen ORG MARG is believed to have used the content on blogs and other online discussion forums for validating the consumer research it undertook for Nokia India’s fashion series handsets. Call it web ethnography (webnography), reports DNA. [link through contentsutra]
The first I heard of netnography – or ethnography on the net – [...]
Filed under: Ethnography and anthropology, Qualitative models and methods | Leave a Comment
Gesture-based keyboard from HP
HP Labs, based in Banaglore has announced a pen-based technology that will allow the Kannada script to be recorded and stored directly in the computer without the use of a conventional keyboard.
From the article in Business Standard,
The technology, which is also called the gesture-based keyboard (GKB), has been developed by researchers at HP Labs India [...]
Filed under: ICTs for development | 1 Comment
In the who’s better at innovation debate,,the UN pitches in with this – The debate over India vs. China, who is most innovative, was addressed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, March 13, in an article, “Low Costs, Plentiful Talent Make China a Global Magnet for R&D,” that is written off a new report by [...]
Filed under: Emerging markets | Leave a Comment
Ethnography dilemmas
I came across this post – ethnography and new media – on working notes where the author has raised a lot of pertinent questions around the practice of ethnography. Here are the key ones :
1. What is ethnography?
2. What constitutes the truth in ethnography?
3. What is ethnography good for?
4. Methodological concerns
These are all issues that [...]
Filed under: Ethnography and anthropology | 2 Comments
Always on, always good?
Here is a very interesting pointer from putting people first – The role of ethnographic research in driving technology innovation – Lessons from Inside Asia. The piece is about the Inside Asia project team from Intel which has spent over two years in seven different Asian countries, including India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Korea, and [...]
Filed under: Computers and technology, Emerging markets | 3 Comments
Don’t shoot the messenger…
Or the method.
Suddenly focus group bashing is all the rage. Just as “let’s do focus groups” was the war cry till recently… So when did focus groups move from being synonymous with qualitative research to becoming a hated f-word? And why?
The answer to this is in the earlier paragraph itself. Used indiscriminately and where the [...]
Filed under: Interesting research, Research methods | 4 Comments
