Tagging

In this week’s blog I will be looking into the concept of tagging and discussing whether it is useful or not.
Tagging is a term assigned to a piece of information, for example an internet bookmark or digital image. This is a form of metadata. Metadata provides information about a certain item's content. For example, an image may include metadata that describes how large the picture is, the colour depth and when the image was created. A text document's metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is and when the document was written. Tagging is also used as a way to describe data or content therefore acting as a way to locate it via search engines. This is effectively adding a new hierarchy to the way information is organized.




Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system.
Tagging has become increasingly popular as a result of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Digg.com and Flickr. This is because more and more people are putting their own content online.



Websites that include tags often display collections of tags as tag clouds. A user's tags are useful both to them and to the larger community of the website's users.

I believe that tagging is a useful concept because it enables people to navigate themselves round a website quickly. For example with websites such as Facebook you can easily find your friends because they may have been tagged in a picture. It also benefits the internet and internet users because it makes links to other websites easily accessible.

Hackers

This week’s blog will be looking into whether hackers have a positive effect on open source software.
Open source is free access to the source code of a program and extensive free redistribution rights for this software, for example Linux. This type of software appeals to hackers as they can look at how the software is made and add things to it or create their own versions. Linux is an operating system, it is the software on a computer that enables applications and the computer operator to access the devices on the computer to perform desired functions. This makes it very similar to other operating systems, such as Windows. However Steve Ballmer CEO Microsoft says that “Linux is a cancer.”




So do hackers have a positive effect on open source?
It could be argued that without hackers the internet and technology would never develop. As Mitch Kapor, says in an interview with The Guardian, “Without the internet and the web, no open source – without open source, no internet or web.” Therefore without open source and hackers the internet and other forms of technology wouldn’t develop. The Hacker values say “All information should be free.”
In my opinion hackers can have a positive effect on open source as long as what they are doing is changing things for the advantage of other users.

Communications Data

This week’s blog will examine the problem the government face with communications data. To do this I will be looking into the problem faced by the government and asking the question whether the government should have the right to access information about its citizen’s communications.

http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/ripa/communications-data/

Communications data is material, for example subscriber and billing records obtained from service providers such as telephone and Internet companies. As this type of information doesn’t contain any of the content involved in the material it can be used as evidence in trials.
The government is looking into ways keeping up with the changing communications environment. The existing capability of the police, the security and intelligence agencies and other public authorities is declining, and therefore they see change as necessary.
The home office published a consultation called ‘Protecting the public in a changing communications environment’. It looked at the importance of communications data in helping to protect and safeguard the public.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-communication-data/

Here is a link to the response to the consultation paper

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-communication-data/cons-2009-comms-data-responses2835.pdf?view=Binary

Article 8 of the human rights act says that everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. This raises the argument that the government should not be able to the right to access communications data as it calls into question the human rights act.
However I feel that the government should have access to its citizen’s communications data if people’s lives are put in danger due to acts of terrorism. If you are planning to cause harm or endanger lives then your qualified rights of article 8 should be inferior to those rights of others. I also feel that although the government aren’t allowed to use the content of communications in extreme circumstances they should be if it helps prevent terrorism or other serious crimes.

Copyright

The topic of this week’s lecture was Intellectual Property, Creative Commons & DRM. This involved looking into areas such as copyright and piracy.
There are several different forms of piracy; these include things such as illegally downloading movies and music. There are also counterfeit goods such as clothing and money. These types of piracy are costing large companies millions of pounds. Therefore in this blog I will look into answering the question, what effect is piracy having on copyright?
According to research by the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property, at least 7 million people in Britain use illegal downloads. This is costing the economy billions of pounds and thousands of jobs. The research by the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property also revealed that shared content on one network was worth about £12bn a year.
More recently Australian band Men at Work are facing a big legal bill after a court ruled it had plagiarised a Girl Guides' song in its 1983 hit, Down Under. Larrikin Music had claimed the flute riff was stolen from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. A costs hearing will take place in late February, with Larrikin seeking 40%-60% of earnings from songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert and record companies Sony BMG Music Entertainment and EMI Songs Australia.
Here is a link to The Intellectual Property Office website which gives information about copyright laws
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/copy.htm
This also helps give an answer to the question asked in this blog because it shows how copyright laws have been broken.

Privacy and Surveillance

This week’s lecture looked into Privacy and Surveillance and how people’s privacy can be invaded by websites who survey what they looking at.
Therefore in this blog I will look into answer to the question, Are clubcards and privilege schemes forms of surveillance?
David Lyon, Surveillance Studies an overview suggests that everybody is involved in surveillance somehow “We are all in a sense implicated in surveillance, both as watchers and the watched.”
One company that uses a clubcard scheme is Tesco’s. This clubcard scheme encourages people to spend money in the store and receive rewards. Tesco’s gain from this because they can see what the individual customer is spending money on. They can then send offers and other promotions to their customers. This is a form of surveillance and it can be very popular with the customers because it looks like the companies value their customers.



This is similar to the ways in which Amazon survey their customers. For example when you purchase something off of this website Amazon recommends other things that you may be interested in because if what you bought.
Is this type of Surveillance fair?
On the one hand it is fair that companies such as Amazon and Tesco’s look at items we’ve bought and recommend and give us offers on things that we might be interested. On the other hand it might not be fair because what gives them the right to survey our lives. It is similar to facebook; this is because a picture of you may be put onto facebook. This picture maybe seen as embarrassing and one that you don’t want people to see. This could lead to you un-tagging yourself in the picture. However just because your name isn’t in the picture people will still recognise you. In my opinion the type of surveillance used by companies is fair because we can benefit from the information that they send us.

This is a link with information on Tesco Clubcards
http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/clubcard/

Game Studies

This week’s lecture looked at Game Studies. The lecture studied the ways in which video games appeal to people. One aspect of video games that appeals to people is interactivity. The cybernetic system is the dynamic system of input/output (the gameplay mechanics) looks into why we enjoy playing games. It is helpful to classify the cybernetic system of a game as existing upon a spectrum which has two poles: balanced and unbalanced. In this blog in will look into answering the question, Why has there been an increase in popularity of balanced video games?
The perfectly balanced cybernetic system would have a 1:1 ratio. This means that one kick from the user equals one kick from the avatar; one throw from the user is one throw from the avatar, and so on. Currently the Wii is closest games console to a having balanced system. There are several advantages to having a balanced system as it can lead to more realistic game play the game can be easier to understand for the user. Another advantage is that balanced video games often have a novelty control interface; the Wii remote and Nun-Chuk for example. In contrast unbalanced video games can lead to the user feeling frustrated and less involved in the game because the avatar isn’t following the gamers movements.





So why are balanced games so popular?

Since the Nintendo Wii launched, the monthly sales numbers of the console have been higher than its competitors across the globe. According to the NPD Group, the Wii sold more units in the United States than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 combined in the first half of 2007.This lead is even larger in the Japanese market, where it currently leads in total sales, having outsold both consoles by factors of 2:1 to 6:1 nearly every week from launch until November 2007. I believe the main reasons for the Wii having higher sales than other consoles are due to its high interactivity. The Wii is a very balanced console and it is great fun with friends and family. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for balanced video games.

Digital Literature: Is the physical version of the book going to die out?

This week’s lecture looked into Digital Literature. The lecture studied the ways in which literature and technology have developed together. The topic of Books Vs Computers was introduced so in this blog I will explore an answer to the question, Is the physical version of the book going to die out?



Annie Proulx: Books on Top: NYT 2004 says that “Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little screen. Ever.” However this view in more recent times doesn’t seem to be that accurate. For example the emergence of the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader has been well received by the general public. In fact on Christmas Day Amazon.com sold more e-books than physical books. The e-books are easy to get hold of as well. You simply go onto e-book website and download e-books onto the reader. This is much quicker and easier than going into a shop or ordering a book online and waiting for it to be delivered. As Jay David Botler, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print says, “Electronic literary forms constitute perhaps the most important and visible avant-garde in our contemporary, and otherwise conservative, literary culture.”
This is a link to Amazon.com. This link has product information and a video on the Amazon Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015T963C/?tag=gocous0&hvadid=4139285297&ref=pd_sl_7p2cs87ah_b



So what future does the physical book have?
Although there has been a large increase in the number of people using e-books I believe that there will always be a place for the physical versions of books. The main reason I believe that physical versions of books will never die out is because they have been around for generations, and some people simply prefer them.