Looking to create better communications channels for families who live far from each other, Mimi Son, a designer from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design has created the “Here and There” diary object.

I’ve been accused of Twitter bashing on both my blogs and columns. To which I have to admit, there is some truth to that, but as I’ve tried to explain many times, it isn’t because I have anything against it as a communications platform, or that I don’t think, as a business, it will ever make anything close to the astronomical numbers people are punting around. No, what I don’t like about it personally is that it is yet one more brick in the wall being erected to block human communication. To which you answer, it’s a great communication tool. [...]

Distance Lab is a group of “fearless researchers” dedicated to overcoming the disadvantages of distance using digital media technologies. They’ve created an intriguing romantic communication environment called Mutsugoto that’s meant to connect distant couples using light drawings.
They explain:
Mutsugoto is an intimate communication device intended for a bedroom environment. Instead of exchanging e-mail or SMS messages using generic interfaces in business-like venues, Mutsugoto allows distant partners to communicate through the language of touch as expressed on the canvas of the human body. A custom computer vision and projection system allows users to draw on each other’s bodies while lying in bed. [...]

Paper Beats Internet is an “analog” social networking site that uses hand-rendered drawings as communications tools. Users post an initial drawing on the Paper Beats Internet website, and others create comment and response drawings that work off of the first drawing’s theme. Besides being aesthetically pleasing, the time and care that goes into doing a drawing adds a sense of thought, warmth and depth to the usually quick, off-the-cuff world of social media. The project is a collaboration between the New Directions in Pictoral Design class at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and a group of invited collaborators.
Paper [...]

The Economist reports that a third of the world’s languages are at risk of going extinct:
AROUND a quarter of the world’s population speaks just three languages: Mandarin, English and Spanish. But out of the 6,700 of the world’s identified languages, nearly 2,500 are deemed at risk according to UNESCO, the UN’s cultural body. The imposition of a colonial language long ago in big countries such as Brazil and America is still endangering the diversity of native tongues. In America, 53 languages have become extinct since 1950, more than in any other country.
Economist: “Speaking in fewer tongues”