Our big institutions, both corporate and government, are not able to keep up with security in the digital age. As our communications, commerce, and even our health data continue to move online, what is the individual to do?

From the recent breach of US government systems exposing valuable personal data, including Social Security numbers, for millions of Federal employees; to the Sony hack revealing private corporate communications to embarrassing effect; to the intrusions on computer networks at major health insurance companies Anthem and Blue Cross, the list of concerning events goes on and on.

Do we need a cultural shift in our understanding of cyber-privacy? And what would that be? In this episode of the Digital Life, we discuss the consequences of online privacy devolution.

Resources:

WikiLeaks Dumps More Sony Documents

Chinese Hackers Get Access to US Government Systems

Virtual reality headsets could be the next big thing for entertainment. A bevy of new product offerings from the Oculus Rift to the HTC Vive to Sony’s Project Morpheus, mean that there will be plenty of consumer choices when it comes to this new computing and communications device. But how, exactly, will this medium will fit into our online and offline lives? Product demonstrations so far have been severely limited. And no one knows exactly how much these things will cost.

In this episode of The Digital Life we take on the new virtual reality product craze from a user experience perspective — examining everything from the new social norms of virtual space to the practical realities of navigating your environment when you can’t see.

The latest and greatest from Apple used to be something to celebrate. At their Worldwide Developers Conference this week, the biggest tech company in the world announced its newest efforts to much fanfare and largely came up short. While the Apple Watch and the newly minted Apple Music streaming service have garnered lots of interest from the tech press, these offerings from Cupertino seem like pale shadows, trailing after the company’s previous glory. In this episode of The Digital Life, we comment on Apple’s innovation drought from a design and UX perspective.

As UX has become a hot commodity, software prototyping has similarly become increasingly popular. Every day, it seems like new tools appearing for creating interactive prototypes — from Axure to InVision to iRise, not to mention a host of HTML/CSS + Javascript frameworks.

From design validation to experimentation to risk mitigation, the opportunities for and impacts of prototyping in the design process are many. What role will prototyping play as software “eats the world”? And what does the future hold for prototyping techniques? We discuss all this and more.