February 2011 - Members - lists.sigcis.org

CfP Hyperkult 20: Trivialization
by Müggenburg Jan 11 Feb '11

11 Feb '11

Dear Sigcis-Members, I would like to call your attention to the CfP for this year's twentieth birthday of an annual workshop in Lueneburg, Germany. »HyperKult - Computer as Medium« takes place as an annual (non-profit and no-budget) symposium since 1990. Hyper(media)Kult(ur) was at this time an upcoming field of research across the borderline of technical and cultural disciplines. HyperKult has broadened over the years to examine more general questions of the relationship between cultural, especially aesthetic development and information technology. HyperKult is organized by the group Computer as Medium from the section "Informatik und Gesellschaft" of the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V (GI) and the "Labor Kunst und Wissenschaft". Hyperkult is always a lot of fun and well known for its interdisciplinary and openminded culture of discussion. Hope to see you there! ---jan mueggenburg P.S.: Last years talks can be found here: HyperKult 19<http://www.leuphana.de/services/rmz/forschung/hyperkult/hyperkult-19-videos…>. The HyperKult Archive<http://weblab.uni-lueneburg.de/kulturinformatik/hyperkult/archiv.htm> is a part of computer history itself. ----------------------------------------------------------- HyperKult 20 Computers as Media Trivialization Call for Participation July 7th to 9th, 2011 Leuphana University Lüneburg Computing and Media Centre and Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media sponsored by Gesellschaft für Informatik e. V. (GI), working Group Computers as Media Computers are extremely complex machines for which, since early times, their inner workings have to be hidden behind interfaces in order to use them. Software engineering and interface design have developed strategies of information hiding and functional segmentation to accomplish this. Systems like Doug Engelbart's NLS, Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad, Alan Kay's Dynabook, the Graphical User Interfaces, the iTunes Store, Facebook and Cloud Computing are examples of highly complex designs that show simplicity at their surface. People are not expected to know anything about what goes on at the backend. But surprisingly and on top of usual simplifications a new mode of design appears along with mobile devices and capacitative screens: the trivialization of information processes. Devices with technical specifications that personal computers possessed ten years ago, without cables, keyboards or mice, mimicking chocolate bars and slates formerly known as equipment of first graders now seduce us to once again paint with our fingers and grope for the objects of our desire. And we are content and buy these gadgets, millions a day. Things are easy once again, much easier than we would ever accept them to be on a conventional PC. Trivialized users are happy to touch what they have learned to desire from the screen. The haptic replaces the visual and the intellectual as if to compensate for the loss of the material that computers imposed on us. And this renders the wonders of shortly elapsed times, like the interactivity of media art, to become 99 Cents worth's items in an app store. Is there anybody who is still taken by surprise? Is it really all that trivial? But: trivialization is in no way trivial. Programming stays in between of art and magic and what we meet here are highlights of these skills that are admirable in every aspect. This trend even prevails in the information systems at large, especially those of highest acceptance: Google's Page Rank replaces significance, iPods don't want to be computers, Facebook utterly trivializes friendship, hopefully taken metaphorically by everybody, Cloud Computing hides responsibility for data. Does the computer become a trivial machine, the "love affair of the western culture", as Heinz von Foerster put it? It is the feuilleton that is now the place for criticism of the digital, not the corner of those capable of reading assembler code? Isn't there anything left be looked behind? Has everything really gotten that trivial? We would like to discuss these issues with you at HyperKult this year, being the twentieth of our workshop series. Contributions from art, science, humanities and technology are highly welcome. Please send us your sketches, abstracts and ideas, not more than one or two pages, via email to hyperkult(a)leuphana.de<mailto:hyperkult@leuphana.de> until April 23th 2011. You will be informed about acceptance until May 8th. Program Comittee: Lena Bonsiepen Wolfgang Coy Rolf Großmann Wolfgang Hagen (asked) Jochen Koubek Andreas Möller (asked) Claus Pias Martin Schreiber Georg Christoph Tholen Georg Trogemann (asked) Anna Tuschling Martin Warnke Jan Müggenburg, M.A. Leuphana University of Lueneburg Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media Scharnhorststr. 1, C1.313 Tel: 0049 4131 6771647 21335 Lueneburg E-Mail: jan.mueggenburg(a)leuphana.de<mailto:jan.mueggenburg@leuphana.de> Jan Müggenburg, M.A. Leuphana University of Lueneburg Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media Scharnhorststr. 1, C1.313 Tel: 0049 4131 6771647 21335 Lueneburg E-Mail: jan.mueggenburg(a)leuphana.de<mailto:jan.mueggenburg@leuphana.de>

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Ira Chinoy dissertation on UNIVAC election night forecasting
by Thomas Haigh 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

Hello everyone, Googling around for something else I just stumbled on a 2010 dissertation called "BATTLE OF THE BRAINS: ELECTION-NIGHT FORECASTING AT THE DAWN OF THE COMPUTER AGE" by Ira Chinoy from U. of Maryland. The full text is at http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/1903/10504/1/Chinoy_umd_0117E_11395.pdf. I didn't read it yet, but the abstract makes it sound interesting and it's certainly an exceptionally focused topic for a 588 page dissertation. The basic argument seems reasonable, and in line with the characterization of 1950s computer made in places such as my own paper "The Chromium Plated Tabulator" and the work of Yates, Cortada, etc of business computer use in the 1950s as an evolution of earlier practices combined with a symbolic gloss of revolutionary technology. Tom ABSTACT: This dissertation examines journalists' early encounters with computers as tools for news reporting, focusing on election-night forecasting in 1952. Although election night 1952 is frequently mentioned in histories of computing and journalism as a quirky but seminal episode, it has received little scholarly attention. This dissertation asks how and why election night and the nascent field of television news became points of entry for computers in news reporting. The dissertation argues that although computers were employed as pathbreaking "electronic brains" on election night 1952, they were used in ways consistent with a long tradition of election-night reporting. As central events in American culture, election nights had long served to showcase both news reporting and new technology, whether with 19th-century devices for displaying returns to waiting crowds or with 20th-century experiments in delivering news by radio. In 1952, key players - television news broadcasters, computer manufacturers, and critics - showed varied reactions to employing computers for election coverage. But this computer use in 1952 did not represent wholesale change. While live use of the new technology was a risk taken by broadcasters and computer makers in a quest for attention, the underlying methodology of forecasting from early returns did not represent a sharp break with pre-computer approaches. And while computers were touted in advance as key features of election-night broadcasts, the "electronic brains" did not replace "human brains" as primary sources of analysis on election night in 1952. This case study chronicles the circumstances under which a new technology was employed by a relatively new form of the news media. On election night 1952, the computer was deployed not so much to revolutionize news reporting as to capture public attention. It functioned in line with existing values and practices of election-night journalism. In this important instance, therefore, the new technology's technical features were less a driving force for adoption than its usefulness as a wonder and as a symbol to enhance the prestige of its adopters. This suggests that a new technology's capacity to provide both technical and symbolic social utility can be key to its chances for adoption by the news media.

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New book on computers in banking
by "Batiz-Lazo, Bernardo (shī fu)" 09 Feb '11

09 Feb '11

Coleagues The following is now being distributed Technological Innovation in Retail Finance: International Historical Perspectives Edited by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, J. Carles Maixé-Altés, Paul Thomes http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415880671/ you can find the introduction here http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/26212.html And I take the liberty of including the table of contents PART I Introduction 1 In Digital We Trust: The Computerization of Retail Finance in Western Europe and North America BERNARDO BÁTIZ-LAZO, J. CARLES MAIXÉ-ALTÉS, AND PAUL THOMES PART II Digitalizing Commercial Banks 2 From Prehistory to the History of Computers in Banking: Mechanization of Data Processing and Accounting Methods in French Banks, circa 1930–1950 HUBERT BONIN 3 Britain’s First Computer Centre for Banking: What Did This Building Do? IAN MARTIN 4 Technical and Organizational Change in Swedish Banking, 1975–2003 JOAKIM APPELQUIST 5 Computerization of Commercial Banks and the Building of an Automated Payments System in Mexico, 1965–1990 92 GUSTAVO A. DEL ANGEL MOBARAK PART III Digitalizing State, Mutual, and Savings Banks 6 Is There an ICT Path in the German Savings Banking Industry? Circa 1900–1970s PAUL THOMES 7 Organizational Change and the Computerization of British and Spanish Savings Banks, circa 1950–1985 BERNARDO BÁTIZ-LAZO AND J. CARLES MAIXÉ-ALTÉS 8 Techno-Nationalism, the Post Offi ce, and the Creation of Britain’s National Giro ALAN BOOTH AND MARK BILLINGS 9 Rabobank: An Innovative Dutch Bank, 1945–2000 JOKE MOOIJ PART IV Socio-Historical Aspects of Digitalization 10 The Automated House: The Digitalization of the London Stock Exchange, 1955–1990 JUAN PABLO PARDO-GUERRA 11 Historicizing Consumer Credit Risk Calculation: The Fair Isaac Process of Commercial Scorecard Manufacture, 1957–circa 1980 MARTHA POON 12 Automating Payments: Origins of the Visa Electronic Payment System DAVID STEARNS PART V Wrapping Up and Grand Conclusions 13 Retail Banking and the Dynamics of Information Technology in Business Organizations LARS HEIDE Saludos / best wishes Bernardo -- Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, FRHistS Professor of Business History and Bank Management Ysgol Busnes Bangor / Bangor Business School Prifysgol Bangor / Bangor University Gwynedd LL57 2DG (Cymru / Wales) b.batiz-lazo [at] bangor.ac.uk

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Ken Olsen
by Ceruzzi, Paul 08 Feb '11

08 Feb '11

Here is a link to a YouTube video about Ken Olsen, who passed away a few days ago. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Hdg7ArQbE&feature=player_embedded> Paul E. Ceruzzi

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SHOT CALL FOR PAPERS 2011 -- deadline March 31
by Thomas Haigh 07 Feb '11

07 Feb '11

Hello SIGCIS members, Please find attached the CFP for SHOT's 2011 annual meeting, taking place in Cleveland this November. Full details at http://www.historyoftechnology.org/pdf/cfp_shot_2011.pdf. Note that this is the call for the main SHOT annual meeting. SIGCIS plans to run its own one day workshop again this year, with a separate call, reviewing process, and submission mechanism to be announced in the next few weeks. You can submit to the SIGCIS workshop and to the main SHOT conference, but should not present the same material at both. To facilitate this well also make sure that our workshop deadline is after people have heard back from the SHOT program committee. SIGCIS does not have any designated space on the main conference program (other than the lunch meeting) but we have organized and submitted up to three panel proposals for each of the past seven years. These have been accepted more often than not. So if you have an idea for a paper (particularly one relevant to the conference themes) that you would like me to try to work into a panel proposal for the main workshop please let me know BY THE END OF THIS MONTH. This is particularly helpful for those new to SHOT who would benefit from assistance in appropriately framing their abstracts to maximize the chance of acceptance. SIGCIS members are also encouraged to use the list to contact others with similar interests to submit panel proposals without my direct involvement. SHOT doesnt always pay that much attention to the years themes, but anything related to them probably has a better chance. Fortunately they go well with our concerns: Technology, power and control (particularly technology and geography or technology and surveillance) and technology in use/appropriation. Finally, note that SHOT discourages North Americans from presenting papers at two North American meetings running so if you are a prolific researcher from the US or Canada who presented in the main conference in Tacoma last year then it would be better to participate as a chair/commentator in the Cleveland main conference and save your latest brilliant research for our workshop (which is not covered by this rule). Best wishes, Tom Haigh From: Jane Carlson [mailto:janecarlson@ntelos.net] Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:46 PM To: janecarlson(a)ntelos.net Subject: SHOT CALL FOR PAPERS 2011 Good morning I wanted to write to let you know that SHOT 2011 will be held in Cleveland, OH in November of this year. As you probably know, it's a co-located meeting with HSS and 4S and the SHOT meeting will take place November 3-6 at the Marriott Downtown at Key Center. We are currently planning an exciting program and look forward to seeing you there! If you are interested in presenting a paper at this year's conference, please visit our website http://www.historyoftechnology.org/ as the Call for Papers has just been uploaded. Visit http://www.historyoftechnology.org/pdf/cfp_shot_2011.pdf for a copy. This month's electronic newsletter will follow shortly. At the moment, it looks like the submission of paper and session proposals will be done via email. However, we are moving towards electronic submission and we would like to have this in place for the 2012 meeting. As you can imagine, this is not a simple process and we don't want to rush it! Finally, if you no longer wish to receive email blasts from the SHOT office or if we are writing to you at more than one email address, please let me know your preferred one and I will adjust the database. In the meantime, if you have any other questions, please let us know. With best wishes, Jane Jane Carlson Admin Assistant to Exec. Sec Society for the History of Technology Charlottesville, VA (434) 975 2190 (fax) (434) 987 6230 (cell)

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ACM History Committee fellowships ---> deadline 15 April 2011
by Thomas J. Misa 06 Feb '11

06 Feb '11

Call for ACM History Fellowship Proposals Posted Thursday, January 27th, 2011 • To encourage historical research, the ACM History Committee plans to make two awards in 2011. One, a travel grant of $2,500 to support historical research on the wide variety of ACM-related activities, including ACM members, officers, and prize winners. Second, a fellowship grant of $5,000 focusing on ACM's rich institutional history, including consideration of its organization, publications, SIG activities, and sponsored conferences. Successful candidates for either award may be of any rank, from graduate students through senior researchers. • An announcement of 2011 call for fellowship proposals can be found <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/acm_history_fellowship_annou…> (also as a pdf-format document <http://history.acm.org/public/public_documents/ACM-fellowship_2011.pdf>). Proposals are due by 15 April 2011.

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Fw: CfP: Standardisation & Innovation in IT
by Sandra Mols 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

Apologies for crossposting A call recently received through other pathways. Best regards Sandra Mols ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Kai Jakobs <kai.jakobs(a)COMSYS.RWTH-AACHEN.DE> To: MERSENNE(a)JISCMAIL.AC.UK Sent: Fri, 4 February, 2011 11:18:58 Subject: CfP: Standardisation & Innovaton in IT Dear All, This CfP will perhaps be of interest to some of you. And if you receive this Call more than once, you probably belong to our target group ....... (my apologies nonetheless). Cheers, Kai. Call for Papers 7th International Conference on Standardisation and Innovation in Information Technology SIIT 2011 www.siit2011.org 28 - 30 September 2011 Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems, Berlin Technical University Berlin, Germany Technical co-sponsor: IEEE SA Sponsors: DIN, DKE, Microsoft, tba Standardisation research is a multi-disciplinary field. Contributing disciplines include, but are by no means limited to, Business Studies, Computer Science, Economics, Information Systems, Management Studies, History and Social Sciences. While standards and standardisation research is an emerging research area it is of considerable interest and relevance to a large non-academic constituency that includes practitioners from industry, policy makers, users and consumer communities and, last but not least, to those active in or working for, standards setting organisations. Accordingly, the SIIT conferences aim at bringing together representatives of these communities to foster the exchange of insights and views on all issues surrounding ICT standards and standardisation. Topics Theoretical and empirical papers as well as case studies are welcome that shed some light on IT standards, standardisation, and innovation. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: * standardisation and innovation * impact of standards * implementation and diffusion of standards * standardisation policies and regulation * competing regional and international regimes * standards and developing countries * e-Government standards * intellectual property rights and antitrust law * standards setting processes and organisations * standards cultures * standards education * history of standardisation * corporate standards strategies * alternative compatibility strategies and interoperability Important Dates Submissions due: 15 April 2011 Notification of acceptance: 1 July 2011 Final paper due: 19 August 2011 All information about the conference will be announced at www.SIIT2011.org Paper Submissions Original (unpublished) papers not exceeding 6,000 words are solicited. They will undergo a double blind peer-review process. Authors may submit more than one paper, but each participant will only be allowed to present one paper during the conference. Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings, and are planned to be available through IEEE Xplore. Accordingly, the authors must comply with the IEEE policy on copyright and plagiarism including self-plagiarism. Authors of accepted papers will also be asked to sign an IEEE Copyright Form. Outstanding papers will be considered for inclusion in the International Journal on IT Standards and Standardization Research (JITSR). Submissions should be sent in .pdf or .rtf format to r.n.a.bekkers(a)tue.nl Travel Grants We expect to be able to offer travel grants for students and for attendees from developing countries. Those who are interested should send an e-mail message to siit2011(a)fokus.fraunhofer.de Previous SIIT Conferences 1999 RWTH Aachen University, DE 2001 University of Colorado, Boulder, US 2003 Technical University of Delft, NL 2005 ITU-T, Geneva, CH 2007 University of Calgary, CA 2009 Kogakuin University, Tokyo, JP General Chair Knut Blind, Fraunhofer FOKUS & TU Berlin, DE Programme Committee Chairs Rudi Bekkers, Eindhoven U. of Technology, NL Ken Krechmer, ICSR, US Programme Committee Members Paolo Bellavista, Bologna U., IT Knut Blind, FOKUS, TU Berlin, DE Francoise Bousquet, ZFIB, FR Nils Brunsson, Stockholm School of Economics, SE Donggeu Choi, KSA, KR Tineke Egyedi, TU Delft, NL Vlad Fomin, Vytautas Magnus U., LT Linda Garcia, Georgetown U., US Stephan Gauch, TU Berlin, DE John Hudson, Bath U., UK Eric Iversen, NIFU STEP, NO Kai Jakobs, RWTH Aachen U., DE Dirk Kuhlmann, HP, UK Heejin Lee, Yonsei U., KR Aija Leiponen, Imperial College, UK Kalle Lyytinen, Case Western Reserve U., US Yann Maniere, Ecole de Mines, FR Eric Monteiro, Norwegian TU, NO Don Purcell, Catholic U., US Roy Rada, Maryland U., US Tim Schoechle, U. of Colorado, US Mostafa Hashem Sherif, AT&T, US Tim Simcoe, Boston U., US Jan Smits, TU. of Eindhoven, NL Michael Spring, Pittsburgh U., US Kees Stuurman, Tilburg U., NL Klaus Turowski, Augsburg U., DE Taavi Valdlo, Estonian Informatics Centre, EE Geerten van de Kaa, TU Delft, NL Henk de Vries, Erasmus U., NL Marc van Wegberg, Maastricht U., NL Willem Wakker, ACE, NL Juergen Wehnert, urbane resourcen, DE Joel West, San José State U., US Robin Williams, Edinburgh U., UK Advisory Board Heinrich Arnold, DTAG, DE Torsten Bahke, DIN, DE Carl Cargill, Adobe, US Ute Decker, Microsoft, UK Jochen Friedrich, IBM, DE Mattias Ganslandt, Lund U., NO Alexander Gelman, IEEE SA, US Malcolm Johnson ITU TSB, CH John Ketchell, CEN, BE Martin Libicki, RAND Corp., US Markus Reigl, Siemens, DE Ulrich Sandl, BMWi, DE Jack Sheldon, IEC, CH Jonas Sundborg, Ericsson, SE Bernhard Thies, DKE Stéphane Trochone, Qualcomm, US Trond Arne Undheim, Oracle, UK Andrew Updegrove, Gesmer & Updegrove, US Walter Weigel, ETSI, FR John Wilson, Worldbank, US International Organising Committee Tineke Egyedi, TU Delft, NL Kai Jakobs, RWTH Aachen U., DE Ken Krechmer, ICSR, US Tim Schoechle, ICSR, US Mostafa H. Sherif, AT&T, US Local organizers Brigitte Essoun, TU Berlin, DE Stephan Gauch, TU Berlin, DE ________________________________________________________________ Kai Jakobs RWTH Aachen University Computer Science Department Informatik 4 (Communication and Distributed Systems) Ahornstr. 55, D-52074 Aachen, Germany Tel.: +49-241-80-21405 Fax: +49-241-80-22220 Kai.Jakobs(a)comsys.rwth-aachen.de <http://www.nets.rwth-aachen.de/~jakobs/kai/kai_home.html> EURAS - The European Academy for Standardization. <http://www.euras.org> The International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research. <http://www.igi-global.com/ijitsr> The 'Advances in Information Technology Standards and Standardization Research' book series. <http://www.igi-global.com/Bookstore/TitleDetails.aspx?TitleId=37142>

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