The "It's (so-and-so's) birthday" feature on Facebook is simultaneously one of the best and worst examples of how social networks can impact our digital lives. Best, in that it lets us know when something important and personal is happening to people we are connected to, and makes it easy for us to connect with them in that context. Worst, in that it elicits inauthentic responses and reduces the process of responding to such an event to a relatively hollow "Happy birthday!!!!!!" on their wall that shows up among a sea of similar announcements. The true lack of time and care the responders are giving back to that announcement is clearly apparent by the similarity and curtness of their responses. Indeed, while some or even all may truly be having good feelings and a lingering moment for the person they are "celebrating", that does not come across in the sea of short and generic comments.

In this blog feature, we highlight articles from the past, written by our Invo colleagues that have stood the harsh test of Internet time and still have something to say to us today.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Health Tech: Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve (or Maybe Your Arm)
It won't be long before the walk-in medical clinic gives way to the walking medical clinic. Wearable medical technology that can monitor heart rate, blood glucose levels, and brain activity, and even administer treatments is on its way. The Economist has a great feature on smart contact lenses that can diagnose and monitor diseases, like glaucoma and diabetes; deliver drugs; and even potentially display information to the patient. An LA Times article highlights electronic patches that can be adhered to skin like a temporary tattoo and monitor your heart.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Better off TED?
Richard Saul Wurman is re-inventing the conference format for the 21st century with his follow up to the wildly popular TED conferences. The new venture, WWW.WWW, is billed as "Intellectual Jazz" and will have no presentations, schedules, or tickets. Instead, two high-level thinkers from related fields will discuss a topic presented to them at the time of the conference. The conversations will be streamed live, and also available via a cross-platform tablet application. Through this new endeavor, Wurman hopes we will find "an energetic exploration of the lost art of conversing". Whether this new format will light up the imaginations of the business elite, and catch on as readily as TED did, only time will tell. But Wurman is, no doubt, changing the rules of the conference game yet again. Fast Company's Co.Design blog features a piece on the WWW.WWW conference, which will debut in 2012.

The space in which we work defines us, both as individuals and as teams. Sometimes we're unaware of how important our office environment is, but the fact remains that it's key to our every day mental health and our ability to perform. Our work space effects whether we're able to get our work done and whether we enjoy doing it. Of course, the digital life of the knowledge worker provides a measure of flexibility when choosing working environments. With the need only for a laptop and a broadband connection, we can easily work remotely at home or in shared co-working spaces, in coffee shops or even in public areas. The question comes down to: How do we work best, especially with others on our team? For businesses: How do we optimize our physical space so that it serves both the well being of the team members, as well as productivity? At Involution Studios Boston, we have settled on an open floor plan, with desks more or less clustered according to work function type.

Ever since the U.S. started on its long road to recovery from the Great Recession and tech companies began expanding the ranks of their employees again, there's been a dearth of talent to choose from, especially those most important senior level team members in engineering and user experience. This lack of readily available personnel has driven not only an increase in salaries, signing bonuses, and perks, but also a variety of unorthodox recruitment strategies, not the least of which is acquiring small companies for their talent, not necessarily their technology. Facebook, for example, has executed some high profile acquisitions to bring top notch designers into the fold, buying both software design shop Sofa and product firm Push Pop Press.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

The History of the Game Console
If you were a console gamer back when it all began in the late '70s, and have sweet, sweet memories of playing Atlantis on the Magnavox Odyssey 2 or TRON Deadly Disks on Intellivision, then you'll revel in the nostalgia of Consollection, a Web site collection of (almost) every gaming console ever made. Over 170 consoles are featured on the site, all from the personal collection of Phil Penninger. Consollection truly gives us the history of video gaming product design; with an overview page dedicated to each and every system.

In this age of ubiquitous information, knowledge workers and organizations can be overwhelmed, even paralyzed by the mass of data presented to them daily, unable to make sense of it all. Our ability to collect data has increased exponentially as our lives and careers have become increasingly digitized. From e-commerce transactions to bodybug health sensor info to digital video capture, we produce more data than we can hope to consume. We have too much information to analyze and don't quite have all the right tools to do it yet.

I've had a few brushes recently with different tracking technology deployed in automobiles used by professionals. When the Geek Squad came by to help with printer problems, the tech explained that his company-provided car has a tracking device that logs where the vehicle is at all times. Today I read an article, pointed to by Jason Long, about similar technology being used in the truck driving industry. In the later example, the author lamented how these devices contribute to "draining their enthusiasm for this life." I'm not surprised.

Here’s what we’re reading online, this week at Involution, on design, tech, and the digital life, in our links round up.

Tech Talent Wars: Boston
The Talent Wars are heating up in Boston, as tech companies of every kind, from start ups to Fortune 500 firms, unload their best artillery fire in the recruiting battle. One of the most original recruitment efforts in the fight so far comes from the rapidly growing, venture funded HubSpot, which is trying to encourage software developers at big companies to make a "prison break" for HubSpot's hipper environs. Of course, Boston and the surrounding tech burbs are filled with many of the aforementioned large company "prisons" for devs to break out of, and HubSpot is willing to make it worthwhile for experienced talent, with a $1K bonus for each year spent at a big firm. A 20-year veteran of an enterprise software giant could stand to get the equivalent of a new car as a signing bonus … not too shabby. Whether other cash rich, talent strapped companies in Boston will counter HubSpot's aggressive move remains to be seen, but it's clear that the war for development brainpower is escalating in Beantown, with no end in sight.