Cool sites, can you live by cool sites alone?

Cool sites, can you live by cool sites alone?
I think the answer to this is yes. If you can save as favourites all the current ‘cool’ sites then I don’t think you ever need go out again.
You can buy everything you need from i-Tunes, Amazon and e-bay and can get your food shopping from Tesco home deliveries. Your entertainment can come from YouTube and i-Player. Your social life can come from Facebook. Anything you want to know can be found on Wikipedia. Sign up to the latest web crazes and you’ll be well informed, trendy and have all the friends you need. Get on the message boards for real ‘conversations’. Get on X-Box Live for real entertainment. Why would you want to go out with real people!
This is a link to the social networking website facebook:

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Whether I have used Web 1 or 2 to achieve all this is pretty irrelevant. Did anyone even know Web 1 was Web 1, did anyone care!



All that matters is that the natural development of the sites enables me to do more and more - and that they are more interactive, respond faster and can be manipulated to do what I want to do or see. Like looking at a Google earth map of a place I'm thinking of visiting to see whether it’s actually worth going or to check out the route. To do a virtual tour of a hotel that I want to stay in, rather than just look at a brochure. A 360 degree look at this stuff in real time would be better still - will this require Web 3?

This is a link to a YouTube video made by Michael Wesch which looks into ways we use Web2.0 and the way the web uses us. Wesch calls this video The machine is Us/ing Us
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Do Second life and Simulators serve useful purposes?

Two things in today’s lecture stood out, second life and simulators. This blog will look into answering the question do they serve any useful purpose?



Second life is literally that engaging in an unreal, artificial dream like world where you can pretend to be who you want, look like Brad Pitt rather than Homer Simpson get all the girls, success and money you can’t get in your real life. Is there any harm in this probably not, for some though further failure in their second life could drive some over the edge and even end up with them being suicidal.
Some could see their second life as a way of practicing for their first life. Trouble is it’s not real. There are some cross over’s now with reference to the Stock Exchange. You can even attend college.

This is a link to the new avatar film which uses avatars similar to second life.
http://www.avatarmovie.com/

Here is a link to second life.
http://secondlife.com/whatis/?lang=en-US

Simulators though are in some ways part of this and yet, their purpose in a training environment seems far more ‘normal’ and useful. Better to train someone to be a pilot or doctor in a safe simulation environment than in the real world where life and death are the consequences of your actions. Better to practice in an environment made as real as possible without the dire consequences. You can still build into simulations real emergencies to respond. Like the pilot who landed the plane on the river in America who said it was down to his training that he accomplished such a successful landing – part of which would have been on simulators.
So to answer the question second life no, simulators yes.

Will Ray Kurstweil’s theories ever become reality?

Today’s lecture touched on Ray Kurtsweil and his three predictions for 2099. He reckons by then human thinking will posses no advantage over computer minds. This made me what to explore an answer to the question; will Ray Kurstweil’s theories ever become reality? Technology is moving forward rapidly but will computer technology have developed sufficiently to match human thinking by the. Computers tend to be rational and logical in their decision making and tend to rely on pre-programmed knowledge to inform decisions made. They can weigh up known variables and perform ‘what ifs’ when these are known. Can they do this to the unknown what about gut instinct, hunches and just feeling lucky can you replicate this. This is where there is always an advantage for human thinking that unknown X factor, which you can’t programme.
His second prediction is that machines will have attained equal legal status with humans. This probably will depend on the type of machine. A machine that has some form of independent thought or decision making ability may well be protected. Is this not a logical development from freedom for slaves, the animal rights act – next stage robots would seem logical. People are generally against exploitation and abuse and I can see this happening, if only around proper maintenance and care of the product. It will say something about the type of person the owner is and at present all machines are owned by someone, there are no independent machines. Machines are at the end of the day a tool for a purpose and robots thinking machines will be no different to this.
His third prediction is that humans and machines will merge together in the physical and mental realms. I think this is likely there are already signs of this in the medical world. With bionic fingers in the paper last week, and a range of machines that can keep the heart beating, the lungs breathing and the blood cleaned etc. We know the brain can control simple devices directly now what in the future. Artificial limbs become more sophisticated, hearing and seeing devices are common place.

This is a link to a video profile of Ray Kurtsweil
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/media/ray_profile.mov

The link below shows the news story relating to bionic fingers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8401205.stm



On the entertainment front machines offer almost limitless opportunities. Gaming machines and avatars offer a new world experience and a life that you only previously dreamed about. Simulators offer opportunities to do all those things that you can’t normally do, fly planes, drive fast cars etc. Second worlds already exist in the gaming world and crossovers are already happening. 2099 read 2059.

What are interfaces and how have they developed?

In this blog i will be exploring an answer to the question; What are interfaces and how have they developed? I will be looking at some of the very first interface designs and see how they have developed over a period of time.
So what is an interface? One definition of an interface is “ a layout of an application’s graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity.” For example the interface on a computer could be the desktop becasue of the icons it uses. One of the earliest interfaces was the mouse. The mouse was created by Doug Englebart, the mouse is important for because you can simply point to options and objects and click a mouse button.
The very first user interface was on the Xerox Alto which was built in 1973. This had a screen with icons.




The Xerox Alto influeced the very first commercially avaliable Apple Macintosh. The Mac was built in 1984 and as you can see in the picture below it uses icons, many of which are still used today.



This is the interface of the new Windows 7. As you can see it still uses icons, but it has developed significantly over time when you compareit the Xerox Alto and the Mac.



Interfaces have developed overtime and im sure in the future they will be enhanced again.

The Birth and Death of Cyberspace

The topic of this week’s lecture was “The Birth and Death of Cyberspace.” This began by looking into the origins of the term cyberspace. William Gibson defines cyberspace as, “A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts. A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data.”



One theorist who examines Gibson’s theory is Jari Peltola. Peltola says that Cyberspace “Is made of information, offering great power to those who can manipulate information.” One major search engine that has information on what people search for is Google. So in this blog I will be exploring an answer to the question, how does Jari Peltola’s theories relate to the way Google uses our information?
Jari Peltola states that, “Cyberspace is often conceptualised as a matrix, a place constructed out of information.” In this statement Peltola is saying that the internet is made up of lots of information. The most popular search engine is Google; therefore Google has the information of every search that people type into it. This enables them to store information on the interests that certain people use. Google state in their privacy policy that once you have registered with them they will use your information “For certain services, such as our advertising programs, we also request credit card or other payment account information, which we maintain in encrypted form on secure servers. We may combine the information that you submit under your account with information from other Google services or third parties, in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information.”
This shows that Peltola’s theory of Cyberspace being “made of information, offering great power to those who can manipulate information,” to be fairly accurate. This is because the information that Google stores can be used to help advertise things that you have shown a previous interest in. Google can also give the information to third parties who can try to get you invest in things that you might be interested in. This shows Jari Peltola’s theories do relate to the way Google uses our information.

This is a link to Google’s Privacy Policy it shows what they do with the information they receive.
http://www.google.co.uk/privacypolicy.html

Issues of the body: Cyborg and Alife

In this week’s lecture we studied, Issues of the body: Cyborg and Alife. The topic of Cyborg’s was introduced and how television programmes such as Doctor Who have introduced the idea of having a half human, half robot. This got me thinking about the future for humans and the development of artificial life and whether the fictional characters in TV programmes could become a reality.
This led me to want to explore the question; do you think there are any sci-fi films that can come true?

In some sci-fi TV programmes they focus on DNA or genetic reasons as to why people have superhuman abilities. For example in the television programme Heroes the characters have mutated genes. This has had enabled them to have superhuman abilities such as flying or teleportation. I think that this is an extreme case of mutated genes and therefore I don’t believe that this will ever happen amongst humans in the future.
However Doctor Who contains The Cybermen. The Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species which began to implant more and more artificial parts into their bodies as a means of self-preservation. This led to the race becoming coldly logical and calculating, with emotions usually only shown when naked aggression was called for.



The idea of the future containing Cybermen may seem extreme, but I feel that with the development of artificial life these fictional characters may influence future developments of artificial life. For example in the future we may be able to develop mechanical limbs for people who have lost their own.



In answer to the question, do you think there are any sci-fi films that can come true? I believe that one day there may be a development of artificial life such as hearts and limbs. In the future there maybe humans who have lost limbs who now have a mechanical arm similar to the Cybermen. However I do not believe that humans will ever be born with or develop superhuman abilities

Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberman

News and Technology

This week’s lecture studied news and technology. The lecture looked into the ways that news and technology have developed over years. For example runners or beacons where ways of spreading news. In more recent times satellites have enabled us to transmit news across the world and this has lead to 24hour news programmes. However there are problems with 24 hour news and in this blog I will be answering the question, what are the dangers of 24 hour news?


This is a link to the BBC’s 24 hour news channel http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7459669.stm

There are of course benefits of having 24 hour news programmes. For example it’s a good way of catching up with the latest headlines throughout the day as opposed to waiting until specific times of day. However there are problems with 24 hour news programmes. One of the dangers is that as breaking news occurs the programmes can be misleading. This was the case in the 2000 US presidential election where the media ‘called’ the wrong result prior to the official announcement. A second problem with 24 hour news is the cost to run it. There are only a few agencies such as the BBC which can afford the cost of a worldwide news gathering enterprise. Another danger is media peer pressure and conformity, this could mean that there are dupe tapes, in which bits of video are put together from unknown sources. This brings into question how reliable the news actually is.

The Mail on Sunday travel editor Frank Barrett criticises 24 hour news programmes in his online blog. He is frustrated with the way in which channels represent news. In his blog Barrett talks about the issue of swine flu and how 24 hour news channels have a lack of perspective when there are people in the world suffering from malaria.
This is Frank Barrett’s Blog:
http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2009/05/24-hour-news-simply-helps-the-swine-flu-media-bandwagon.html

To conclude this blog I feel that 24 hour news programmes are important to society. However the channels broadcasting them need to be certain that what their broadcasting is actually hard facts and therefore not news which is misleading.

Thinking about Media Change

The topic of this week’s lecture was ‘Thinking about Media Change.’ This involved looking at forms of old media such as the wireless and black and white television. The lecture then moved on to looking at the new media which is things such as mobile phones. The introduction of technological convergence then came up in the lecture and this intrigued me. This is the merging of two technologies into one new technology. In this blog I will look into the question, what impact has technological convergence had on new media?

A technological convergence can simply be described as bringing two forms of technology and putting them together. For example a phone and a walkman were put together at that formed the idea of the iPhone. Another example of this could be putting a camera and a mobile phone together to make a camera phone. The question that was asked at the beginning of the blog was what impact has technological convergence had on new media? I think that technological convergence has had a big impact on new media. This is because it has helped major companies such as Apple have developed several technologies such as a walkman, a phone, a camera and the internet and have come up with the iPhone.






There will always be a need for new media as Fidler 1997 says, “Humans seem to have a remarkable propensity for rapidly assimilating new ideas, products and services once they are perceived to fit into their personal and cultural definitions of reality.” This suggests that as media develops there are more likely to be technological convergences.

Here is a link to a website that gives you information about technological advances as well as a video of technological advances: http://www.technologicalconvergence.com/

The History and Idelologies of Early Digital Media

In today’s lecture we looked at The History and Ideologies of Early Digital Media. The lecture examined how technology has evolved over centuries and what has made it as big as it is in today’s modern society. There was one question during the lecture that I was interested in exploring, what impact has the military had on the development of digital technology?
In order to answer this question you have to go back to some of the earliest computers ever made and look at what the purpose of them was. One of the first computers ever to be built was ENIAC this stands for Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator machine. It was built by the US army and the purpose of it was to calculate the trajectory of missile shells.

Thia ia what the ENIAC computer looked like.



The US army is actually responsible for a lot of the development of digital technology. For example the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) invested money in digital imaging they wanted to use these images as ways of finding out where the enemy is. However digital imaging today has led to websites such a Google street view which allows people to virtually tour places that they either live in or want to visit. Here is a link to Google street view
http://maps.google.co.uk/help/maps/streetview

Military spending has also led to the development of micro-electrics. These are used in computers and encouraged companies such as Microsoft to develop them for their products. Flight simulators have also been developed by military spending. These are obviously used in the training of pilots; however this has developed into video games.
In conclusion, I think the main reasons for technological advances are down to military research and spending. This is because the military’s development of technology has lead to things such as digital imaging as well as companies such as Microsoft to make computers available for everyone. Without the military constantly developing new technology it wouldn’t have lead to the modern world we live in today.

What Impact is Social Media having on blogs?

In today’s lecture we looked at blogging, and the origins of the term blog. The lecture then looked at several different aspects of the blog, for example blogs as social media and what impact blogs are having on the future of journalism. There was one question during the lecture that I kept asking myself, what impact is social media having on blogs? In this blog I will look to explore an answer to that question.
There is one theorist Jill Walker Rettberg who has studied the impact of blogs on the social media and has come up with this theory, “The solitude of reading and writing is perhaps, changing with blogs, which are more explicitly social forms of writing.” This theory suggests that a blog has become a more social form of communication between people. A large number of people use websites such as Facebook and Twitter to keep in contact with friends and family.

These websites can be seen as a type of blogging as you update your status to inform people what you are doing. I believe that the more people use websites such as Facebook then more news websites will use blogs as ways of reporting news and different reporters take on a story. This is a link to all the blogs on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs
This shows that large media organisations such as the BBC are using blogs as a more social way of reporting news.
In answer to my original question I feel that the social media is having an impact on blogs. This is mainly down to the emergence of websites such as Twitter which is a more social way of keeping a diary and letting people know what you’re doing.
This is a link to Jill Walker Rettberg’s Blog: http://jilltxt.net/