Genevieve Bell on the importance of culture in technology

Today, in the NYTimes Circuit section, there is a profile of Genevieve Bell (see under "misbehaving elsewhere"). As a anthropologist at Intel, Genevieve has been traveling the world to understand how different cultures consume technology. In turn, she has been challenging Western assumptions, most notably in areas concerning ubiquitous computing.

"We thought, there's a group of people just like us all over the world who will buy the technology and have it fill the same values in their lives," Dr. Bell said. "I was fairly certain that wasn't going to be the case. I'm an anthropologist. Culture matters."