Deirdré Straughan on Italy, India, the Internet, the world, and now Australia
Found an old piece of video that reminded me of some of the fun and challenging things I did at TVBLOB, Fabrizio Caffarelli’s second startup, including: Software interface and interaction design: Developed feature requests into step-by-step schematics of UI states and behaviors , worked with engineers to ensure correct and coherent implementation, worked with marketing… Continue reading (Some of) What I did at TVBLOB
Most of my generation who grew up in the US have always been able to take telephones for granted. My own life experience with phones is more varied. From 1967 to 1971 we lived in Bangkok, where I never used a phone. As was true for kids at the time all over the world, I didn’t need… Continue reading Telephones
I was born in 1962. During my lifetime, long-distance and mass communications, previously rare, expensive, and available only to a few, have become available to a large proportion of people all over the planet. The consequences, for individuals and societies, have been profound, and are still playing out as these critical tools continue to spread.… Continue reading Global Telecommunications: A Personal History
An ironically popular theme in social media lately is “Smartphones have made people antisocial!”, often illustrated with a photo of a bunch of people who happen to be standing or sitting near each other, all heads-down, engrossed in whatever is happening on their phones. There is usually accompanying text, some sanctimonious, head-shaking statement about how… Continue reading Those Anti-Social Smartphones
When I attended Woodstock (1977-1981), communication from and within India was fraught with difficulty. Letters to foreign countries – even in Asia – took weeks. Packages arrived damaged, or not at all. (Nowadays, Indian mail is more reliable than Italian.) In my four years in Mussoorie I spoke with my parents by phone twice, I… Continue reading Lines of Communication: Woodstock School in the Telecoms Age
