After having passed this device so many times on the way to my favorite post office, I thought I record it for future generations.

For everybody to see, this is a box fitted with two phones (the second one being on the other side) and a cash machine. Obviously the company behind it combined the two applications based on the usage of the same infrastructure and thought this would be a good idea. Which it might be - with the cash machine doing significantly better.

Since the usage of the two services is in terms of interaction very similar, I thought it might be quite interesting to put this academic question forward: How would a device look like which combines the two services? How would one use it? What would the user experience be like for the respective services?

From time to time you hear people stating that Google results differ from PC to PC. Now there are also a lot of claims that Google stores more personal data than in any sane persons’ interest and therefore is able to distinguish between individual users (read: pleasing them by ranking their sites of interest high up - and making money on the way with targeted advertising).

Whether there is any credibility with these claims? We can’t possibly know, since it is not easy to verify and the boundaries between technical necessities and commercially led intent are blurry at times. For instance if Google wants to distinguish between real clicks with their AdSense Product and some user who wants to either make some money, or make others pay is clicking a hundred times on the same “sponsored” link, cookies won’t do - and the IP address is the safest bet to filter these clicks. With the IP address Google then is able to know pretty well where you are, what your cultural background most likely is, store search terms affiliated with this particular IP address and so on.

What we do know though, and what this post shall be about, is that there are enormous regional differences. And they are certainly not down to the different up-to-date state of serves - as often stated.

Let’s say you search for Shakespeare (yes the poet) on the German Portal of the Californian Company and on the British counterpart.

On both the first result belongs to Google - more specifically to Google’s Book Department. The following results are very different on the two portals. The German Portal favouring sites in German, though the search was performed with the option “Das Web”( transl.: “Search the Web”) in place.

Though the diffrences don’t matter so much with great personalities, since you’ll still manage to get the equal share of information if you are persistent enough to get through at least the first three pages, it starts to matter a great deal if you are searching for more contemporary or short lived subjects.

Let’s say you search for something technical, like a certain Javascript Library - the pattern that the German portal displays more sites in German persists - but from a quality point of view the differences can be stark (the number of German speaking sites against English speaking ones surpisingly matters!). It seems that the priority of the guessed native language, overrules other aspects like relevance in quite a dramatic fashion. It is quite possible that you’ll never find a particular reference on the German Portal which features on the first result page on the British portal.

Interestingly enough if you search from a German IP address you’ll be forwarded onto the German portal even if you would like to search on the American (main) portal (www.google.com).

Now of course there is a whole bunch of well meant arguments which make the case for regionally optimised search results, but what are the implications? Surely if a whole culture or an language area (in this example Germany, Austria, Switzerland) are constently served fairly reduced differing information by the quasi monopolist, the knowledge base of that area will start to differ.

Of course these differences where always in place, but what is interesting is, that the algorithms of Google become in fact a cultural determinator in the long run. How does that fare with our current perception of the free world and its ultimate medium: the Internet? If Google isn’t Google everywhere - what precisely is Google?

You might not have heard about it, but apparently there is a head of the Internet. Her name is Anita Hockin and she works for Lloyds Bank. So now in future if you have any trouble with the internet - let’s say your DSL connection, all that fraud, all that spam - don’t hesitate and get in touch with her.
After all that time when we thought Banks have too much say in everybodies lives it is good to see that one leads per example and takes on such responsibilities! Good work!

A short comment on the Exhibition art_clips at the Media Museum ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany.

This exhibition is curated by Gerhard Johann Lischka and shows 90 short clips produced between 2000 and today, for the purpose of hammering the message home dubbed ‘art_clips’, from three countries: Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The DVD is available in the local Museum Shop.

What is worth a comment about this exhibition is the fact that this exhibition unintentionally raises the question what’s happening to the way video art gets distributed these days.

The resume states that these “art_clips” are the “subject-centered answer of art to the end of industrially produced music videos for television.”

Thinking of why one has to pick the music video industry as the point of reference, in order to define oneself, leaves one with plenty of question marks. But the desperation for one’s own position on the curator career ladder in art history shall be not of our interest in this case.

In times when Filmmakers like Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham are shown on various Music TV Channels, selling successfully their work in form of DVDs on unpretentious places like Amazon, one might wonder what the point is this exhibition tries to make?

There is clearly the attempt to offer artists a forum, a point of access to the ‘market’ – which is definitely a good thing as such.
And the ZKM is a well established place do do so … but why do they opt for an exhibition? Videos in exhibitions are boring Everybody who has been to an exhibition presenting predominantly videos, knows how fantastically well those work.
And why on top of it release a DVD as a distribution method for clips, which are obviously for a fragmented niche market?
Would it not be better to seek the challenge to broaden this niche, to allow that niche, wherever it can be found, access to this material? Instead of opting for making yourself at home in the corner of clichés and using a distribution method which is simply to expensive to make it work well?

In times when artists take it on themselves to put their clips up on You Tube, when their clips become very popular and even get commissioned by the likes of Coke, and you see yourself as a curator for the good cause why not become the filter for particular clips you call art_clips , open an account on You Tube and offer your choice – or even better create something like You Tube only better suited for your peer group (there is definitely space) since you are not only a museum but also a research facility?

Funnily enough the flyer of the exhibition (above) makes use of the top level domains (.de, .ch, .at) - maybe as a subconscious reference to where it should be heading. While underscores might be popular with file names, they are a no no if it comes to URLs - if only the ZKM would know … !

The exhibition is open until the 25th of March – and the DVDs can be bought in the local Museum Shop long after …

Regardless the ever reducing time span from drawing board to production line - the recent pace in which WiFi enabled handhelds seeing the light of day is breath taking. Some like the Meizu MiniOne might have had some last minute changes to get the same come close to the hyped looks of the iPhone, but it becomes ever clearer that WiFi enabled devices designed to roam are going mainstream later this year.

Now desirable physical devices are important for all network providers to keep and possibly increase the number of subscribers, but what happens with the challanger to the big network services? Boingo has announced the first designated WiFi service for Mobile Phones world wide this month. Fon with its interesting business give-and-take model is gaining ground if only becoming very attractive to BT and Skype. Looks like that the big ones should better start dotting a couple more hotspots - as if that would help.