The numbers of women in the field of computer science are dismal and even worse in the arena of FLOSS; a widely-cited study showed that only 1.5% of FLOSS practitioners were women (as compared with 28% in proprietary software).[1] As scholars of the ethics and politics of computing, we are committed to generating data and […]
The whirlwind of controversy around the now defunct “Girls Around Me” app by i-Free Innovations evokes no new strangeness for all of us to fear, ponder, or be perplexed by. At its core, the attention paid to the creepy smartphone app involves the intersection of privacy and technology. This is a conversation about surveillance, sousveillance, […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTJvjLbPEc] Increasingly, smartphones have become an important way that we keep connected to the digital world. So, what does it mean when a smartphone is labeled as a “female” phone? Granted, HTC’s new smartphone, called Rhyme (available on Verizon), is never billed explicitly as a “female” phone. Yet, the online chatter surrounding the device suggests […]