The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.
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The Calm Tech Institute pioneers research and standards for technology that enhances our lives without overwhelming us. Learn about our mission, principles, and commitment to digital wellbeing.
Calm Technology
Bits flowing through the wires of a computer network are ordinarily invisible. But a radically new tool shows those bits through motion, sound, and even touch. It communicates both light and heavy network traffic. Its output is so beautifully integrated with human information processing that one does not even need to be looking at it or near it to take advantage of its peripheral clues. It takes no space on your existing computer screen, and in fact does not use or contain a computer at all. It uses no software, only a few dollars in hardware, and can be shared by many people at the same time. It is called the "Dangling String".
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The Calm Tech Institute exists to redefine how people think about human-technology interaction, and provide a new UX standard for designing technologies that improve human life.
Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design
We fail to take tech seriously when we do not grasp its full impact on humans
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…
100 years of whatever this will be
What if all these weird tech trends actually add up to something? Last time, we explored why various bits of trendy technology are, in my o...
Existential Technologies
Who controls whom? Is technology controlling us, or are we controlling it? Does it lead us where it wants to, even to our ruin, or can we force it to yield to our intentions? But what else would our intentions be, if not some further technology? Is the humanity–technology relationship always the same or historically variable? Where is this unknown force heading?
Hypermedia: A Reintroduction
Hypermedia is a universal technology today, almost as common as electricity.
We used to get excited about technology. What happened?
Innovation that truly serves us all is in scarce supply. That’s a problem.
Disruption is not a strategy
I was at a research lab to talk about commercialization. The presenter put up a slide of some exciting new technologies. The slide’s tagline said these technologies would “disrupt the b…
What’s the best technology that doesn’t exist yet?
We analyzed 100+ conversations and essays on positive futures to find out
Speculative Technologies
Speculative Technologies is a nonprofit resarch organization unlocking new materials and manufacturing technologies
What if technology didn’t feel so… hollow? Some friends and I just released a manifesto about a world where tech leaves us feeling nourished (along with an evolving list of theses about how we can build it) resonantcomputing.org
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
resonantcomputing.orgTechnology is part of the humanities. People who work in tech-adjacent fields but do not understand that will plateau very fast in their careers. The parts of the job that vibecoding eliminates aren't the political ones.
Hetan Shah
It’s 25 years since we lost Douglas Adams. I am happy to have been able to get a reference to him into this piece in the FT about why the humanities are essential ft.com/content/fbde3d46-0e53-47cb-8f…
