About Evan Carroll

Evan Carroll is an experience designer and researcher. His passion is observing how people interact with technology and using that insight to create user-centered products and services—a passion that led him to study the digital afterlife. Evan holds BS and MS degrees in Information Science from UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. He can be contacted by emailing or via Twitter @evancarroll.  Evan's personal site is www.evancarroll.net.

Author Archive | Evan Carroll

Study: Smartphones Capture 27 Percent of Photos

By on December 23, 2011 in Cultural

Smartphones now account for 27 percent of U.S. photography according to a study from The NPD Group. Up 10 percent over 2010, the increase in smartphone photography comes alongside a decrease—from 52 to 44 percent— in dedicated-camera photography. “There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming ‘good enough’ much of the time; but thanks [...]

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Mourners Turn To Mobile Phones To Remember Deceased

By on December 19, 2011 in Cultural, Featured

Death used to be the final disconnect from the mortal world, but that’s not quite the case anymore. From the paranormal to the touching, tales abound about technology beyond the grave. Perhaps more telling is what these stories tell us about our changing culture. John Jacobs, 55, passed away in 2005 following a battle with [...]

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iPhone App Releases Family Photos From Shoebox Purgatory

By on November 13, 2011 in Archival, Technical

New iPhone application enables individuals to quickly digitize and archive photographs. It’s time to find the shoebox of photos in your closet. A new iPhone application from a San Francisco-based start-up takes photo scanning mobile. 1000memories released Shoebox on October 27 with the promise of helping users tackle the often-massive task of scanning family photographs. [...]

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1000memories Launches “Shoebox” App For iPhone

By on October 27, 2011 in Industry

Memory-sharing platform 1000memories today announced the launch of the Shoebox scanning app for iPhone, the first mobile tool designed for digitizing, organizing and sharing collections of photos from the past. The app gives individuals, families and organizations the ability to scan and instantly share large collections of photos and documents that have previously been difficult [...]

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DSwiss Launches SecureSafe, Combines Storage With DataInherit Service

By on October 19, 2011 in Industry

DSwiss AG, the specialist providers of high-security Internet services, announced today the launch of SecureSafe, a new service incorporating their existing DataInherit service. The launch of the new online service, new iPad app and enhanced iPhone app offers users around the world increased security, functionality and mobility. In addition to the new name and look [...]

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A Low-Effort Approach to Digital Estate Planning

By on August 28, 2011 in Technical

If you’ve heard us talk about digital estate planning before, we always end the talk with an easy way out. It goes something like this. “If you do nothing else, make sure you inventory your most important digital accounts, record your user names and passwords, and then have a conversation with a trusted friend of [...]

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Digital Afterlife Industry Roundup

By on August 20, 2011 in Industry

Dead Man’s Switch Beta Earlier this week Dead Man’s Switch released a beta version. In an email to users founder Stavros Korokithakis announced the beta and hinted at new features to come. The new version only contains about the same functionality as the old one, for now, but we would appreciate your help in testing [...]

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Now Our Memories Can Live Forever

By on August 17, 2011 in Archival, Video

Jonathan Good over at 1000Memories shared his TEDx San Francisco talk with me today. He did a great job presenting the vision of a future where people are remembered for more than their name, but for their story and experiences. This is actually one of the primary reasons that I’m concerned with the preservation of [...]

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QR Codes, Microchips In Cemeteries

By on August 15, 2011 in Archival, Cultural, Video

Would you want a QR code on your headstone? That was a question posed via an email from Adele McAlear. Quiring Monuments is now offering just that with its “Living Headstone” line of memorial products. Cemetery visitors with smartphones can read the QR code and visit a memorial website to learn more about the deceased. [...]

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Digital Immortals: Preserving Life Beyond Death – SXSW 2012

By on August 7, 2011 in Archival, Technical

Digital Immortals: Preserving Life Beyond Death is the panel I’ve proposed for SXSW 2012. In short we’ll talk about how we can archive our digital content so that it can be preserved and experienced in the future. I’ve asked a great set of panelists to join me: John Romano, The Digital Beyond Bill LeFurgy, Library [...]

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